Several methods of renewable energy sources are being taken up in recent years as the world seems to be making a shift toward greener sources of energy.
With the shift, sources like water, wind, and sunlight are becoming popular.
From using large areas of land to installing electricity systems at homes, people are doing what they can to contribute and also save electricity and money on the side.
The holistic benefits offered by green energy is not to be ignored.
One of the major and oldest sources of electricity is wind energy.
You must have seen massive windmills across the outer areas of your town or village. They are common in almost every country and widely used.
Since they offer a cheaper and more stable source of electricity throughout the year, they are installed to ensure that with minimum human intervention and machine support, electricity can be produced and circulated.
They are generally installed on the outskirts of the city or where large areas of land are available to ensure that they do not create hindrances in other human settlements or development.
In this article, we would understand how wind energy works and what is the amount of wind turbines that you can put on an acre of land.
This information will help you in setting up your wind turbines so that you can utilize this source of electricity and save money on your electricity bill.
You can also commercialize your wind turbines and sell the electricity further to create a great recurring business revenue model.
Understanding Wind Energy
Let us first start by understanding wind energy.
Wind energy works on a simple concept. It utilizes wind turbines or blades attached to a long and firm core, which move as per wind speed and strength.
As these wind turbines rotate, they produce electricity with the help of an attached generator.
The wind patterns, weather, and speed mainly affect the amount of electricity produced using the turbines, but generally, it is an adequate source of electricity. Mostly there are two kinds of turbines that you can commonly find around you.
One is the horizontal axis turbine and the other is the vertical axis turbine. Both of them use aerodynamics to produce electricity and mainly only differ in design and look.
Utilizing wind turbines and wind energy is one of the best methods of creating and sustaining renewable energy.
They continually make life easier for us as we don’t have to rely heavily on the use of fossil fuels.
When compared with other sources, wind energy emits the least greenhouse gases and also does not require water or other sources to be spent in abundance.
The first use of wind turbines can be linked back to the 7th century in Middle East Asia, where large rectangular blades were utilized to produce wind energy and extract water from below.
In case you are interested in setting up your wind turbines to produce wind energy, you must encounter a major problem first.
The amount of land available to you is the first thing that you should consider before making any other decision.
Let us discuss further, how many wind turbines can you put up based on an acre of land.
How Many Wind Turbines Can Be Put On An Acre Of Land?
Once you have determined the amount of land you would be interested in giving for the setting up of wind turbines, it is crucial to address the question of utility. For what purpose are you intending to install the wind turbines?
Addressing this question would help you understand whether you want to go for smaller wind turbines, that produce electricity less than 100 kW per plant or more.
If you go for the smaller ones, they are ideal for setting up in areas close to farms or rural homes, which can easily be set up to a grid to pass on the electricity.
In case you plan to set up the larger wind turbines, they can be easily connected to a grid and the electricity can be stored and transmitted further to outer sources, or sold to the government and other industries for a hefty profit.
The smaller turbines would occupy more amount of land per meter but would also produce a lesser amount of electricity.
However, the larger turbines would occupy less amount of land per meter and would produce more electricity.
Generally, even with evenly spaced wind turbines, you might require several acres of land to produce a good amount of electricity.
Nevertheless, you can expect an output of 60-100kW per acre of land, which is quite decent. This estimate is made at 10-12 meters per second of wind speed.
Depending on the area you live in and the elevation from sea level, to weather conditions, the average wind speed may easily vary.
You can easily calculate the number of turbines to install in an acre of land as per the requirements and size of your turbines and the wind conditions.
Remember the rule of placing turbines on land, placing them four times their diameter.
With such calculation and the per meter space, you can easily and economically utilize the space according to the conditions of the place you live at.
Consider exploring more economical options in the wind turbines to reduce your cost of setup as well.
Conclusion
Thus, in this article, we learned about what wind turbines are and how wind energy works. We also saw how wind turbines are installed and how they work.
In addition to this, we saw that one of the many considerations in installing wind turbines is regarding the space and use of land.
Since most of the wind turbines are placed on the outskirts of the towns and villages, the wind turbines are located and installed on several acres of land.
Thus, it depends on several other factors like the size and type of wind turbine along with the space per meter occupied to determine how many wind turbines can be placed on an acre of land.
It is best to get in touch with an expert and clarify all doubts.
