High Tech electronics can solve the problems of variable wind supply

[Kolesar]

This is a very good and very hopeful article from IEEE. It is technical. It looks like there are several technologies to deal with the varying voltage and inherent current-to-voltage phase shift that occurs with wind power. They even discuss some developing technologies for storing power during slack periods.

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/aug03/wind.html

In this season of discontent in the electricity business, only wind power seems to stand out as a global success story. While petroleum prices were convulsing in response to war and labor strife, and nuclear plants were stoking controversy in the Middle East and Asia, wind turbines were quietly becoming the fastest-growing energy source in the world. They now provide more than 31 000 MW of power, a total that has swelled by almost 30 percent in scarcely a year's time and that keeps more than 200 million tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere every year. Wind power's ascendance has been so stunning that advocates are now rallying around an idea that would have seemed preposterous just a couple of years ago: that the wind could supply 12 percent of the world's electrical demand by 2020.

Impressive as the gains have been, it isn't quite clear yet that the wind can blow away the developed world's fossil-fuel dependence. One of the most important reasons is that clean, renewable wind power comes with a serious hitch: while conventional power plants yield a steady stream of electricity, wind turbines often ply turbulent gusts and therefore spit out an irregular stream of electricity that is tough for power grids to swallow.

Now, though, high-tech solutions are at hand. Systems based on advanced power-electronics and energy storage devices are massaging and managing power flows from wind turbines, enabling them to contribute mightily to electricity grids without putting those grids at risk. Not only are the technologies making wind power more palatable to grid operators, they are even making it possible for engineers to finally harness wind energy's tremendous potential in wind-swept, remote locales.

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[Champion Jack]

1. Thanks for this!

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