The first experiences for benefiting from the wind power dates back to ancient times. The first forms of benefiting from wind energy are the sailing boats and windmills. Later, the wind power was used for grinding cereals, water pumping and tree cutting works. Today it is used mostly for producing electricity.
Harmful gases are released into the atmosphere with fossil, nuclear and other methods, and these gases contaminate the air and the water. However, none of such gases are released to the atmosphere during obtaining energy from the wind, therefore wind energy is a clean sort of energy. A modern wind turbine of 600 kW, will replace the 1.200 tones of carbon dioxide of the other electricity power plants conveyed by the coke annually in general.
The wind power has become the renewable energy resource the use of which increases most in the world. Despite the rate of use is very low today in the world, studies are carried out for meeting 12% of the world electricity demand in 2020 from the wind energy. Today the total power obtained from the wind energy is about 40.301 MW. The country, which makes use of this power is Germany , with its share of 36,3%. Germany produces a power of 14.612 MW in total and this meets 5,6% of the electric energy requirement of Germany . The countries which benefit from the wind power at most are Spain , USA , Denmark , India , Netherlands , Italy , Japan , United Kingdom and China respectively. All the other countries hold the share of 9,3% with their power production of 3.756 MW in total.
According to 2007 data in Turkey , there are 55 licensed projects (1948,86 MW) for wind energy, 3 of which are in the application level (39,60 MW), 125 of which are in the level of examination and evaluation (5.844.73 MW) and 3 of which are approved (88,75 MW).
The alternative energy systems may be designed on-grid, off-grid or green-line (network supported) based on the project requirements. The power of the sun battery systems connected to the network changes between a few kW to a few MW. As these systems may be in the size of a high power plant, the more general application is in the form of small power systems in the buildings. The systems independent from the network are preferred in the places where the network is completely unavailable. As long as the climate data are sufficient, these systems can be more profitable than the investment required for connection to the network, when even if the first investment costs are considered. In these systems, batteries are required for storing the generated electricity to enable use of it at nights or when the energy is not generated. While the battery capacity is adjusted, the climate data of the region, the electricity devices to be used and the period of use are considered.
The general application fields of the systems independent from the network can be listed as follows:
- Communication stations, rural radio, wireless and telephone systems
- Cathodic pickling of petroleum pipelines
- Protection of the metal construction (bridges, towers.) from corrosion
- Telemetric measurements performed in electricity and water distribution systems, aerial observation stations
- Illumination inside and outside the premises
- Operation of electric devices such as TV, radio, refrigerator in the mountain houses and in houses far from the settlements
- Agricultural watering or water pumping for house-hold use
- Forest observation towers
- Light houses
- First aid, alarm and security systems
- Earthquake and air monitoring stations
- Mountain houses, farms
- Special applications such as ships and caravans
