Modern wind energy primarily consists of three things, a tower, a rotor, and a hacelle. A tower is where the wind turbine is mounted. A rotor is turned by the wind. The hacelle houses the equipment, including the generator that converts the mechanical energy in the spinning rotor to electrical energy. Improvements in wind power continue to develop to reach economical and environmental peaks. .
The size of wind turbines ranges from small to medium and finally large. The small turbines are primarily installed in remote areas where power is needed but access to the conventional electricity is either too costly or unpredictable. Medium turbines are used in commercial wind machines. The large turbines are capable of generating two to three megawatts of power, but are not so ecologically correct. I would say the small and medium turbines are much more common. .
The modern wind industry is surprisingly large and continues to make advancements as I said earlier. Modern wind turbines produce electric power as efficiently as other power generators, however it is sometimes difficult to find suitable terrain and wind conditions to develop wind energy. Therefore location is a very important factor in wind power. There is an exponential relationship between wind speed and wind energy that is for every doubling of wind speed there is an eight-fold increase in available energy, making location crucial. A site that provided high average wind speeds would provide more energy than a site with slightly lower average speeds, showing locations importance. .
Wind farms are an assembly of multiple independent generators which operate independently, but are usually connected to a central monitoring system. Wind power is a clean renewable resource of electrical energy, but its reliability wavers because wind can change at anytime. For this reason, wind farms are backed up with batteries or generators to provide consumers with auxiliary power during windless days.
