Out of curiosity I looked at the Ontario Wind Atlas, available online, to see how much wind power is available in the province where I live.
Looking at the area I circled, you can see a lot of wind energy available along the stretch of shoreline next to Lake Huron. You can see the coloration along the shore, which indicates a much higher wind energy density than inside the mainland. I chose to view available wind power at 100 magl, which is meters-above-ground-level (magl). The higher above ground a wind turbine is located, the more wind power is available. In this case 100 meters represents the hub height of a very large wind turbine, 5-6 MW in size.
As a reasonable estimate, there’s about 150 km of distance along the shore, 2 km wide, which is rich in wind energy. That’s an area of about 300 km2 that can be populated with wind turbines.
According to the legend on the right, we’re looking at an average wind power density of about 700 W/m2 along this stretch of shoreline. Multiply this by the swept blade area of the wind turbines to get the power output. One of the largest wind turbines in the world is the Repower 5M with a 126 meter rotor diameter (ref: http://www.repower.de). It’s rated at 5 MW. Let’s use this in the calculations.
This gives a theoretical power output of 8.8 MW for each wind turbine. However, the turbines are rated for a maximum power of 5 MW, so let’s use this value instead.
Wind turbines require a spacing of roughly 5 rotor diameters in the crosswind direction and roughly 10 rotor diameters in the downwind direction. If turbines are too close together their individual power output will decrease due to the “blocking” effect of neighbouring turbines. So a certain spacing is required to minimize these losses while also maximizing the number of turbines on a particular area of land.
5 rotor diameters is equal to 630 meters, and 10 rotor diameters is equal to 1260 meters. Therefore, 300 km2 can be populated with about 714 5 MW wind turbines. There would be three rows of turbines along the shore, with each row containing 238 turbines. Each row would be 150 km long. And the spacing between the rows would be 1260 meters.
Using a capacity factor of 30% (due to intermittent wind conditions), the power output is approximately 1 GW. This is enough power for 600,000 homes.
But there are factors to consider of course, like property ownership, bird habitat, etc. In the map above I opted to show important bird areas, and it looks like my choice of land is safe in that regard. But you can also choose to show Administrative boundaries, such as by township or municipality. The map below shows the different menu options you can choose to determine what you want to look at.
The great lakes are an awesome and untapped source of wind power. I hear that they are “drooling” over in Germany over the potential we have here. And Germany is a world leader in wind power development.
It’s not unreasonable to suggest that the wind power from the great lakes alone can satisfy a large percentage of the energy needs of Ontario and several of the southern bordering states.
Looking at the map below you can see huge wind power potential along the northern border of Ontario, on the shores of Hudson Bay. It’s unfortunate that the transmission distance to populated areas, such as southern Ontario, is very large. However, it may be possible to use wind turbines in this area strictly for local Hydrogen production, which can then be transported in bulk quantity and used as fuel for certain applications. Have a look at Alternative Fuel For Aviation And Marine Transportation.
The United States has its own vast wind resources. Looking at the figure below, one can perform a similar calculation to see how much wind power is available. It looks like the entire generating capacity of the United States (1000 GW) can be satisfied by wind power alone; by setting up wind farms in strategic areas in the west/mid-west, east coast, west coast, great lakes and the Texas coast.
If you’re wondering about the wind power potential in your area have a look at the following wind atlases. They contain information for different countries.
Nice post. Looks like wind power is really starting to get some serious consideration in Australia now.