Wind farms are often plagued by weather conditions that make it difficult for humans to maintain turbines. This can lead to costly repairs and possible downtime, which lowers the profitability of a wind farm’s operations.
The wind energy industry is overgrowing, and as it does, it is becoming more and more competitive. The field is experiencing a boom in using artificial intelligence (AI) to help improve efficiency and reliability in wind farms.
Artificial intelligence is helping humans harness wind power with modern technology. This article will look at how AI changes the wind industry as we know it.
Keep reading to know more about artificial intelligence in the wind energy industry.
What Is Wind Energy?
The wind is one of the best sources of renewable energy. It helps reduce the use of fossil fuels, which contributes to global warming. Fossil fuels replaced the wind for most of the 20th century. However, wind energy is still returning as a power source and electricity.
Wind energy is produced using wind and then converted into power for energy consumption. It provides a clean, sustainable energy source accessible and cost-effective across communities.
Moreover, wind energy has become more prominent because of its safe and environmental sustainability. Due to the competitiveness in the wind energy market, numerous wind farms were built, which created more jobs for the people.
What Are Wind Turbines?
The use of wind energy is made possible because of wind turbines. These are the tall towers with rotating blades at the top. However, wind turbines do not technically produce wind energy but create electricity from wind. The process starts when the wind turns the blades, and the blades turn the generator to generate electricity.
There are two types of wind turbines per the location of wind farms: onshore wind turbines and offshore wind turbines.
Onshore Wind Turbines
Onshore wind turbines are wind turbines that exist on land. Humans have used land based turbines for thousands of years to help perform a variety of tasks, like produce water and cut wood.
Offshore wind turbines
Offshore wind turbines are wind turbines in the ocean. These offshore wind turbines are a newer technology since they involve much more effort than land based turbines. These turbines typically generate more power than land based turbines, and do not interfere with farming, industry, and cities.
Who Are The Top Manufacturers Of Wind Turbines?
In most countries, wind energy has become an essential part of their energy systems, improving air quality. Although considered the best renewable energy source, not all countries can build a name in the wind energy sector. It is crucial to plan and know the best location of wind farms and the height of wind turbines.
Below are the top wind turbine manufacturers in the world as of 2022:
Vestas
The Vestas wind turbines manufacturing are located in Denmark and are currently the top and most famous wind turbine companies. They have dominated the wind turbine market since 1898 and represent over 16% of the wind energy industry.
To this day, Vestas wind turbines have already installed over 600,000 turbines across countries. Vestas has manufacturing facilities in North America, Latin America, Asia, and Europe.
Siemens Gamesa
The Siemens Gamesa wind turbines rank second on the list. Siemens Gamesa is known to have a firm position in the offshore wind market. They were the first to install an offshore wind farm in 1991. Since then, they have never stopped dominating the offshore wind market, with about 70% market share in Europe alone.
Goldwind
By late 2019, Goldwind had installed a 50 GW capacity for wind turbines in more than 20 countries. To this day, Goldwind remains in the top three list of largest wind turbine manufacturers worldwide.
GE
GE has installed over 25,000 wind turbines worldwide and is one of the leading wind turbine suppliers. Their wind turbine portfolio has 1.7 MW up to 4.8 MW onshore and 6 MW up to 12 MW offshore.
Envision
Envision Energy is another wind turbine manufacturing company in China. Aside from wind turbines, they also provide energy management software and technology services. The company has installed 2400 wind turbines and has software used in 6,000 wind turbines in China, Latin America, North America, and Europe.
Renewable Energy Industry
The renewable energy industry has remained remarkably resilient in 2021, and its growth will accelerate in 2022. The industry is ready to branch out with new policies, businesses, and investments to help address the challenges and rapid growth.
Increased storage batteries, rapid technology improvements, and decreasing electricity generation costs of renewable energy resources have made renewable energy one of the most competitive energy sources in different areas. In a data analysis regarding the renewable energy industry, here are five trends to watch:
- New technologies
- New business models
- Infrastructure development
- Supply chain ecosystem
- Sustainable growth
With massive concern for climate change and support for environmental considerations, the demand for cleaner energy sources for many cities and states increases rapidly. To unlock the optimum performance of wind turbines, they should use artificial intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence In The Renewable Energy Industry
One technological innovation that has been making waves is artificial intelligence (AI). For years, different electric vehicles like cars and planes have used AI, which has only recently been applied to the wind energy industry. Artificial intelligence is now the next big thing in the wind energy industry.
The wind industry has recently gotten much attention for its potential to help reduce carbon emissions. Still, we are seeing new levels of innovation coming out of the industry. With historical weather data, engineers validate artificial intelligence before going live with operations for improved solar forecasts.
The future of the wind energy industry is one where AI technology plays an integral role in providing consumers with the best possible service. AI can help improve efficiency by accurately forecasting data about wind speed, height, direction, and other factors to determine the most efficient way to generate electricity from a wind turbine.
Wind turbines are complex machines that require constant monitoring and maintenance to ensure they continue to work correctly over their lifetime. Wind turbines can use AI to identify potential problems before they happen, reducing repair costs to a minimum. By incorporating AI into this process, manufacturers can reduce costs while improving accuracy levels even further.
In addition, using artificial intelligence, wind turbines can control themselves and adjust based on weather patterns and temperature changes. This will allow them to produce more energy without little to no human intervention or supervision.
Pros Of Using Artificial Intelligence In The Wind Energy
One of the pros of artificial intelligence in the wind energy industry is that it can help cut costs. Additionally, it increases efficiency by predicting weather patterns and resource availability. Artificial intelligence also allows renewable energy plants to operate with minimal human interaction, which means they can be built anywhere without worrying about local regulations.
Below are the other uses of artificial intelligence:
AI makes cities more sustainable and livable
Artificial intelligence and machine learning can help energy efficiency in cities by incorporating data from the internet to forecast energy demand. Additionally, it would be easier to spread information about urban planning and disaster preparedness through AI systems.
AI can predict level capacity levels
Climate change has existed ever since, and we must have accurate forecasting to continue fighting them. AI can incorporate complex climate systems into calculations, making sound and useful predictions for decision-makers.
AI can help in monitoring ecosystem interactions
Another cool feature of AI is that it can detect underground leaks in the supply systems, making water quality okay for residential people to use and drink. Moreover, it can predict when plants need some water maintenance.
AI contributes to low carbon emissions
The development of low and non-carbon alternatives is made possible through the use of deep learning and AI technology. They assist scientists in discovering new materials that could help remodel machines for better efficiency and environmental sustainability.
AI can help reduce carbon emissions by reducing the need for fossil fuels while increasing energy production per unit area. It can also help in lowering maintenance costs and improving equipment performance.
AI can reduce wasted energy
One of the most uncomplicated ways to tackle the issue of climate change is to reduce wasted energy. Wasted energy produced by buildings worldwide accounts for more than a quarter of carbon emissions. Simply using artificial intelligence in the machines can help reduce a massive portion of wasted energy in a single building.
AI can predict extreme environmental conditions
Over the years, the data collected from different AI machines have helped identify and predict atmospheric changes at an early phase. With the information gathered, people on the ground were safe and prepared accordingly.
Cons Of Using Artificial Intelligence In The Wind Energy
Artificial intelligence is a hot topic in the wind industry nowadays. Although many benefits come with using AI, there are also some risks.
The cons of artificial intelligence in the wind industry are that it requires a lot of money upfront and ongoing maintenance costs to keep it running smoothly. In addition, many people will lose their jobs on wind farms. This is because AI can also perform what humans can do more advanced manner.
In the World Economic Forum report, there are six categories of risks incorporated in using AI:
Social risks
Knowing that AI is more on automation processes, there could be a possible loss of employment rate for people working in the wind energy market. In addition, AI can contribute to global conflicts if weapon systems are poorly used instead of for environmental advantages.
Ethical risks
Big data collection in AI systems can raise privacy issues and bias. Increased bias can happen since AI uses inferred assumptions in making decisions.
Economic risks
Not all companies can quickly adapt to the growing usage of AI technology in the energy market. With this, as the market becomes highly competitive and digitized, most companies without technological advancements may close, hurting the economy.
Control risks
Despite the ability of AI to work as humans do, the outcomes they can produce are unpredictable. This is because AI does not have a better critical and empathic mind than humans.
Performance
Deep learning and AI technology systems could be risky; sometimes, the results may be difficult to understand. With this scenario, AI may delay possible warnings for natural disasters, risking many people’s lives.
Security
Since AI is about computer science, possible hacking can happen. Hacking will interfere with energy production, transportation, disaster preparedness announcements, and other crucial systems.
Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning
The abundance of AI and machine learning can slow the battle against climate change.
Artificial intelligence technology and machine learning are types of computer science. AI technology emphasizes the creation of machines that mimic human behavior. Examples of this are image analysis, driverless cars, and speech recognition. On the other hand, the latter focuses on machine learning algorithms — it relies on patterns and automation.
Countries That Use Artificial Intelligence
Different countries from across the globe have started to focus on using the maximum potential technology has to offer.
Artificial Intelligence has helped farmers in India get 30% higher yields of groundnut per hectare. This is made possible by having information on choosing the sowing dates and applying fertilizers.
AI has also helped Norway create autonomous and flexible electric grids and power grids to integrate more renewable energy. In China, AI technology can track pollution sources, forecast air pollution, and produce strategies to deal with it.
Additionally, artificial intelligence has helped researchers from different countries to achieve up to 99% accurate forecasting of tropical cyclones, atmospheric rivers, and weather fronts. People will be safe from various environmental disasters through this improvement in weather forecasts.
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence in wind energy has helped humans in numerous ways. It has helped us understand the wind and how it moves. This means we can build more accurate models and make better decisions on what kind of wind turbines we should install and where we should install them.
Artificial intelligence has helped us to make wind energy even more efficient. In the past, wind turbines could only generate power when facing directly into the wind. Today, modern turbines can capture energy from any direction and still operate at high efficiency.
With the help of different technological advancements such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning, we are more than ready to slow down the speed of the problems caused by climate change. Future generations will benefit significantly from all these innovations in the present.