The thing about wind power is that it is abundant, renewable, clean and widely distributed across the globe, reducing the dependence of one country on another for its energy needs. Of course, one drawback of totally depending on wind energy is the intermittence of windiness. This, however, is still only a small price to pay and with technology moving towards being able to harness as much of the energy as possible, intermittent windiness should soon stop being a stumbling block to the use of wind power.

The five top users of wind power are Germany, U.S.A., Spain, Denmark and India. In fact, today, wind turbines produce as much electricity throughout the world as that produced by traditional fossil fuel based power plants. The biggest advantage of wind energy is that it can be created with minimal costs. With increasing research and technology, the costs of creating wind power are expected to decline further. To add to this, not only is wind power free of pollutants, it will exist as long as there is day and night, land and sea. So, it might be safe to say that man can depend on wind power forever!

Winds are the result of the uneven heating of the Earth’s surface. Areas that receive more heat from the Sun see low pressure as the heated air rises. Cooler air rushes in to these low pressure areas, leading to wind. Wind is also a result of land cooling and heating faster than the water bodies. Again, the same principle of uneven heat leads to wind.

The History of Wind Energy or Wind Power

Wind power has long been recognized and used effectively by humankind, with the Babylonians and Chinese harnessing the power of the wind for their irrigation needs as early as 2,000 B.C. The first rudimentary windmills were recorded as early as 1 A.D. Wind power has been used through the ages to sail the seas and explore the ends of the Earth. In the U.S., farms and ranches have been using wind turbines, not only for irrigation but for various farming needs, for many years now. However, the modern wind turbine was only developed as late as the 1980s, with research still continuing on how best we can harness wind energy.

Commercial interest in wind energy started after the oil shortages in the 1970s, following the US oil embargo. California took the lead in developing wind turbines that could convert wind power into usable electricity in the 1980s. Although California produces the largest amount of wind power even today, the race to generate wind energy has caught on across most U.S. states. The first offshore wind farm is in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The world’s largest wind farm is the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center, in Texas, with 421 wind turbines that have the capability to provide electricity for 220,000 homes per year.

By 2006, the wind turbines across the US generated 26.6 KWh of electricity, which is enough to power 2.4 million homes. In fact, the US is moving fast to take over Germany’s claim to the world’s number one producer of wind power. The figures for the first half of 2008 reveal that although Germany might have more wind turbines, the US produced a greater amount of electricity from wind energy. However, the US is still to catch up with Germany and Denmark in terms of the percentage of electricity that is derived from wind power. While Germany produced 7% of its energy needs from wind energy, Denmark generates a whopping 20% of its energy from wind power. The US is far behind these nations, with only 1.2% of its energy needs being met by wind power.

What are the Future Prospects of Wind Power or Wind Energy?

Before we become too confident of the future of wind power across the world, we need to take care of some of the hurdles inherent in relying on wind power alone. The intermittence of wind leads to variable supply of electricity at present. Technology needs to catch up with ways to manage the grids and efficiently store electricity to overcome this hurdle of intermittent winds.

The next question that arises is how do the existing grid systems increase penetration of wind power? Penetration refers to the amount of wind energy that is produced as compared to the total available energy generation capacity. The average penetration of wind energy today is about 5%.

Another hurdle to cross is the problem of predictability. With the variability of wind, it is not only difficult to predict wind speeds and availability well in advance, it is also difficult to predict the output of the wind power plants.

Theoretically, if all the wind power on Earth were harnessed, it would equal more than five times the current amount of energy produced across the world. However, there are practical issues to circumnavigate and hurdles to overcome through technology and research before the power of the wind, a 100% renewable source of clean energy, can become a primary source of energy for the world.