The wind energy industry is getting higher and higher with towers higher and higher ... to catch the wind!

The question that arises is: how does a wind turbineoperate ?

Premise that not everyone knows that the best wind is at a hundred meters high, where it is stronger and less turbulent.
To use the wind, however, requires special technologies: Giants of the wind, the famous high wind turbines 100-130 meters, for example, that, even if composed of modules of thirty meters, it is not easy to transport, definitely not in Italy mainly characterized by coastal mountains and the Apennines! The same thing applies to the blades of wind turbines for these wind systems can measure up to 60 meters long and weighs 7 tons each.

Even before the logistics solutions, there are wind technologies that allow us to produce components bloated, others run a "mill" of this size without tearing itself apart under its own weight or under the influence of twiating for the rotation of the blades, still others that allow the transmission shaft to rotate without atriti or almost.

A wind turbine can be defined, in conclusion, a concentrate of the best technology we have today.

In Italy there are gigantic wind turbines are in operation but more than 5300 wind turbines of varying size with an installed capacity of about 6500 MW.

We go on to analyze the main components of a wind turbine taking as sample the model GE4.1-113, a model currently under study designed for a power of 4.1 MW and a rotor diameter of 113 meters, ie the circle described by the rotation of the blades:

1. CAGE OR GONDOLA:
   It will be 4 meters wide, long and high as ten meters, compared to 14-15 meters in length of the nacelles of the current generation of wind turbines: ka smaller scale must be the elimination of transmission gears, thanks to the electric generator permanent magnets.
   The ships of the towers offshore (ie offshore installed) must however always be large enough to allow the landing of a helicopter.
   
   
2. ELECTRIC GENERATOR:
   It functions as generators of any power plant, regardless of the energy that makes it work. It is composed of a fixed component along the outer perimeter (the stator) and a part that rotates inside (the rotor): the interaction between the magnetic field generated by the rotor and the stator windings "creates" the flow of current electricity.
   
   
3. SHAFT:
   It is the component Piau delicate system. Held in rotation by the blades, the transmission of mechanical energy from the hub (where the blades are anchored) to the electric generator (2) may be mediated by gears 8che have a role similar to that of the change of the car), by joints in bath 'oil or, as in this case, by a system of permanent magnets.
   This system has the advantage of eliminating mechanical parts and friction (as for trains which run on rails levitation magnetica9 and therefore be less prone to breakdowns.
   
   
4. TOWER:
   It is typically constructed by stacking modules length of 32 meters (called "blocks"), until you reach the height determined by the project, which also varies according to the place of installation. The tower of a generator like this, which has a 56-meter blades, it can be high, the hub, at least 96 meters, a measure that brings the height of the building (the tower to the hub and blade elevation) to 147 meters.
   The diameter of the tower varies, depending on the project and the height, from 4 meters to about 1 meter.
   
   
5. PALES:
   The project includes 3 long blades, 56 meters long gnuna: the diameter of the swept area is 113 meters.
   For a structure of this type the height of the tower will be at least 96 meters: the highest point dell'aerogeneratore, when the blade is on the vertical of the tower, may therefore svettare to 147 meters from the ground.
   That is 20 meters higher than the Pirelli skyscraper in Milan and well 39 meters above the little Madonna of Duomo.