North Hoyle Wind Farm Report

Producing electricity is one of the most important things that is done today, without it there would be no electronic gadgets like TV’s, computers, even lights would not be able to be used as there would be no power to run them.

Almost everyone in the world uses electricity at some point during the day if not during most of it. This is fine and there is enough to go around, at the moment at least anyway, but the main problem with producing all this energy is the pollution that is put into the air from it.
ways that this is being done, and the most important I believe is harnessing renewable energy such as wind water and light. This type of energy is known as renewable because they are always going to be there unlike fossil fuels such as coal. Sometimes this energy is also called clean energy. Also these methods create no polluting gasses. The only problem with this technology is the money to set it up.

While not the cheapest of structures to plan and build once set up, machinery to harness this energy is paid back in no time, sometimes even less than 6 months. As with everything there is a down side to this energy, during the night there is no light to be collected and if there is no wind then the turbines will not turn. But the advantages do succeed the disadvantages so people are willing to put money into them.

My favorite type of renewable energy is wind energy. I think this because it needs as little as just 10mph to start the turbines turning which means that on an average day they are creating energy. Also from just 30 2MW wind turbines you can power 50,000 homes annually.

They do this by taking kinetic energy in wind (which is the extra energy that wind has due to its motion) and converting it in to electrical energy via turning the turbines which can be up to 100ft long. These turbines are connected to a WED (Wind Energy Converter) to be changed into electrical energy. When many are used together they are known as a wind farm.

However there are also disadvantages with the turbines such as aesthetics, some people think that they are an eye sore and that they make too much noise, but as more and more are starting to be built offshore this is becoming less of a problem.

The wind farm project I have been discussing over this unit is the North Hoyle Wind Farm which interested me because it was the UK’s first major off shore renewable energy project, Situated 4 to 5 miles from the north coast of Wales. This site was constructed in 2003

Built in just eight months, the 30-turbine wind farm is helping to release about 160,000 tonnes less of harmful carbon dioxide into our atmosphere every year - which is equivalent to removing some 80,000 average cars from our roads and was built to help meet the target of 10% of energy to be generated from renewable sources by 2010.

chart

The wind farm's has 30 offshore wind turbines are each rated at 2 MW (Megawatts is a measurement of energy, W=V(Volts) x A(AMPS)) capacity, giving a maximum output for the site at 60 MW. At the time of installation this was the most powerful wind farm in the UK, producing sufficient electricity annually to power 50,000 homes.
A wind farm works like so:

Piles are driven into the seabed once a suitable place for the wind farm is found. Erosion protection, similar to sea defenses, is placed at the base to prevent damage to the sea floor.
The top of the foundation is painted a bright colour to make it visible to ships and has an access platform to allow maintenance teams to dock.
Once the turbine is assembled, sensors on the turbine detect the wind direction and turn the head, called the nacelle, to face into the wind, so that the blades can collect the maximum amount of energy. The movement of the wind over the turbine shaped blades makes them rotate around a horizontal hub, which is connected to a shaft inside the nacelle.
This shaft, via a gearbox, powers a generator to convert the energy into electricity.
Underwater cables take the generated power to an offshore transformer which converts the electricity to a high voltage (33kV) before running it back 5 -10 miles to connect to the grid at a substation on land.

On the 21st March 1994, 50 countries held an important meeting to discuss and sign a new set of rules to address the ever diminishing state our world’s climate. In the set of rules many regulations were put into place that involved each country taking responsibility for their own emissions produced. In 1997 the countries met again to discuss the main task of cutting the amount of emissions of 6 greenhouse gases. The gases included:

• Methane
• Nitrous Oxide
• Hydro Fluorocarbons
• Per Fluorocarbons
• Sulphur Hexafluoride
• But the majority being carbon dioxide

In 1990 Carbon Dioxide made up 66% of the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. In 2005, the United Kingdom has made a 5.5% drop in its carbon dioxide emissions since 2005. These figures are already better than the average of 5.2% drop of its carbon dioxide that is expected in the years 2008 to 2012 discussed in the Kyoto procedure compared to the 1994 figures.

As a conclusion to this report I feel that if the world put the effort in they will be able to meet the rules they discussed in 1994. However I feel that it will be a long time before all energy is “clean” energy as so much time money and resources will need to be put into place to achieve this. And while I feel this is technically possible I don’t think that energy will ever be generated using complete 100% clean energy.

References
“Air Pollution Causes and Effects” by Tom Socha. (2007)
http://healthandenergy.com/air_pollution_causes.htm
NPower Renewables – North Hoyle (No Author)(No Date)
http://www.npower-renewables.com/northhoyle/
BBC News – “Power Flows at Wind Farm”(No Author) (November 2003)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3225784.stm
BWEA (British Wind Energy Association) – “Countdown to 10% renewable electricity by 2010” (No Author) (2007)
http://www.bwea.com/progressto2010/index.html
UNFCCC “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change” (No Author)(No Date)
http://unfccc.int/2860.php