wind energy

The UK is exposed to 30% of the European Union’s wind resource but we are tapping only a small fraction. In theory, the wind could meet the country’s electricity needs 8 times over.

The principle of wind power is to take the kinetic energy in the wind, and convert it to electrical energy through the use of modern wind turbine technology. The modern wind turbine starts to generate electricity from wind speeds as low as 3 m/s [7 mph] or a moderate breeze and continues up to 25 m/s [56 mph] equivalent to storm force conditions when the wind turbine is "parked" to prevent damage. The blades rotate clockwise at between 10 and 20 revolutions per minute depending on wind speed and size of turbine and are turned to face the wind from whatever direction it is blowing.

The Governments targets are for 8% of the UKs energy to come from wind by 2010. Meeting these targets would result in the production of over 16.7 billion units of green electricity. This would power 4 million households while saving over 14.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere every year.

Facts on wind turbine efficiency

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