Windmill Turbin Used to Generate Electricity

wind turbine

Wind turbine is a windmill used to generate electricity. This wind turbine was originally designed to accommodate the needs of farmers in making rice mills, irrigation purposes, etc.. Many previous wind turbine was built in Denmark, Holland and other European countries and better known as the Windmill.

Now much more wind turbines are used to accommodate the electrical needs of the community, using the principle of energy conversion and use of natural resources that can be updated is the wind. Although to date the construction of wind turbines are still unable to compete with electricity generation konvensonal (Ex: Diesel Power Plant, Power Plant, etc.), wind turbines are more developed by scientists because in the near future humans will be faced with the problem of shortage of non-renewable natural resources (Ex: coal, petroleum) as the base material to generate electricity.

The basic principle of the wind turbine is to convert mechanical energy from wind into energy to turn the wheel, then spin windmills used to turn a generator, which eventually will produce electricity.

turbin generator

Actually the process is not that easy, because there are various sub-systems that can improve safety and efficiency of wind turbines, namely:

1. Gearbox

This tool serves to change the low round on the mill into high rotation. Gearbox usually used around 1:60.

2. Brake System

Used to keep the rotation on the shaft after the gearbox in order to work safely at the point when there is a big wind. This tool needs to be installed because the generator has a safe working point in the operation. This generator will generate the maximum electrical energy at work at the working point that has been determined. The presence of the wind outside used will cause a fairly rapid rotation on the shaft generator, so that if not resolved then this rotation can damage the generator. Impact from damage due to excessive rotation including: overheat, breakdown rotor, wires on the generator end, because it can not withstand large currents.

3. Generator

This is one of the most important component in the manufacture of wind turbine systems. This generator can convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. The principle works can be studied using electromagnetic field theory. In short, (referring to one of the workings of the generator) shaft on the generator is installed with permanent ferromagnetic material. After that there are around the axis of the stator that their physical shape is a coil-coil of wire that form a loop. When the generator shaft began to spin, there will be changes in the stator flux is finally due to a change of this flux will produce a certain voltage and electrical current. Voltage and electric current generated is distributed through cable electricity networks to eventually be used by the public. Voltage and electric current generated by this generator in the form of AC (alternating current) having approximately sinusoidal waveforms.

4. Energy storage

Due to the limited availability of wind energy (not all day the wind will always be available) then the electricity supply was erratic. Therefore, use of energy storage device that functions as a back-up electrical energy. When the load increased community use of electric power or when wind velocity of a region is declining, the need for electric power demand will not be fulfilled. Therefore we need to store the energy generated when there is excess power at a wind turbine spinning or when the use of power in the community decreased. Energy storage is accommodated by using energy storage devices. A simple example which can be used as a reference as the electrical energy storage device is a car battery. Car battery has a storage capacity large enough energy. Battery 12 volt, 65 Ah can be used to distribute household (approximately) for 0.5 hours at 780 watts of power.

Constraints in using this tool is the tool requires a power supply DC (Direct Current) to charge energy, while the power supply from the generator produced AC (Alternating Current). Therefore, the rectifier-inverter is needed to accommodate these needs. Rectifier-inverter will be explained below.

5. Rectifier-inverter

Rectifier means rectifier. Rectifier can right direction sinusoidal wave (AC) generated by the generator into DC wave. Inverter means inverting. When the required power from energy storage (battery / other) then the supply is generated by wave-shaped battery will DC. Since most household uses AC power supply, it would require an inverter to convert DC waves released by the battery into an AC wave, to be used by the household.