Portal:Wind power

The Gansu Wind Farm in Gansu, China

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...)

Wind turbine syndrome and wind farm syndrome are terms for the alleged medical condition related to the proximity of wind turbines. Proponents claim that these effects include congenital abnormality, cancer, vertigo, nausea, autism, ADHD, death, tinnitus, stress, fatigue, memory loss, migraines and sleep deprivation, for which there is no scientific backing. The distribution of recorded events, however, correlates with media coverage of wind farm syndrome itself, and not with the presence or absence of wind farms. Neither term is recognised by any international disease classification system, nor do they appear in any title or abstract in the United States National Library of Medicine's PubMed database. Wind turbine syndrome has been characterized as pseudoscience.

One Australian fossil fuel industry funded anti-wind farm astroturfing group, the Waubra Foundation, has been identified amongst those involved in promoting the idea of wind turbine syndrome. An investigation led to the foundation being stripped of its status as a health promotion charity. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

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This article lists the largest offshore wind farms that are currently operational rated by nameplate capacity. It also lists the largest offshore wind farms currently under construction, the largest proposed offshore wind farms, and offshore wind farms with notability other than size.

As of 2022, Hornsea 2 in the United Kingdom is the largest offshore wind farm in the world at 1,386 MW. (Full article...)
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This is a list of the largest onshore wind farms that are currently operational, rated by generating capacity. Also listed are onshore wind farms with notability other than size, and largest proposed projects. (Full article...)
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Sri Lanka's electricity demand is currently met by nine thermal power stations, fifteen large hydroelectric power stations, and fifteen wind farms, with a smaller share from small hydro facilities and other renewables such as solar. Most hydroelectric and thermal/fossil fuel–based power stations in the country are owned and/or operated by the government via the state-run Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), while the renewable energy sector consists mostly of privately run plants operating on a power purchase agreement with the CEB.

Per CEB's 2016 generation report released in mid-2017, the country has a total combined installed generation capacity of 4,017 megawatts (MW), of which 2,115 MW (52.65%) was from thermal (900 MW/22.40% from coal and 1,215 MW/30.25% from fuel oil), 1,726 MW (42.97%) from hydroelectricity, and the remaining 176 MW (4.38%) from other renewable sources such as wind, biomass, and solar. These generation sources produced a total of 14,149 GWh of electricity during that year, of which 9,508 GWh (67.20%), 4,220 GWh (29.83%), and 421 GWh (2.98%) was from thermal, hydro, and other renewables, respectively. (Full article...)
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Moulin de Craca.

Moulin de Craca is a windmill in Plouézec, Côtes-d'Armor, France. First working in 1844 it was restored from 1995. It is popular amongst both locals and tourists because of its location on top of a cliff overlooking Port Lazo.

Every August the Plouézec-Ballinamore twinning committee organises Noz Ar Vilin Fest Noz around the windmill. There is a selection of Breton and Irish music and dancing, as well as local cuisine and drinks. Amongst the specialities are Moules-Frites (Mussels and chips), Crêpes, Galettes, Breton cider, and Chouchen. (Full article...)
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Xarolla Windmill

The Xarolla Windmill at Żurrieq, Malta is one of the windmills constructed by the Order of St. John in the villages and towns of Malta. It was built in the 18th century and is presently one of the most preserved windmills in Malta. The windmill is an agri-tourism attraction and is found in a complex of agricultural buildings such as a farmhouse, a chapel, catacombs and others. The windmill is also used as an art studio.

In 1674 Grand Master Nicolas Cotoner built five windmills around Malta, one of which was tax-Xarolla. Tax-Xarolla Windmill was built by Grand Master Antonio Manoel de Vilhena in 1724. Sometimes after 1998, this was restored to its original working order. It is now the only functioning windmill on the islands of Malta. This is a valuable witness of local culture and heritage; it still has parts of the original mechanisms and can still grind the wheat. In the year 2000, this building was passed over to be administered by the Żurrieq Local Council and is intended to serve also as a cultural centre. The sails were extensively damaged in a gale on 18 March 2022. (Full article...)
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This page is a list of power stations in Japan that are publicly or privately owned. (Full article...)
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Myreagre Mølle (Myreagre Windmill) is a whitewashed tower mill located 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) east of Aakirkeby on the Danish island of Bornholm. Built in 1865, it remained in service until 1970. (Full article...)
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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...)
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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...)
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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 mill c.1892

Ringle Crouch Green Mill is a smock mill in Sandhurst, Kent, England, that was demolished to base level in 1945, and now has a new smock tower built on it as residential accommodation and an electricity generator. (Full article...)
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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...)
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The Wendhausen Windmill (German: Windmühle Wendhausen) is a tower mill located in Wendhausen, a town within the municipality of Lehre, Lower Saxony, Germany. Built in 1837, it is the only five-sailed windmill in Germany still in operation. (Full article...)
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Vinegar Hill Windmill or Templeshannon Windmill is a tower mill on Vinegar Hill, Enniscorthy, County Wexford. (Full article...)
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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...)
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Button's Mill, c1911

Jay's Mill, Button's Mill or Victoria Road Mill is a tower mill at Diss, Norfolk, England which has been truncated and converted to residential accommodation. (Full article...)
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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...)
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Waltham Windmill is a six-sailed windmill located in the village of Waltham, five miles from Grimsby in North East Lincolnshire, England. It is renowned in the area for having all six sails still in full working capacity, being one of the very few windmills like this in the United Kingdom. (Full article...)
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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...)
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Windmills are powered by their sails. Sails are found in different forms, from primitive common sails to the advanced patent sails. (Full article...)
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The following page lists some power stations in mainland China, sorted by energy source and location. (Full article...)
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Morgan Lewis Windmill, St. Andrew, Barbados is the biggest and only surviving complete sugar windmill in the Caribbean. The mill stopped operating in 1947. In 1962 the mill was given to the Barbados National Trust by its owner Egbert L. Bannister for preservation as a museum.

The site was listed in the 1996 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund. Restoration began by the Barbados National Trust during the following summer. In 1997, financial support was provided by American Express for emergency repairs. The mill was dismantled for restoration, and reopened in 1999. With all its original working parts having been preserved intact, the sails were able to turn again after the project was completed, and cane was ground again after more than half a century. (Full article...)
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This is a list of offshore wind farms in Japan. Japan intends to announce winners of a second contract round for 1.8 GW of capacity in March 2024. (Full article...)
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The Ben Darrah Water Tank and Well House near Shoshone, Idaho, United States, were built in c. 1916 by stonemason Bill Darrah. They were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983; the listing included two contributing buildings on 1.3 acres (0.53 ha).

The water tank is round, constructed of rock walls about 12 feet (3.7 m) tall and 14 feet (4.3 m) in diameter. It is covered by a concrete-coated wood plank cover. It is one of Bill Darrah's earlier water tank works, and was built for his brother Ben Darrah's upper ranch. (Full article...)
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A tower mill is a type of vertical windmill consisting of a brick or stone tower, on which sits a wooden 'cap' or roof, which can rotate to bring the sails into the wind.

This rotating cap on a firm masonry base gave tower mills great advantages over earlier post mills, as they could stand much higher, bear larger sails, and thus afford greater reach into the wind. Windmills in general had been known to civilization for centuries, but the tower mill represented an improvement on traditional western-style windmills. The tower mill was an important source of power for Europe for nearly 600 years from 1300 to 1900, contributing to 25 percent of the industrial power of all wind machines before the advent of the steam engine and coal power. (Full article...)

Wind power topics

Windmill topics

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...)

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

Image 1Components of a horizontal axis wind turbine (gearbox, rotor shaft and brake assembly) being lifted into position (from Wind turbine)
Image 2Workers inspect wind turbine blades. (from Wind turbine)
Image 3A group of wind turbines in Zhangjiakou, Hebei, China (from Windmill)
Image 4The Persian horizontal windmill, the first practical windmill. (from Windmill)
Image 5Part of the Biglow Canyon Wind Farm, Oregon, United States with a turbine under construction (from Wind farm)
Image 6Offshore 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 7A wind farm in a mountainous area in Galicia, Spain (from Wind farm)
Image 8Windshaft, brake wheel, and brake blocks in smock mill d'Admiraal in Amsterdam (from Windmill)
Image 9Don Quixote being struck by a windmill (1863 illustration by Gustave Doré). (from Windmill)
Image 10The three primary types: VAWT Savonius, HAWT towered; VAWT Darrieus as they appear in operation (from Wind turbine)
Image 11De Valk windmill in mourning position following the death of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands in 1962 (from Windmill)
Image 12Wind turbines in the Bahrain World Trade Center (from Wind turbine)
Image 13The San Gorgonio Pass wind farm in California, United States. (from Wind farm)
Image 14San Gorgonio Pass wind farm, California (from Wind farm)
Image 15Kiosk 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 16Development in size and power of wind turbines, 1990–2016 (from Wind turbine)
Image 17The Nordex N50 wind turbine and visitor centre of Lamma Winds in Hong Kong, China (from Wind turbine)
Image 18The Tafila Wind Farm in Jordan, is the first large scale wind farm in the region. (from Wind farm)
Image 19The windmills at Kinderdijk in the village of Kinderdijk, Netherlands is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (from Windmill)
Image 20Windpump in far western New South Wales, Australia (from Windmill)
Image 21Wind farm interference (in yellow circle) on radar map (from Wind farm)
Image 22A 19th-century reconstruction of Heron's wind-powered organ (from Windmill)
Image 23Diagram of the smock mill at Meopham, Kent (from Windmill)
Image 24Two smock mills with a stage in Greetsiel, Germany (from Windmill)
Image 25Offshore wind turbines near Copenhagen, Denmark. (from Wind farm)
Image 26Oilmill De Zoeker, paintmill De Kat and paltrok sawmill De Gekroonde Poelenburg at the Zaanse Schans (from Windmill)
Image 27The 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 28South Brooklyn Marine Terminal Wind Turbine (from Wind turbines on public display)
Image 29A wind turbine in Huikku, Hailuoto, Finland (from Windmill)
Image 30Egbert Livensz van der Poel, Windmill Fire (17th century), National Museum in Kraków (from Windmill)
Image 31A windmill in Wales, United Kingdom. 1815. (from Windmill)
Image 32Éole, the largest vertical axis wind turbine, in Cap-Chat, Quebec, Canada (from Wind turbine)
Image 33Nacelle of a wind turbine (from Wind turbine)
Image 34Map of available wind power over the United States. Colour codes indicate wind power density class. (from Wind farm)
Image 35Offshore Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs) at Scroby Sands Wind Farm, England (from Wind turbine)
Image 36Jhimpir Wind Farm, Pakistan (from Wind farm)
Image 371813 technical drawing (from Windmill)
Image 38The 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 39Onshore Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines in Zhangjiakou, Hebei, China (from Wind turbine)
Image 40Inside view of a wind turbine tower, showing the tendon cables (from Wind turbine)
Image 41The Pubnico Wind Farm taken from Beach Point, Lower East Pubnico, Nova Scotia (from Wind farm)
Image 42Hooper's Mill, Margate, Kent, an eighteenth-century European horizontal windmill (from Windmill)
Image 43The Australian Canunda Wind Farm, South Australia at sunrise (from Wind farm)
Image 44The Hancock County wind energy center in Iowa (from Wind turbines on public display)
Image 45A windmill in Kotka, Finland in May 1987 (from Windmill)
Image 46Northern Iowa wind farm (from Wind farm)
Image 47Aermotor-style windpump in South Dakota, US (from Windmill)
Image 48Nordex wind turbine manufacturing plant in Jonesboro, Arkansas, United States (from Wind turbine)
Image 49Technical drawing of a 1793 Dutch smock mill for land drainage (from Windmill)
Image 50An isometric drawing of the machinery of the Beebe Windmill (from Windmill)
Image 51Nashtifan wind turbines in Sistan, Iran (from Wind turbine)
Image 52The 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 53Thorntonbank Wind Farm, using 5 MW turbines REpower 5M in the North Sea off the coast of Belgium (from Wind turbine)
Image 54Windmill in Kuremaa, Estonia (from Windmill)
Image 555-sail Holgate windmill in York, England (from Windmill)
Image 56Interior view, Pantigo windmill, East Hampton, New York Historic American Buildings Survey (from Windmill)
Image 57An aerial view of Whitelee Wind Farm, the largest onshore wind farm in the UK and second-largest in Europe (from Wind farm)
Image 58James Blyth's electricity-generating wind turbine, photographed in 1891 (from Wind turbine)
Image 59Tower mills in Consuegra, Spain (from Windmill)
Image 60Wind farm in Xinjiang, China (from Wind farm)
Image 61Cross section of a post mill (from Windmill)
Image 62Roscoe Wind Farm, an onshore wind farm, in West Texas (from Wind farm)
Image 63Windmill in the Azores islands, Portugal. (from Windmill)
Image 64A 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 65A turbine blade convoy passing through Edenfield, England (from Wind turbine)
Image 66Illustration of the wind turbine for power generation erected by Josef Friedlaender at the International Electrical Exhibition in Vienna in 1883 (from Wind turbine)
Image 67Components of a horizontal-axis wind turbine (from Wind turbine)
Image 68A wind farm overlooking Bada Bagh, India (from Wind farm)
Image 69Gouda Wind Facility, South Africa (from Wind farm)
Image 70German physicist Albert Betz had a crucial role in the development wind turbine technology. Betz's law states that no wind turbine can capture more than 59.3% of the kinetic energy of the wind. (from Wind turbine)
Image 71A vertical axis Twisted Savonius type turbine. (from Wind turbine)
Image 72In the U.S. cats kill on the order of 10,000 times as many birds as wind turbines. (from Wind turbine)

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Wind power
Wind power	Airborne wind energy By country History Land vehicles Offshore Turbines on public display Windmill panemone
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