Global energy issues, climate change and wind power for clean and sustainable energy development

Abstract

Renewable energy sources, derived principally from the enormous power of the sun’s radiation, are at once the most ancient and the most modern forms of energy used by humanity. Wind energy is an indirect form of solar energy; the solar heating of the atmosphere along with the earth’s rotation creates planetary and local wind patterns. In this chapter the wind resource is described and a method for reducing wind data to a useful mathematical form is presented. A simplified theory of wind turbines is then presented. This simplified theory leads to a basic understanding of the characteristics of actual wind turbines. Combining the analytical description of the wind resource with the characteristic of an actual wind turbine leads to a prediction of electrical energy production. Turkey added 804 MW of new wind power in 2014 for a total installed capacity of 3,763 MW. Turkey’s installed capacity has grown at over 500 MW per year since 2010 and it will be annual installations to reach 1 600 MW per year from 2020 onwards.