Wind energy is a form of non fossil-fuel energy that, if utilized more, could help us to get closer to a more sustainable future. Wind energy uses wind turbines in order to produce electricity out of kinetic energy created by wind. However, wind energy has a lot of aspects that can be seen as issues, which is why it isn’t used more broadly today. To start, the cost of installation of wind turbines is always an issue, as the larger they are, the more energy they produce, but they are in turn, more expensive. Commercial applications are difficult as well, as wind turbines usually need to be in rural areas for them to generate as much energy as possible (and are very large, so difficult to install in less rural areas,) but then have to send their energy off to more populated places. Finally, wind energy is unreliable because the amount of wind produced in a day cannot be controlled, so the amount of power produced may not be consistent. Although wind turbines are becoming less expensive as prices drop and they become more available (in 2016, wind energy was 16% of all energy produced by renewable sources), we have a long way to go before wind power replaces fossil fuels.
https://www.irena.org/wind
I wrote about wind turbines too for my blog post and we found a lot of similar information! It is good that prices are dropping overall and if that continues it could make them more accessible.
Have you read anything about how the height of the commercial generators is a positive factor in terms of the wind. When researching for a separate project I learned that lack of wind is never an issue with the height of the commercial generators.
The biggest obstacle to more renewable and sustainable change is usually cost so hopefully the cost of wind energy will decrease as it becomes more relevant and widespread.
The reliance of wind power on physical wind (which isn’t consistent) is interesting and I wonder if similarly to solar grids if the energy produced but not used could be stored in the grid