Technical Report No.1256

No. 1256

Present Condition and Future Trend of Wind Power Technologies

Investigating R&D Committee on Present Condition and Future Trend of Wind Power Technologies

Keyword :

Wind power generation, Power variation, Smoothing, Offshore wind power, Mechanical safety and reliability

In recent years, installation of wind power generation has been making remarkable progress from the viewpoint of such as security and reliability of the energy supply, efficient utilization of the energy, and global environment protection. However, it is not long since wind power generation was started substantially, as called "new energy", and is not a mature technique compared with conventional hydro, thermal, and nuclear power generation. Thus, various problems become clear with the expansion of the installation and the accumulation of the operation experience, and new technologies are under development.
In this report, present condition and future trend of wind power technologies, mainly regarding power variation, offshore wind power, and safety, were summarized from a wide viewpoints of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and civil engineering, by investigating domestic and foreign articles and technical reports as follows:
(1) Present condition and problems were summarized. Especially, measures taken against output power variation, which has an impact on the integration into power system, are classified systematically. Then, technologies required for the future introduction expansion are summarized. These help to understand the latest technologies of wind power generation.
(2) Since European countries are advanced more than Japan about rate of wind power generation and operational experiences, information of not only Japan but also foreign countries was incorporated in the report, in order to understand the circumstances in the world.