Key Stage 3 fact Sheet – wind power - RWE

Key Stage 3 fact Sheet –
wind power
The wind is a form of solar energy. The sun makes the wind blow by heating
the atmosphere unevenly, causing warm air to rise and cooler air to blow in to
replace it. Wind turbines use the wind to generate electricity.
The UK is the windiest country in Europe, and wind
energy is the largest renewable electricity source
in the UK. There are already enough wind turbines
in the UK to power over two million homes.
History
No one knows who invented the windmill, but
we do know that Chinese people were using
wind power to pump water for their crops 4,000
years ago, and people were using wind power to
drive boats at least 5,000 years ago on the River
Nile in Egypt. In the early 19th century there
were over 10,000 windmills in use in Britain,
mainly used to grind corn, which is where the
An old-fashioned wind mill
word “windmill” comes from. However, when
coal became cheap, during the industrial
revolution, wind power became much less used
in Europe. Today there are currently 2,539 wind
turbines in the UK (as of July 2009).
Windmills began to be used
to make electricity towards
the end of the 19th
century. This is the first
automatically operating
wind turbine for generating
electricity, built in 1888 in
the inventor’s back yard.
Modern wind turbines produce lots
more power than old style windmills.
The old corn milling machines were
up to 23 metres high. By comparison,
the world’s biggest wind turbine,
which is in Germany, has a tower 138
metres high and can produce about
200 times as much power. A typical
modern wind turbine has a tower that is
approximately 80 metres high, and will
produce enough electricity each year
to meet the yearly needs of over 1,400
households (equivalent to making 230
million cups of tea!!!)

wind power cont…
The first UK wind farm was built in Cornwall in
1991. Farr Wind Farm, near Inverness, is RWE
npower renewables’ most powerful renewable
energy project. It consists of 40 turbines. The
wind farm generates enough electricity to meet
the average annual needs of 54,000 homes
(more than half of all the homes across the
Scottish Highlands).
The UK’s first large-scale offshore wind farm,
North Hoyle, is located four to five miles off
the North Wales coast, and was developed
by RWE npower renewables in 2003.
How wind turbines work
– Modern wind turbines usually have three blades.
– The wind turns the blades, which drive an
electrical generator.
– A generator is a machine that contains coils of
wire and strong magnets.
– When the wire coils are spun quickly inside the
magnets, they generate electricity.
– All electricity is produced in this way, with just
different sources of energy being used to drive
the generator.
Advantages
– Wind power does not cause climate
change or pollution.
– Wind is a renewable resource – as long
as the sun shines and the wind blows it
will never run out.
– Wind energy is a cheap way to produce
renewable energy.
– The land underneath wind turbines can
still be used for farming.
– A small difference in the wind speed makes a
big difference to the power output of a wind
turbine (when the wind speed doubles, the
power in the wind is multiplied by eight).
– It gets windier the higher up you go, which is
why wind turbines are built on such tall towers.
– The amount of power a wind turbine produces
also depends on the size of the blade, which is
why wind turbine blades are so long.
– To generate the most energy, wind turbines
should be located where the wind speed is
highest. Some of the best places for wind
farms are, therefore, out at sea or by the sea,
at the tops of rounded hills and between gaps
in mountains.
The tips of the blades of a typical wind
turbine move at approximately 140mph!
Disadvantages
– The speed of the wind is affected by many
different factors such as weather, time
of day and landscape. This makes it an
intermittent source of energy, which cannot
be used to generate electricity on demand.
– Wind turbines can be seen from long
distances, and some people do not like the
way they look.