Make Wind Power

Have you ever been to Netherlands? It’s one of the most renowned countries for its windmills. Maybe you’ve seen windmills as Netherlands’ landmarks in books and travel magazine. The Netherlands’ government uses those windmills power to manage floodwaters in lower area in the country. It’s very urgent to use them as windpumps because Netherlands lies below sea level.

A windmill is actually a machine which driven by the power of the wind. It consists of blades or sails, which generate to convert the wind energy into other form of more useful energy such as electricity or power to pump water.

Back then in the middle ages Europe, windmills were used to mill or grind grain. This is where the original word of ‘mill’ derived.  It had a simple type of windmills consist of poles with blades. Centuries later, it turned into tower mills which took shape as windmills with tower in its based and a rotator on top of it. Tower mills known as ‘torenmolens’ in Dutch. It performed much better work than the previous windmills since it could farm even in a lower wind.

In the industrial revolution era, steam and engines replaced windmills. But for some countries windmills are preserved as antique machinery for their historic value. The original use of windmills nowadays is usually done in ranches in remote area that has less connection with latest technology.

The interesting part is that the world has changed when the prices of energy increases very high. People tend to go back to the use of windmills for the sake of saving their pocket and preserving the environment at the same time.

The necessity of less cost energy pushes companies to find effective way to create new source of energy. They went back to windmills and build ‘windfams’ as their alternative commercial energy for production. Now modern windmills equipped with turbines or generators to generate electricity. They can produce electricity up to 6 MW of power or similar to 500 – 1,300MW for conventional power plant.

Other type of windmill usage is a windpump. As it sounds, a windpump is used for pumping water from soil. It’s largely used in Africa and has a function to supply water for human and animals. Particularly in countries where lies above sea level, windpump is functioned to drain the land, as it did in Netherlands, some part in United Kingdom, and also in East Anglia.

A windmill has thermal and electric power output which produces by windmill’s blade rotation. They are mounted and connected to a speed increaser machine and compressor that moved by wind applied to the blades of the windmill itself. To produce electricity, a gas turbine generator should be connected to the compressor. A windmill can generate power or heat by adding impeller type of air brake and a valve and also a heat-sensitive control.

Here are the windmill power specifications for generating electricity:

1. It has a function as an electricity generator
2. Minimum wind speed is 10 km/hr.
3. Maximum wind speed is 50 km/hr
4. Rotor specifications are: blade made of aluminum with 3 m in diameter, its framework made of bagel steel
5. Body specifications are: tail model pointed to the top, frame work made of hollow steel
6. Tower specifications are: 10 m in height, it has L stripe steel framework
7. Generator specifications are: direct current electricity generator with power range from 1000 watts, 2000 watts, to 5000 watts.

Windmills, which use as alternative energy sources will play a great part in replacing fossil fuels power plants. It’s renewable and clean for the environment. It even helps us to create better climate in the future. Wind is free to get and produce no pollutions to earth, which can make our environment healthier for generations to come.

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