Wind energy development: Innovation and new prospective

Abstract

The imminent exhaustion of fossil energy resources and the increasing demand for energy were the motives for those reasonable in world to put into practice an energy policy based on rational use of energy; and on exploitation of new and renewable energy sources. After 1980, as the supply of conventional energy has not been able to follow the tremendous increase of the production demand in rural areas of the world, a renewed interest for the application of solar and wind energy has shown in many places. Therefore, the researchers and engineers began to pay more attention to wind and solar energy utilisation in rural areas. Because the wind energy resource in many rural areas is sufficient for attractive application of wind pumps, and as fuel is insufficient, the wind pumps will be spread on a rather large-scale in the near future. Wind is a form of renewable energy, which is always in a non-steady state due to the wide temporal and spatial variations of wind velocity. The need for the provision of new data stations in order to enable a complete and reliable assessment of the overall wind power potential of the country is to be identified and specific locations suggested. This article presents the background and ideas of the development of the concept as well as the main results and experience gained during ongoing projects up to now. In the world, various designs of wind machines for water pumping have been developed and some designs are presently manufactured commercially. Results suggest that wind power would be more profitably used for local and small-scale applications especially for remote rural areas. It is concluded that many parts of the world is enjoyed with abundant wind and solar energy resources.