Wind Power 101
Note: The course can be attended as a stand-alone session but also provides an excellent way to introduce yourself to or refresh your knowledge of wind power before attending the "Optimizing Wind Power Performance" conference on the following days.
Course objectives
This one-day course brings you up-to-speed with the key, fundamental aspects of wind power. You will learn about the scale, availability and variability of wind energy resources, how wind turbines operate – including their methods and limitations in harnessing the wind's energy - plus the regulatory, planning, construction and operational factors which will decide the commercial success or failure of wind as a power source.
No prior knowledge is required, making this course ideal for those in non-engineering roles or new to the industry, plus those from investment, marketing, legal, management and other job functions. The course can be attended as a stand-alone session or as an excellent way to introduce yourself to or refresh your knowledge of wind power before attending the "Optimizing Wind Power Performance" conference on the following days.
Style
The course will be run in an informal manner which allows and encourages time for discussion and questions with answers, ensuring that participants get the most out of their day.
Approximate Timing
Course begins: 09:00
Course ends: 17:00
(Timings are approximate and include lunch plus morning and afternoon refreshment breaks)
About Your Trainer
Ken Starcher is Training, Education and Outreach Director of the Alternative Energy Institute, West Texas A&M University. Located in Canyon, Texas, AEI has been determining the wind resource for the state, testing small and large renewable systems and finding the proper match between the resource and the use of renewables on rural and remote areas.
Ken has 30 years of testing 65 small renewable systems and explaining how they work to local, state, national and international trainees. He has a good grasp of the wind energy business as it has evolved in Texas and the US since 1980, and will present the potentials and the problems of wind energy in easy to understand terms. Ken earned both of his degrees at West Texas, a BS in Physics and a MS in Industrial Technology. He has installed renewable systems or data resource monitoring equipment in the Americas, South Africa and the Caribbean.
He will bring this wealth of experience to you, so that you can better grasp the possibilities that wind power has to offer.
About Green Power Academy
Green Power Academy exists to provide the quality, impartial, informative and enjoyable training needed to increase and distribute knowledge and skills to green energy industry professionals.
Whether you are new to the industry, have recently changed jobs or simply wish to refresh your knowledge, our training should become a key part of your personal or company professional development programme.
Course Content
1. Wind Power Concepts:
- Key measures and concepts in wind energy and power
- Standard formulas and what they tell us
- How wind energy varies with speed, height and other factors
- “Average” wind speed measurements and what these really mean
- Wind speed distributions
- Wind resources: wind power maps and resources; onshore and offshore
- Data interpretation
2. Wind Turbines and Farms
- How turbines collect wind energy
- HAWTS, VAWTS: differences and similarities exposed
- Wind turbine power curves, coefficiencts and the basics of operation and control
- Wind Shear & how it affects turbines
- Constant power, constant RPM, or constant torque
- Other system components that make up turbines and wind farms
- Challenges in building and operating wind farms, onshore and offshore
- Operational issues: what experience shows about what works and what can go wrong
- New developments in turbine technology
- Hybrid Systems - how well do wind and solar mix? What about wind/diesel combinations?
3. Past projects (problems & pleasant results) & Wind Energy Project Development
- Basic steps to get your project up and running, including Site Selection, Land Acquisition, Resource Assessment, Economic Modelling, Financing, Construction etc.
4. Wind Power Competitiveness
- Wind power variability and solutions to integrate wind into the grid
- How will wind affect the utility grid?
- Key factors in the commercial viability of wind as a power resource
- Capital and operating cost contributions, including planning and project pitfalls and risks
- Does wind power pay: is Return on Investment in the range I want?
- How long does it take to generate positive cash flow?
- Do wind turbines affect the environment?
- The role of policy and regulatory positions on the wind industry