Portal:Wind power

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Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity generation. Today, wind power is generated almost completely using wind turbines, generally grouped into wind farms and connected to the electrical grid.

In 2024, wind supplied over 2,494 TWh of electricity, which was 8.1% of world electricity. With about 100 GW added during 2021, mostly in China and the United States, global installed wind power capacity exceeded 800 GW. 30 countries generated more than a tenth of their electricity from wind power in 2024 and wind generation has nearly tripled since 2015. To help meet the Paris Agreement goals to limit climate change, analysts say it should expand much faster – by over 1% of electricity generation per year. (Full article...)

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In 2021 France reached a total of 18,676 megawatts (MW) installed wind power capacity placing France at that time as the world's seventh largest wind power nation by installed capacity, behind the United Kingdom and Brazil and ahead of Canada and Italy. According to the IEA the yearly wind production was 20.2 TWh in 2015, representing almost 23% of the 88.4 TWh from renewable sources in France during that year. Wind provided 4.3% of the country's electricity demand in 2015.

Wind energy capacity, 2014-2023 (MW)
2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
9,201	10,298	11,567	13,499	14,900	16,427	17,535	18,551	20,811	22,196

Onshore wind energy capacity, 2014-2023 (MW)
2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
9,191	10,287	11,556	13,497	14,898	16,425	17,533	18,549	20,809	22,194

France has the second largest wind potential in Europe. The country's , wind power potential is due to its large land area and extensive agricultural landscape where turbines may be located more readily as well as access to considerable offshore resources. (Full article...)

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General windmill articles

Image 1
Maan Wind Farm 80 MW

As of 2021, there are at least eight operational wind power plants at Ibrahimyah, Hofa, Maan Hussania & Tafila. The Ibrahimyah plant, located approximately 80 km north of Amman, consists of 4 wind turbines with capacity 0.08 MW for each. The Hofa plant, located approximately 92 km north of Amman, consists of 5 wind turbines with capacity 0.225 MW for each. The Tafila Wind Farm is located in Tafilah Governorate in southwest Jordan. In Maan there are two Wind Farms. Maan Wind Farm was inaugurated in 2016 in south Jordan with a capacity of 80 MW, and Rajef Wind Farm reached the commercial Operation Date by October 2018, with a capacity of 86 MW. The 89MW Fujeij wind farm developmed and owend by KEPCO reached commercial operation date in October 2019. The Abour Energy wind farm developed by AMEA and Xenel industries reached commercial operation date (COD) in July 2021. The Daehan Wind Farm, developed by a joint venture of DL Energy and KOSPO also reached COD in July 2021. (Full article...)
$Image 2 This is a list of operational, offshore wind farms in Denmark (within the national maritime boundaries). Denmark's wind power generation is the highest in the world as a fraction of domestic consumption, reaching 47% in 2019. Data is primarily from the 4C Offshore's Global Offshore Wind Farm Map and Database. Tariff data is supplied by the Danish Energy Agency. The name of the wind farm is the name used by the energy company when referring to the farm, and is usually related to a shoal or the name of the nearest town on shore. The "wind farm" part of the name is implied and hence omitted for ease of reading. (Full article...)$

Image 2
This is a list of operational, offshore wind farms in Denmark (within the national maritime boundaries). Denmark's wind power generation is the highest in the world as a fraction of domestic consumption, reaching 47% in 2019.

Data is primarily from the 4C Offshore's Global Offshore Wind Farm Map and Database. Tariff data is supplied by the Danish Energy Agency. The name of the wind farm is the name used by the energy company when referring to the farm, and is usually related to a shoal or the name of the nearest town on shore. The "wind farm" part of the name is implied and hence omitted for ease of reading. (Full article...)
Image 3

Montefiore Windmill, 30 March 2016

The Montefiore Windmill is a landmark windmill in Jerusalem. Designed as a flour mill, it was built in 1857 on a slope opposite the western city walls of Jerusalem, where three years later the new Jewish neighbourhood of Mishkenot Sha'ananim was erected, both by the efforts of British Jewish banker and philanthropist Moses Montefiore. Jerusalem at the time was part of Ottoman-ruled Palestine. Today the windmill serves as a small museum dedicated to the achievements of Montefiore. It was restored in 2012 with a new cap and sails in the style of the originals. The mill can turn in the wind. (Full article...)
Image 4

Maud Foster Mill, January 2008

Maud Foster Windmill is a seven-storey, five sail windmill located by the Maud Foster Drain in Skirbeck, Boston, Lincolnshire, from which she is named. She is one of the largest operating windmills in England being 80 feet (24.38 m) tall to the cap ball.

The tower mill and adjoining granary is grade I listed building. The mill was built in 1819 for Isaac and Thomas Reckitt of Wainfleet. It was repaired and restored in 1988. (Full article...)
Image 5
Diagram showing an underdrift windmill

This glossary of mill machinery covers the major pieces of machinery to be found in windmills, watermills and horse mills. It does not cover machinery found in modern factories. (Full article...)
Image 6

The mill in June 2014

Holgate Windmill is a tower mill at Holgate in York, North Yorkshire, England which has been restored to working order. (Full article...)
Image 7
Tjasker Ossenzijl
The tjasker (West Frisian: jasker, German: Fluttermühle) is a small type of windmill used solely for drainage purposes. It is distinctive for its simple construction, featuring only a single inclined shaft that carries the sails on one end and an Archimedes' screw on the other, in this way avoiding the need for any gearing. The tjasker is commonly known as a typical Frisian windmill though it is also found in other Dutch provinces and in north Germany. (Full article...)
Image 8
Smock mill with fantail (Sønderho, Fanø, Denmark)

The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded, thatched, or shingled tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind. This type of windmill got its name from its resemblance to smocks worn by farmers in an earlier period. (Full article...)
Image 9
Leonardusmolen, in Limburg area, Netherlands

The List of windmills is a link page for any windmill or windpump. (Full article...)
Image 10
The following page lists all the power stations in Sweden. For traction power, see List of installations for 15 kV AC railway electrification in Sweden. (Full article...)
Image 11
China has the world's largest capacity of offshore wind power, with 25 GW operational as of mid 2022.
Offshore wind in China is growing rapidly, with 16.9 GW added during 2021. (Full article...)
Image 12
A replica 18th century Dutch windmill fabricated recently in the Netherlands and then assembled on the shore of Lake Imba near Sakura, Japan, named in honour of 'The Love' (De Liefde), the first Dutch sailing vessel to reach Japan in 1600.

Wind rights are rights relating to windmills, wind turbines and wind power. Historically in Continental Europe wind rights were manorial rights and obligations relating to the operation and profitability of windmills. In modern times, as wind becomes a more important source of power, rights relating to wind turbines and windmills are sometimes referred to as "wind rights". (Full article...)
Image 13
This is a list of wind farms in Australia, with a generating capacity of more than 50 MW, which are operating, under construction, or for which planning approval has been received. (Full article...)
Image 14

Mostert's Mill, September 2012

Mostert's Mill (Afrikaans: Mostert se Meul) is a historic windmill in Mowbray, Cape Town, South Africa. It was built in 1796 and is the oldest surviving complete windmill in South Africa. It was almost completely destroyed by a wildfire on 18 April 2021 but was fully restored by April 2024 and is once more operational and used to grind wheat into whole meal, using the power of the wind. The oldest windmill in South Africa is the De Nieuwe Molen mill in Cape Town, built in 1782. (Full article...)
Image 15
This article lists all power stations in Uruguay. (Full article...)
Image 16
Gudhjem Windmill, Bornholm

Gudhjem Windmill (Danish: Gudhjem Mølle) is located in the village of Gudhjem on the Danish island of Bornholm. With a sail span of 24 metres (79 ft), the Dutch mill is the largest windmill in Denmark. It served from 1893 to 1962 when it was taken out of commission. (Full article...)
Image 17
Windmills are powered by their sails. Sails are found in different forms, from primitive common sails to the advanced patent sails. (Full article...)
Image 18
Aerial view of Lillgrund Wind Farm

This is a list of operational, offshore wind farms in Sweden (within the national maritime boundaries).

This information is gathered from multiple Internet sources, and commercial sources.
The name of the wind farm is the name used by the energy company when referring to the farm and is usually related to a shoal or the name of the nearest town on shore. The "wind farm" part is implied and hence removed for clarity. (Full article...)
Image 19

The mill as preserved

Heckington Windmill is the only eight-sailed tower windmill still standing in the United Kingdom with its sails intact.

Heckington is located between Sleaford and Boston in Lincolnshire, England. The mill stands very close to Heckington railway station, hence its name of the 'Station Mill' in the 19th century. The windmill is designated a Grade I listed building. (Full article...)
Image 20
There are three operating offshore wind farms in the United States, and several more are in permitting or under construction. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management studies potential sites in federal waters for offshore wind energy development and leases sites to developers, who work with state regulatory agencies to interconnect and market their electricity. (Full article...)
Image 21

Alford Windmill, September 2005

Alford Windmill is a five-sailed windmill in Alford, Lincolnshire and the only surviving windmill out of four. Though the windmill has been restored to working order, it no longer supplies flour for sale. (Full article...)
Image 22

The Old Windmill, Observatory Park

The Old Windmill is a heritage-listed tower mill in Observatory Park adjacent to Wickham Park at 226 Wickham Terrace, Spring Hill, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was built in the 1820s by convict labour in the Moreton Bay penal settlement and is the oldest surviving building in Queensland. It is also known as Brisbane Observatory and Windmill Tower. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992. Today it is the centrepiece of Observatory Park and a lookout over parts of the Brisbane CBD. (Full article...)
Image 23
Burgos Wind Farm in Burgos, Ilocos Norte

This is an incomplete list of power plants present in the Philippines. (Full article...)
Image 24

Elphin Windmill is a fully restored 18th-century tower mill in Elphin, County Roscommon, viewed as a rare piece of Irish industrial architectural heritage, and possibly the oldest operational windmill in Ireland. (Full article...)
Image 25

The rustic/original appearance of one of the windmills, on the eastern edge of Ponta Negra

The Windmills of Corvo (Portuguese: Moinhos de vento do Corvo/Moinhos de vento da Ponta Negra) is a group of windmills located in the municipality of Vila do Corvo, island of Corvo, in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores. (Full article...)

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The windmills at Kinderdijk in the village of Kinderdijk, Netherlands is a UNESCO World Heritage Site

A windmill is a machine operated by the force of wind acting on vanes or sails to mill grain (gristmills), pump water, generate electricity, or drive other machinery. Windmills were used throughout the high medieval and early modern periods; the horizontal or panemone windmill first appeared in Persia during the 9th century, and the vertical windmill first appeared in northwestern Europe in the 12th century. Regarded as an icon of Dutch culture, there are approximately 1,000 windmills in the Netherlands today. (Full article...)

Examples of multi-sailed windmills

Examples of tower mills

General images

The following are images from various wind power-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A vertical axis Twisted Savonius type turbine. (from Wind turbine)
Image 2Offshore wind turbines near Copenhagen, Denmark. (from Wind farm)
Image 3The windmills at Kinderdijk in the village of Kinderdijk, Netherlands is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (from Windmill)
Image 4Egbert Lievensz van der Poel, Windmill Fire (17th century), National Museum in Kraków (from Windmill)
Image 5Gouda Wind Facility, South Africa (from Wind farm)
Image 6Roscoe Wind Farm, an onshore wind farm, in West Texas (from Wind farm)
Image 7Aermotor-style windpump in South Dakota, US (from Windmill)
Image 8Components of a horizontal-axis wind turbine (from Wind turbine)
$Image 9Offshore windfarms, including floating windfarms, provide a small but growing fraction of total windfarm power generation. Such power generation capacity must grow substantially to help meet the IEA's Net Zero by 2050 pathway to combat climate change. (from Wind farm)$

Image 9Offshore windfarms, including floating windfarms, provide a small but growing fraction of total windfarm power generation. Such power generation capacity must grow substantially to help meet the IEA's Net Zero by 2050 pathway to combat climate change. (from Wind farm)
Image 10Oilmill De Zoeker, paintmill De Kat and paltrok sawmill De Gekroonde Poelenburg at the Zaanse Schans (from Windmill)
Image 11Nordex wind turbine manufacturing plant in Jonesboro, Arkansas, United States (from Wind turbine)
Image 12Illustration of the wind turbine for power generation erected by Josef Friedlaender at the International Electrical Exhibition in Vienna in 1883 (from Wind turbine)
Image 13Onshore Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines in Zhangjiakou, Hebei, China (from Wind turbine)
Image 14Technical drawing of a 1793 Dutch smock mill for land drainage (from Windmill)
Image 15Workers inspect wind turbine blades. (from Wind turbine)
Image 16A small Quietrevolution QR5 Gorlov type vertical axis wind turbine in Bristol, England. Measuring 3 m in diameter and 5 m high, it has a nameplate rating of 6.5 kW to the grid. (from Wind turbine)
Image 17German physicist Albert Betz had a crucial role in the development of wind turbine technology. Betz's law states that no wind turbine can capture more than 59.3% of the wind's kinetic energy. (from Wind turbine)
Image 18A group of wind turbines in Zhangjiakou, Hebei, China (from Windmill)
Image 19Wind farm interference (in yellow circle) on radar map (from Wind farm)
Image 20The first automatically operated wind turbine, built in Cleveland in 1887 by Charles F. Brush. It was 60 feet (18 m) tall, weighed 4 tons (3.6 metric tonnes) and powered a 12 kW generator. (from Wind turbine)
Image 21The Tafila Wind Farm in Jordan, is the first large scale wind farm in the region. (from Wind farm)
Image 22The Nordex N50 wind turbine and visitor centre of Lamma Winds in Hong Kong, China (from Wind turbine)
Image 23Offshore Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs) at Scroby Sands Wind Farm, England (from Wind turbine)
Image 24The Australian Canunda Wind Farm, South Australia at sunrise (from Wind farm)
Image 25De Valk windmill in mourning position following the death of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in 1962 (from Windmill)
Image 26Windshaft, brake wheel, and brake blocks in smock mill d'Admiraal in Amsterdam (from Windmill)
Image 27Jhimpir Wind Farm, Pakistan (from Wind farm)
Image 28A windmill in Kotka, Finland in May 1987 (from Windmill)
Image 29The San Gorgonio Pass wind farm in California, United States. (from Wind farm)
Image 30Wind farm in Xinjiang, China (from Wind farm)
Image 31Interior view, Pantigo windmill, East Hampton, New York Historic American Buildings Survey (from Windmill)
Image 32A windmill in Wales, United Kingdom. 1815. (from Windmill)
Image 33A 19th-century reconstruction of Heron's wind-powered organ (from Windmill)
Image 34Kiosk at the base of the Lamma Winds Nordex N50/800kW wind turbine on Lamma Island with displays showing current power output and cumulative energy produced. (from Wind turbines on public display)
Image 35Northern Iowa wind farm (from Wind farm)
Image 361813 technical drawing (from Windmill)
Image 37Windmill in Kuremaa, Estonia (from Windmill)
Image 38Components of a horizontal axis wind turbine (gearbox, rotor shaft and brake assembly) being lifted into position (from Wind turbine)
Image 39Part of the Biglow Canyon Wind Farm, Oregon, United States with a turbine under construction (from Wind farm)
Image 40The Pubnico Wind Farm taken from Beach Point, Lower East Pubnico, Nova Scotia (from Wind farm)
Image 415-sail Holgate windmill in York, England (from Windmill)
Image 42The Gansu Wind Farm in China is the largest wind farm in the world, with a target capacity of 20,000 MW by 2020. (from Wind farm)
Image 43Map of available wind power over the United States. Colour codes indicate wind power density class. (from Wind farm)
Image 44Éole, the largest vertical axis wind turbine, in Cap-Chat, Quebec, Canada (from Wind turbine)
Image 45South Brooklyn Marine Terminal Wind Turbine (from Wind turbines on public display)
Image 46A turbine blade convoy passing through Edenfield, England (from Wind turbine)
Image 47Don Quixote being struck by a windmill (1863 illustration by Gustave Doré). (from Windmill)
Image 48In the U.S. cats kill on the order of 10,000 times as many birds as wind turbines. (from Wind turbine)
Image 49Tower mills in Consuegra, Spain (from Windmill)
Image 50Wind turbines in the Bahrain World Trade Center (from Wind turbine)
Image 51San Gorgonio Pass wind farm, California (from Wind farm)
Image 52Cross section of a post mill (from Windmill)
Image 53The rotor of a gearless wind turbine being set. This particular turbine was prefabricated in Germany, before being shipped to the U.S. for assembly. (from Wind turbine)
Image 54An aerial view of Whitelee Wind Farm, the largest onshore wind farm in the UK and second-largest in Europe (from Wind farm)
Image 55Nacelle of a wind turbine (from Wind turbine)
Image 56Development in size and power of wind turbines, 1990–2016 (from Wind turbine)
Image 57Windpump in far western New South Wales, Australia (from Windmill)
Image 58Diagram of the smock mill at Meopham, Kent (from Windmill)
Image 59The Persian horizontal windmill, the first practical windmill. (from Windmill)
Image 60A wind farm in a mountainous area in Galicia, Spain (from Wind farm)
Image 61Hooper's Mill, Margate, Kent, an eighteenth-century European horizontal windmill (from Windmill)
Image 62The three primary types: VAWT Savonius, HAWT towered; VAWT Darrieus as they appear in operation (from Wind turbine)
Image 63Inside view of a wind turbine tower, showing the tendon cables (from Wind turbine)
Image 64An isometric drawing of the machinery of the Beebe Windmill (from Windmill)
Image 65Thorntonbank Wind Farm, using 5 MW turbines REpower 5M in the North Sea off the coast of Belgium (from Wind turbine)
Image 66Windmill in the Azores islands, Portugal. (from Windmill)
Image 67James Blyth's electricity-generating wind turbine, photographed in 1891 (from Wind turbine)
Image 68Two smock mills with a stage in Greetsiel, Germany (from Windmill)
Image 69Nashtifan wind turbines in Sistan, Iran (from Wind turbine)
Image 70A wind turbine in Huikku, Hailuoto, Finland (from Windmill)
Image 71The Hancock County wind energy center in Iowa (from Wind turbines on public display)
Image 72A wind farm overlooking Bada Bagh, India (from Wind farm)

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v t e Wind power
Wind power	Airborne wind energy By country History Land vehicles Offshore Turbines on public display Windmill panemone
Wind farms	Lists of wind farms Community-owned Offshore farms Onshore farms
Wind turbines	Aerodynamics Airborne Crosswind kite Design Floating Nacelle Pitch bearing QBlade Small Unconventional Vertical-axis Savonius Darrieus Yaw system bearing drive
Wind power industry	Consulting companies Manufacturers Software
Manufacturers	Enercon GE Wind including GE Offshore Wind Goldwind Nordex Senvion Siemens Gamesa Suzlon Vestas
Concepts	2020s in wind power research Betz's law Blade element momentum theory Capacity factor Energy return on investment Energy storage grid Energy subsidy HVDC Hybrid power Laddermill Net energy gain Tip-speed ratio Variable renewable energy Virtual power plant Wind power forecasting Wind profile power law Log wind profile Wind resource assessment
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