Among the rapidly growing renewable energy technologies is wind power. It follows after hydropower energy as the second most utilised renewable energy resource. In terms of global cumulative capacity, wind power summed up to 837GW in 2021.
This write-up presents six (6) interesting facts you should know about wind power generation.
1. Wind power is the energy generated via the movement of winds. This occurs through a device known as a wind turbine. Typically, a turbine converts the kinetic energy of wind into other forms of energy, such as electrical energy.
2. Wind power can be generated on land (onshore) and the sea (offshore).
3. The largest onshore wind project is the Jiuquan wind farm, located in the Gansu district of China, with 7000 wind turbines and a current generation capacity of 10GW. The biggest offshore wind farm is the Hornsea 1, situated off the East coast of England in the North sea with 174 wind turbines and currently generates 1.2GW of energy.
4. China houses the most installed capacity of wind energy. The country has an installed wind capacity of 288.32GW. The United States is next to China, with a capacity of 122.32GW. Germany, India and Spain follow the US with capacities of 62.85GW, 38.63GW and 27.24GW, respectively.
5. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimates that 1MW of wind energy can offset about 2600 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.
6. Wind Power generation is utilised commercially by more than half of all the countries in the world.