W6.3 Wind Farms

A University spinout company, EnCon, has approached Scottish Borders Council with a proposal to build a wind farm to supply the entire University with power. They claim that "only a very modest sized farm" would be needed. You have been asked to assess their claim and advise the Council.
Hide

Hint

They key piece of Physics here is the relationship between energy and power. Review S3.3 if you need to before starting.

There are also lots of unknowns here.... so what information do you need? The types of questions your groups might want to ask are :

  • What power can a single modern wind turbine produce?
  • How much energy does this produce over a period of a year?
  • What is the power consumption of the University?

You are clearly not expected to know such values: but can you find them?

 

Solution

Reveal
Hide

Solution

A few quick keyword searches on Google turned up useful order of magnitude estimates
  • Turbine power rating 3MW=3000kW for latest design turbines
  • For ever hour of operation, this produces 3000kWh of energy
  • Over the course of a year, this will generate (assuming the wind blows, say, 33% of the time) 3000×24×365×0.33=8.76×106kWh
  • UoE power consumption (00/01) is 6×107 kWh. (Found here )
  • So approximately 10 turbines needed, which is indeed modest.
  • Of course, storing this energy to cope with fluctuations in supply and demand is another matter!