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The purpose of this
project is to model a potential area to see if it has suitable
locations for the installation of wind powered turbines. There
are several locations around the province which meet the average wind
speed requirements and Ashcroft is one of them. Ashcroft was
chosen mainly for the data that was available for it. However,
the project itself can act as a model that can be repeated for other
locations as the need arises and the data becomes available.
The generation of wind energy has some certain requirements which must
be met at any site. Firstly, is consistent wind. In order
for a turbine to begin turning and generating electricity there is a
minimum required wind speed of approximately 4.5 meters per second and
for a generation site to be effective a minimum annual average of 7.0
meters per second or about 25 kilometers per hour is required.
This model has taken into account that if a site has reached this point
of analysis that these requirements have been met.
The following is a list of requirements which this project takes into
consideration for its analysis.
- Terrain Slope:
For wind turbines to be effective they require a clear and unobstructed
surroundings for the wind to reach the rotors. In addition, to
reduce the cost of installation and maintenance only locations with
slopes of less than 25 degrees were considered.
- Proximity to City
Center: Opinions are mixed as to whether or no wind
turbines are aesthetically pleasing and for safety and noise reasons a
boundary of 2 kilometers around the city center was used.
Dependent on other cases this value can be increased as the size of the
town increases.
- Roads:
The proximity to roads was taken into account in two aspects. Firstly,
for safety reasons all towers must be 200 meters from the road side.
This is so that cars do no collide into them and so that they are not
affected by winter plowing and future construction and
maintenance. The aspect that was considered was ease of future
maintenance. Modern wind turbines only require a maintenance check
every
six
months; therefore, road access is required. New access roads can
be built; however, to reduce costs, any location over 2 kilometers was
considered unsuitable.
- Rivers: To
help reduce any environmental damage caused to any water sources during
the construction and installation of the towers any suitable area must
be at least 50 meters from any rivers or streams.
- Buildings:
Due to the shear size and the wind noise created by any turbine it has
been suggested that any towers be at least 50 meters from any
building. The noise created by a tower is detectable up to
200 meters away, towers which are likely to be used in this area are
already 80 meters high and combined with
- Proximity to
Transmission Lines: As the ultimate goal of a generator is
to create electricity to add to the grid, proximity to the transmission
line is very important. Thus the distance of all suitable
locations to the main transmission line is also considered.
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