Wind Energy Review

Introduction

As been a renewable energy, wind energy has been attracting great attention

because of its low cost and less environmental impact over the past few

decades. Wind energy is growing fastest as renewable energy sources

become more competitive in the market due to developing technology and

government policy which changes a lot with the increasing pollution caused by

traditional energy industries.

For hundreds of years, wind energy has been used by several different ways

but not for electricity. Until the late nineteenth, a 12kw DC windmill generator

has been invented which could make windmill to generator electricity. Over

past teenty years, wind energy technology has been improved to a significant

extent in the aspects of energy efficiency and cost reduction.

This review will provide a overview of wind energy conversion systems

including some related technologies, market trends and turbine components,

digital control system, etc.

Overview of Wind Energy Conversion Systems

With the development of wind energy over last twenty years, installed wind

power capacity has been growing with a increasing growth rate. In Australia,

wind power installed capacity increased with an average annual growth rate of

35% over the five years up to 2011. The increasing cost of traditional energy,

reduced cost of wind turbines and government policy, these all factors lead to

the impressive growth rate of wind energy. Figure.1 shows the installed wind

power capacity from 1996 to 2012 in the word and Australia. As we can see in

the figure, the growth rate of installed wind power capacity in Australia is

significantly higher than the growth rate all over the world.

However, the the most significant challenge is not the gr...

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...nergy systems.

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