1. Topic: Wind Power Basics
Instructor Information
Topic: Wind Power Basics
Objective:
Explain availability of wind and wind energy collection
Summary:
A short presentation is provided to the students prior to doing wind activities. The activities are related to wind turbine design.

2. Topic: Wind Power Basics
Methodology:
Discussion and questioning through brief presentation
Differentiation:
Variation of question types and difficulty
Instructor Information

3. Wind Power Basics

4. TODAY’S GOALS Gain a basic understanding of Wind Power Your Design
Why do you care?
A Little History.
What are they made of?
Where we harvest the wind.
Your Design
How many blades should you have?
What shape should they be?

5. KidWind Project | www.kidwind.org

6. KidWind Project | www.kidwind.org

7. Why such growth…costs! 1979: 40 cents/kWh 2000: 4 - 6 cents/kWh
NSP 107 MW Lake Benton wind farm
4 cents/kWh (unsubsidized)
Increased Turbine Size
R&D Advances
Manufacturing Improvements
The rapid growth in wind power can be attributed to two things….reduction in cost of the electricity produced and more interested in Green Power.
I usually ask people here what they pay for their electricity by kwh….typical # are 7-20 cents. Wind has come way down in terms of cost over the last 40 years. The cheapest power out there is coal and wind cannot compete with that…Natural Gas and coal are comparable. The costs for wind listed above are the wholesale rate…do not include transmission etc.
On this slide I often ask the crowd how we generate most of our electrical power in the US.
Coal 50%
Nuclear 20%
Natural Gas 17%
Hydro 7%
Oil 3%
Renewables 3% Wind less than 1%
2004:
3 – 4.5 cents/kWh