With the new addition of Wind Turbine Cables to our product line, it’s time to take a look at how wind power is generated. Let’s start with a quick science lessen.
The wind is powered by the sun. The sun’s rays hit the atmosphere, but not uniformly across the whole planet. Because of this, the atmosphere’s temperature varies across the globe. Add in the rotation and the different topography of the Earth and a lot of other meteorological science and you get wind! Nothing we do makes the wind blow, and so harnessing the power of the wind is harnessing a truly renewable infinite resource.
Wind turbines are constructed from a few basic components: blades (1), tower (2), yaw drive and motor (3) and the nacelle(10), which houses the brake (4), low-speed shaft (5), gear box (6), generator (7), high-speed shaft (8) and controller (9). Of course, running down the tower and throughout the nacelle are all the various Wind Turbine Cables you get from your friends at Allied!
So, the turbine is built and the wind is blowing. What happens now? The wind turns the blades of the turbine, which then set into motion the internal machinery of the turbine. The energy of the turning blades force the low-speed shaft to turn, which causes the gears to turn as well, only now at a higher speed. It is this kinetic energy of the high speed gears that powers up the generator. Now, the energy produced inside the generator can either be stored in a battery, or run down the tower of the turbine through cables (again, from Allied!) and to the local power grid.
That’s basically how wind turbines work, with the physics and mechanics boiled down to the nitty-gritty minimum of course.
