GLOBALGREEN - WindEnergy Basics

We have been harnessing the windenergy for hundreds of years. From old Holland to farms in the United States, windmills have been used for pumping water or grinding grain. Today, the windmill's modern equivalent—a "wind turbine design" - can use the windenergy to generate electricity.

How It Works

Windpower turbines, like windmills, are mounted on a tower to capture the most energy. At 100 feet (30 meters) or more aboveground, they can take advantage of the faster and less turbulent wind. Turbines catch the windenergy with their propeller-like blades. Usually, two or three blades are mounted on a shaft to form a rotor.

A blade acts much like an airplane wing. When the wind blows, a pocket of low-pressure air forms on the downwind side of the blade. The low-pressure air pocket then pulls the blade toward it, causing the rotor to turn. This is called lift. The force of the lift is actually much stronger than the wind's force against the front side of the blade, which is called drag. The combination of lift and drag causes the rotor to spin like a propeller, and the turning shaft spins a generator to make electricity.

Applications

These wind turbines near Lamar, Colorado, are part of the 162-MW Colorado Green Wind Farm. Each turbine produces 1.5 megawatts of electricity.

A Windpower turbine can be used as stand-alone applications, or they can be connected to a utility power grid or even combined with a photovoltaic (solar cell) system. For utility-scale (megawatt-sized) sources of wind energy, a large number of wind turbines are usually built close together to form a wind plant. Several electricity providers today use wind plants to supply power to their customers.

Stand-alone windpower turbines are typically used for water pumping or communications. However, homeowners, farmers, and ranchers in windy areas can also use wind turbines as a way to cut their energy billing.

Small windpower systems also have potential as distributed energy resources. Distributed energy resources refer to a variety of small, modular power-generating technologies that can be combined to improve the operation of the electricity delivery system. 


Getting Started
You can make a homemade wind turbine for windpower generation in your own spare time at home. Makes a great family project that will save money while providing great fun for the family.
Simply click on the links bel;ow and see what project suits your needs and get started today.

GlobalGreen - Linking you to SolarEnergy and WindEnergy harnessing methods.

For solar hot water systems, flat-plate solar collectors are typically installed facing south on a rooftop.

The shallow water of a lake is usually warmer than the deep water. That's because the sunlight can heat the lake bottom in the shallow areas, which in turn, heats the water. It's nature's way of solar water heating. 


The sun can be used in basically the same way to heat water used in buildings and swimming pools.

Most solarenergy water heating systems for buildings have two main parts: a solar collector and a storage tank. The most common collector is called a flat-plate collector. Mounted on the roof, it consists of a thin, flat, rectangular box with a transparent cover that faces the sun. Small tubes run through the box and carry the fluid — either water or other fluid, such as an antifreeze solution — to be heated. The tubes are attached to an absorber plate, which is painted black to absorb the heat. As heat builds up in the solarenergy collector, it heats the fluid passing through the tubes.

The storage tank then holds the hot liquid. It can be just a modified water heater, but it is usually larger and very well-insulated. Systems that use fluids other than water usually heat the water by passing it through a coil of tubing in the tank, which is full of hot fluid.

Solarenergy  water heating systems can be either active or passive, but the most common are active systems. Active systems rely on pumps to move the liquid between the collector and the storage tank, while passive systems rely on gravity and the tendency for water to naturally circulate as it is heated.

Swimming pool systems are simpler. The pool's filter pump is used to pump the water through a solar collector, which is usually made of black plastic or rubber. And of course, the pool stores the hot water.


By review in the links below you will find you can make a "photovoltaic cell" solarenergy system right in your own home and also you will be able to harness the winds energy as well to help you cut or eliminate those energy billings.


Take a moment of your time and read and listen to the information in each of the tutorials and this may be something you and your family may like to try. 


Have fun with the family and save money in the end, doesn't get much better. Check it out and you decide.

GLOBALGREEN - links to SolarEnergy Photovoltaic Technology

Solarenergy cells, also called photovoltaic cells by scientists, convert sunlight directly into electricity. PV gets its name from the process of converting light (photons) to electricity (voltage), which is called the PV effect. The PV effect was discovered in 1954, when scientists at Bell Telephone discovered that silicon (an element found in sand) created an electric charge when exposed to sunlight. Soon solarenergy cells were being used to power space satellites and smaller items like calculators and watches. Today, thousands of people power their homes and businesses with individual solarenergy PV systems. Utility companies are also using PV technology for large power stations.

Solarenergy panels used to power homes and businesses are typically made from solar cells combined into modules that hold about 40 cells. A typical home will use about 10 to 20 solar panels to power the home. The panels are mounted at a fixed angle facing south, or they can be mounted on a tracking device that follows the sun, allowing them to capture the most sunlight. Many solarenergy panels combined together to create one system is called a solar array. For large electric utility or industrial applications, hundreds of solar arrays are interconnected to form a large utility-scale PV system.

A large silicon solar array installed on the roof of a commercial building.

Thin-film solar tiles installed on the roof of a home in Ohio.

A large solar array in Germany.

Traditional solar cells are made from silicon, are usually flat-plate, and generally are the most efficient. Second-generation solarenergy cells are called thin-film solar cells because they are made from amorphous silicon or nonsilicon materials such as cadmium telluride. Thin film solar cells use layers of semiconductor materials only a few micrometers thick. Because of their flexibility, thin film solarenergy cells can double as rooftop shingles and tiles, building facades, or the glazing for skylights.

Third-generation solarenergy cells are being made from variety of new materials besides silicon, including solar inks using conventional printing press technologies, solar dyes, and conductive plastics. Some new solar cells use plastic lenses or mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a very small piece of high efficiency PV material. The PV material is more expensive, but because so little is needed, these systems are becoming cost effective for use by utilities and industry. However, because the lenses must be pointed at the sun, the use of concentrating collectors is limited to the sunniest parts of the country.


You can easily make the solarenergy photovoltaic cell in the convenience of your own home, by following the simple instructional information provided in the following links. Check it out today and start saving on your energy billing.

GlobalGreen - WindEnergy SolarEnergy - Passive Solar

The Zion National Park Visitor Center incorporates passive solar design features, including clerestory windows for daylighting and Trombe walls that absorb heat during the day and give off heat at night.

Step outside on a hot and sunny summer day, and you'll feel the power of solar heat and light. Today, many buildings are designed to take advantage of this natural resource through the use of passive solar heating and daylighting.

The south side of a building always receives the most sunlight. Therefore, buildings designed for passive solar heating usually have large, south-facing windows. Materials that absorb and store the sun's heat can be built into the sunlit floors and walls. The floors and walls will then heat up during the day and slowly release heat at night, when the heat is needed most. This passive solar design feature is calleddirect gain.

Other passive solar heating design features include sunspaces andtrombe walls. A sunspace (which is much like a greenhouse) is built on the south side of a building. As sunlight passes through glass or other glazing, it warms the sunspace. Proper ventilation allows the heat to circulate into the building. On the other hand, a trombe wall is a very thick, south-facing wall, which is painted black and made of a material that absorbs a lot of heat. A pane of glass or plastic glazing, installed a few inches in front of the wall, helps hold in the heat. The wall heats up slowly during the day. Then as it cools gradually during the night, it gives off its heat inside the building.

Many of the passive solar heating design features also provide daylighting. Daylighting is simply the use of natural sunlight to brighten up a building's interior. To lighten up north-facing rooms and upper levels, aclerestory—a row of windows near the peak of the roof—is often used along with an open floor plan inside that allows the light to bounce throughout the building.

Of course, too much solar heating and daylighting can be a problem during the hot summer months. Fortunately, there are many design features that help keep passive solar buildings cool in the summer. For instance, overhangs can be designed to shade windows when the sun is high in the summer. Sunspaces can be closed off from the rest of the building. And a building can be designed to use fresh-air ventilation in the summer.

If you wish to expand on the SolarEnergy which you receive almost daily as well as the WindEnergy, click on the links below and start saving on your home "energy billing" today. 

These links will show you how to make your own windpower generation and solarpower using the "photovoltaic cell"  technologies. 


Easy to follow instructions and fun for the family.