How Many Homes Can Be Powered by a Wind Turbine?

Wind turbines are becoming a larger part of our alternative energy mix, and more powerful turbines are being developed that can change the energy landscape. As renewable energy grows, powering our homes becomes more environmentally friendly with every passing moment. With wind turbines becoming ever so powerful, one has to ask, just how many homes can be powered by the average wind turbine?

According to the USGS, the average turbine capacity in the US is 1.67 MW. Assuming a 33% capacity, that’s 402 MW per month, enough to power 460 homes. In other words, the average turbine generates enough energy in 90 minutes to power a single home for a month. The largest turbine in the world, the Haliade-X, can power a home for two days with just one rotation.

How Much Power do Wind Turbines Generate?

Wind turbines are rated by their maximum power rating, but this can be misleading as it’s based on the turbine’s power output at a specific wind velocity. This is usually a high wind speed, often around 30 miles per hour. Add to the fact that different manufacturers will use different wind speeds to rate their turbines. A 1.5 MW turbine may be rated to generate at its rated power only when winds are 35 miles per hour. In reality, the average wind speed may be much lower than that, whilst at higher speeds, turbines are designed to automatically switch off, to avoid damage.

A wind turbine’s capacity factor is a better measure of its power output. The capacity factor is expressed as a percentage and takes average wind speeds into account, giving us a more accurate measure of how much electricity is actually being produced. A 1.5 MW turbine operating at 33% capacity is generating half a megawatt of power.

Wind Turbine Growth

Two decades ago, wind turbines were blasted as inefficient and too weak to become a major driving force in the energy industry. Many in the industry said that it would take too many wind turbines to produce a reasonable amount of electricity.

We’ve come far from the early days of wind turbines. In the 1990s, the average wind turbine power rating was between 500 and 750 kW. That’s definitely not enough to make a dent in our energy usage. A 750 kW turbine is enough to power 200 American homes per month.

While most turbines today are between 1.5 and 3 MW, much larger turbines are now taking their place. Wind turbines with power ratings of 5 MW and above are becoming more commonplace, with offshore installations being among the largest turbines. With these giant machines taking the lead, wind power can become a dominant source of electricity as we gain the ability to power more homes with fewer turbines.

Read also: Evaluation of Onshore vs Offshore Windpower

How Many Turbines Will It Take To Power an Entire Country?

On average, homes in the US consume more than their European counterparts. The average home in the US uses 867 kWh per month, while the average home in the EU uses about 311 kWh. Americans generally use more energy due to their more consumerist, car-focused lifestyles.

A 1.5 MW turbine produces about 360,000 kWh per month. That’s enough to power 415 American homes and over 1,100 households in Europe. That’s at the small end of the scale. Offshore turbines with capacities upwards of 5 MW can power a few thousand homes at once. The GE Haliade-X, the tallest wind turbine in the world with a power rating between 12 and 14 MW, generates enough electricity to power 3,600 American homes and 10,000 European homes.

Now, what if we want to power entire countries? The US residential sector consumes 1.4 million GW annually. It would take just over 318,000 turbines rated at 1.5 MW to power the entire residential sector. Europe, which has about 194 million households, has a residential sector that consumes about 706,000 GW annually. It would require 161,000 turbines to bring power to all European households.

But what if we go big? Let’s say we only use massive turbines like the Haliade-X as a power source. The US would need about 37,000 wind turbines to cover its residential sector. Europe would need just over 18,000 turbines to power its households. And that’s not even touching on in conjunction with wind power generators, to supplement household electricity usage.

How Many Homes Can Be Powered By An Entire Wind Farm?

While it’s interesting to know how much energy a wind turbine can produce, we must remember that turbines usually don’t come in singles. They work in tandem with several other turbines as part of a wind farm. The ideal location for a wind farm is an area with strong winds and few obstructions, usually far from major cities or towns. Wind farms can be either onshore or offshore. Onshore wind farms are bigger and generally produce more energy, while offshore wind farms tend to employ larger and more powerful turbines.

The largest onshore wind farm is the Gansu Wind Farm in China. It’s built to provide power to meet China’s massive electricity demands with a capacity of 8 GW. Currently, the Gansu Wind Farm operates at 40% capacity. If it were in the United States, the Gansu Wind Farm would power over 2.6 million homes. In Europe, about 7.5 million homes would be powered by this massive wind farm.

The largest offshore wind farm in the world is Hornsea 1, with a capacity of 1.2 GW. It’s not done, with several more phases planned to bring the total capacity to 6 GW in the coming years. If we assume that Hornsea 1 operates at 40% capacity, we can expect to power about 400,000 homes in the US and 1.1 million homes in the EU.

Conclusion

As wind turbines become larger and more efficient, we will be able to power more homes with fewer turbines. Whereas the average turbine twenty years ago barely pushed past the 1 MW mark, wind companies today are designing massive 14 MW machines, pushing the limit of how big turbines can get. It was often said that wind energy was simply too expensive and inefficient to become a major part of the energy infrastructure. Today, about half of all nations use wind power as a source of electricity. Denmark, a leader in wind energy, supplies half of its total consumption using wind, proving that a completely wind-powered economy is possible.