If 100% was wind power, the grid would be unstable, you would not have power. Wind and solar power are not load following sources in that just because you turned on a switch, the Sun doesn't shine brighter and the wind doesn't blow harder. As wind turbines only produce power roughly 1/6 of the time, they are only suitable to offset production by other sources therefore you must have load following sources such as hydro, gas turbine or Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors to displace. Sources such as coal turbines, conventional nuclear and proposed fusion plants are not load following and do not represent displaceable load. Some degree of load following can be achieved through transmissions between different geographic regions particularly with wind where turbines in different regions would operate at different times but long distance transmissions not only loose energy but also destabilizes the grid. Energy storage to counter the problem directly needs to be very inexpensive and efficient, those are contrary goals to achieve.
It is naive to think our grid could be 100% wind powered. Even now, the amount of turbines we have require the use of gas power plants which would operate inefficiently at partial loads when actually used, this is why so many new gas power plants are now under construction.
The solar roadways idea is idiotic, even if an inexpensive photovoltaics such as solar paint or amorphous collectors were used, the long conductors required would lose most of the power in capacitance losses. Also, it is the nature of cracks in a road to to thermal changes to be across the road therefore severing any such conductor in multiple locations. Belief in the solar roadway exhibits a lack of electrical and power engineering knowledge which isn't surprising since decades ago, I was one of the last 16 electrical engineers at my University to stud power line transmissions and power electronics.
Too many. The best option is to begin constructing homes and buildings with a combination of wind and solar energy to run on for normal usage. But there will still be times and extreme conditions where this is not sufficient, so there will have to be a backup of fuel oil or available fossil fuels for emergencies. Businesses of course will have to have data lines and more electrical resources to run operations.
This will help limit our dependence without the all or nothing approach every like to debate these isses with.
And I do like the solar roadways idea.
It depends on how big the wind turbines are and where you put them.
Let's take the Siemens SWT-3-6-107 as our example turbine. Its rated output is 3.6 MW (MegaWatts), but it only produces power when the wind blows. In the UK, the average output of turbines is about 30% of their rated maximum, so I'll use that value as the starting guess. So each turbine produces
365.25 days x 24 hours x 3600 kiloWatts x 0.3 fraction due to windiness = about 9.5 million kWh per year.
The US uses about 3,826 billion kWh of electricity each year:
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/
Divide the total power by the power per turbine and you get about 400,000 turbines.
You might need lots more if you use smaller turbines in less-windy places. The best case is probably if you used bigger, modern turbines like the Vestas V164, which is rated at 8 MW, and if you put them in windier places like the regions where Texas has been building wind farms.
http://www.windpowermonthly.com/10-bigge...
That would mean you need 150,000 turbines, but is probably too optimistic.
Not sure of an exact answer, but there was a naval expert who suggested 4000 would power new york, so i guess around 10,000,000 to power the whole of the USA, and as others have said, power levels would go up and down with wind strength.
America is home to one of the largest and fastest growing wind markets in the world. Watch the video to learn more about the latest trends in the U.S. wind power ...
Millions. And, of course, no-one would want one in their back yard. And, of course, in the US, they'd have to be bulletproof.
Hi there. I do not live in USA, but UK, however both solar or wind-powered electricity are the same for us all. The number of windmills, or if solar then the number of panels, depends entirely on the amount of electricity they can produce. Other factors also have to be taken into consideration, like how far is it from the "energy farm" to the place it was to be used. The cables which the electricity travels through acts just like the element of a kettle or heater, and so the production of heat would actually use up some of the power and the longer/thicker the cable the more heat lost.
I know that these are nowhere near all of the facts which you would need to consider, and none of them have the technical explanation, but hopefully somebody will be able to help you out with those things. I am sure that if the source of the electricity did change then people might also be far more careful with things like turning off lights if the room was empty or only boiling enough water for the drinks needed - not a whole kettle full just for one cup of coffee. Another thing which would affect how much is needed is the fact that electric cars are becoming more popular here in UK, and I would think it was the same in USA. That would use up quite a lot of power if more and more people change from gas to electric.
Hope you get the answers you want.
Richard
They would have to be tornado proof
If the US was to change to 100% wind energy, how many windmills would it take?
