Wind farm

The San Gorgonio Pass wind farm in California, United States.
The Gansu Wind Farm in China is the largest wind farm in the world, with a target capacity of 20,000 MW by 2020.

A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant,[1] is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an extensive area. Wind farms can be either onshore or offshore.

Many of the largest operational onshore wind farms are located in China, India, and the United States. For example, the largest wind farm in the world, Gansu Wind Farm in China had a capacity of over 6,000 MW by 2012,[2] with a goal of 20,000 MW[3] by 2020.[4] As of December 2020, the 1218 MW Hornsea Wind Farm in the UK is the largest offshore wind farm in the world.[5] Individual wind turbine designs continue to increase in power, resulting in fewer turbines being needed for the same total output.

Because they require no fuel, wind farms have less impact on the environment than many other forms of power generation and are often referred to as a good source of green energy. Wind farms have, however, been criticised for their visual impact and impact on the landscape. Typically they need to be spread over more land than other power stations and need to be built in wild and rural areas, which can lead to "industrialization of the countryside", habitat loss, and a drop in tourism. Some critics claim that wind farms have adverse health effects, but most researchers consider these claims to be pseudoscience (see wind turbine syndrome). Wind farms can interfere with radar, although in most cases, according to the US Department of Energy, "siting and other mitigations have resolved conflicts and allowed wind projects to co-exist effectively with radar".[6]

  1. ^ Robert Gasch, Jochen Twele (editors). Wind Power Plants: Fundamentals, Design, Construction and Operation. Springer, 2011. p. 11.
  2. ^ Watts, Jonathan & Huang, Cecily. Winds Of Change Blow Through China As Spending On Renewable Energy Soars, The Guardian, 19 March 2012, revised on 20 March 2012. Retrieved 4 January 2012.
  3. ^ Fahey, Jonathan. In Pictures: The World's Biggest Green Energy Projects, Forbes, 9 January 2010. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
  4. ^ Kanter, Doug (20 April 2016). "Gansu Wind Farm – The World's Biggest Wind Farms". Forbes. Retrieved 3 June 2024.
  5. ^ "World's largest offshore wind farm fully up and running". offshorewind.biz. 30 January 2020. Retrieved 27 December 2020.
  6. ^ "WINDExchange: Wind Turbine Radar Interference". WINDExchange. Retrieved 19 June 2019.

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