Wind power | Your questions answered

Can wind farms really produce enough power to replace fossil fuels?

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The UK government&#;s British energy security strategy sets ambitions for 50GW of offshore wind power generation &#; enough energy to power every home in the country &#; by . However, as wind power can be intermittent, a reliable strategy for phasing out fossil fuels requires a number of different clean energy sources, as well as ways to share and store this energy to ensure there&#;s always power available when and where it&#;s needed.

Find out how we can still have clean energy when the wind doesn&#;t blow and the sun doesn&#;t shine
 

Does the amount of energy that wind turbines produce make up for the amount that&#;s needed to manufacture them? 

The average windfarm produces 20-25 times more energy during its operational life than was used to construct and install its turbines. This was the finding of an evidence review published in the journal Renewable Energy, which included data from 119 turbines across 50 sites going back 30 years.

The Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) states that the average wind farm will pay back the energy that was used in its manufacture within 3-5 months of operation.
 

Do old wind turbine blades end up in landfill, or can they be recycled?

Wind turbines can mostly be recycled at the end of their working life and are increasingly being made from materials that have already been recycled.

The blades are made from different materials, most of which is fibreglass. Fibreglass is not totally recyclable and is usually discarded as waste at landfills or incinerated. However, while many first-generation commercial turbine blades are being treated as waste, not all of them are destined for landfill. There are several innovative ways that their raw materials are being recycled to be used in other building materials or repurposed entirely.

Engineers and scientists have found a way to turn fibreglass into a key component used in the production of cement &#; an important material used in everyday construction. They&#;re also finding ways to repurpose turbine blades as structural elements in their entirety; these include bike sheds in Denmark, noise barriers for highways in the US, &#;glamping pods&#; across festival sites in Europe, or as parts of civil engineering projects, such as pedestrian footbridges, in Ireland.1

Read more about what happens to old wind turbine blades
 

What happens when wind farms produce more energy than is needed &#; does the energy just go to waste?

The amount of wind power being generated depends, of course, on the consistency of the wind. This means that when wind power is at its peak, the amount of electricity being generated could potentially outstrip the amount that&#;s required by homes and businesses at that particular time.

Fortunately, there are solutions to make sure excess wind energy doesn&#;t simply go to waste:
 

1. Storing energy to be used later

If you want to learn more, please visit our website Qianyun.

Excess electricity can be captured and stored, to be used at a later time when there&#;s not enough electricity being generated to meet demand. The most popular option for this is battery storage, but there are other methods of storage being developed all the time.

Find out more about renewable energy storage
 

2. Sharing energy with neighbouring countries

Electricity interconnectors are high-voltage cables that allow excess power to be traded and shared with neighbouring countries. When supply exceeds demand, we can send the excess electricity to another country and vice versa.

Find out more about interconnectors
 

Is it true that wind farms are paid to switch off on very windy days because they&#;re producing too much energy?

The work we&#;re doing to upgrade the electricity grid in England and Wales &#; known as The Great Grid Upgrade &#; will help to ensure that any excess energy generated by wind farms can be used to power more homes and businesses with clean energy. So on very windy days we&#;ll be able to make the most of the large amounts of electricity being generated and wind farms won&#;t need to be switched off.

There are a number of ways that we can maximise on excess wind energy:

• Improving connections to the grid

  , which means that more of the electricity from wind power can be transmitted around the country

• Sharing the excess energy with neighbouring countries via 

  interconnectors

• Connecting more 

  energy storage

  to the network, which can store excess renewable energy for use at a time when it&#;s needed

First, it is clean. The electricity produced by a wind turbine creates none of the carbon emissions that drive the climate emergency. While carbon is created through building, transporting and installing turbines, typically after 6-18 months the turbine has already saved more than was created from its production.

Second, it is efficient. When you burn coal, oil or gas to create electricity a huge amount of energy is lost in the process. Older coal plants, for example, would be 20 per cent efficient meaning most of the energy from the coal is actually lost but we still create carbon emissions from burning it. Newer gas plants are more efficient but, overall, Ireland&#;s fossil fuel generation has an efficiency rating of 54.7 per cent, meaning the rest of the energy is lost. Wind energy, on the other hand, is 100 per cent efficient at turning wind into electricity.

Third, wind energy is cheaper than fossil fuels. Wind drives down the price of power by pushing expensive fossil fuel generators off the system. Without it, we have to depend more on costly gas imports which increase our bills &#; that&#;s what we&#;ve been seeing so much of recently.

Lastly, wind energy is renewable and local, and it is a resource that we have plenty of here in Ireland. Right now, so much of the oil and gas that we burn to produce electricity is imported from other countries. The more we use wind to power our homes and businesses, the less we are reliant on importing expensive fossil fuels, and the closer we are to being 100% energy independent.

Contact us to discuss your requirements of Wind Turbine. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.