[clett]

As most people on here are aware, I'm very interested in the potential of renewable energy sources of electricity to charge up all the EVs and plug-in hybrids of the future.

So for a bit of fun, I thought it would be interesting to try a little quiz. Have a look at this picture of a wind-turbine...

How many kilowatts do you reckon it can produce? (To help you with a comparison, 15kW would be enough to push a car through the air at 75mph, though it can make maximum power at about 30mph).

Any guesses???? I'll give the answer in a bit!

 

[Daniel]

My guess: 500 kW.

But there's two in the picture, so I guess a megawatt total for the two.

Of course, that assumes ideal wind velocity.

 

[frenchie]

Today large wind turbines can deliver as much as 2 or 3 megawatts (thousands of kilowatts), can't they (provided there's some wind of course ! :wink: ) ?

 

[V8Cobrakid]

Hmm.. well.. seeing that this windmill
puts out 750kw... i'm also guessing around 500 for that one.

 

[clett]

Getting closer! Perhaps I should give you a clue?

You see those plants growing next to the turbine at the bottom left of the picture?

They're not weeds or bushes - they're fully grown trees!

 

[frenchie]

Enercon E-66, 1800 kW ?

 

[Daniel]

Well, since you said "getting closer" after Francois said that modern wind turbines can produce 2 or 3 megawatts, I will now guess 5 megawatts.

However, at this point your original clue of 15 kW to propell a car at 75 mph becomes rather useless, kind of like asking how much power an elephant can exert and giving as a clue how much it takes to lift an ant.

 

[V8Cobrakid]

I guess the other one i picked out is smaller than yours.. o well.. i can't tell how large that building is... but, if those are fully grown trees... then that's a barn... If that's a barn, then it's more like the size of this one

Which, in that case your wind turbine puts out somewhere around 4,500kw

 

[clett]

And the winner is.... V8Cobrakid!!

Congratulations, the turbine in question is indeed an Enercon E-112 - the largest grid connected wind turbine in the world!

This particular example is situated near Egeln, Germany and pumps out a massive four and a half MILLION watts!!

The reason I thought I'd include this was because of the following observation.

Imagine a nearby town with a fleet of plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. I wondered how many cars a single turbine like this could support in terms of providing enough electricity for all their transportation needs? The answer surprised me!

As a wind turbine in this location is typically considered to provide on average over a year about a third of it's rated capacity - (ie it delivers full power for only one third of the time). That's still enough for a whopping 13.1 gigawatt-hours per year. Now assuming that the hybrids and EVs average 4 miles per kilowatt-hour and 12,000 miles per year, each would require 3,000 kWh per year to run. So that means....

...this SINGLE wind turbine can potentially provide all the motive force for a fleet of 4,380 family vehicles!

But that's not even the whole story, because there are rumours from industry insiders that Enercon have been tweaking with this turbine and that it has actually been providing 6 MW for some time now, with peak production of up to 7.8 MW !

If anything is going to get Martin McFly's DeLorean started up, it's got to be this! 8)

 

[V8Cobrakid]

YAY! I win! lol Yeah, that's one cool windmill. any clue how much one of those cost? I would love to put one in my backyard

 

[RSnyder]

I take it most of that 4.5 MWatts is gathered during lightning storms!