How Much Space is Needed to Capture the Wind
Posted July 13, 2009 at 8:51 am 
Filed in: With growing interest in wind, it occurred to us that it would be interesting to know how much space a wind farm would need to generate the same output as a conventional power plant.
Many nuclear power plants in the United States have in the area of 1,000 mW of capacity. Operating at a 92 percent capacity factor, such a plant would generate 8,059,200 mWh of power over the course of a year.
GE’s largest wind turbine has a rated output of 3.6 MW. In order to achieve that output, however, the wind has to be blowing at 16 meters/second. The average wind speed in the US’ “wind corridor” is approximately 7 meters/second. With the wind at that speed, the output of the 3.6 MW wind turbine falls off to about 0.55 MW. At an average output of 0.55 MW, each turbine would generate 4,818 mWh of power a year. Assuming that output, it would take 1,672 wind turbines to match the annual power output of a single 1,000 mW power plant.
Using GE’s spacing requirements those 1,672 wind turbines would occupy about 105 square miles, a square piece of land a little more than 10 miles long on each side. By contrast a nuclear plant may operate on a piece of land far smaller than a single square mile. It is important to note that most of the land needed for a wind farm may also be available for other uses, although it is necessary to provide access and install power lines to each turbine.
The fact that wind farms take up more space is not a criticism. It is merely an observation, one that we thought might be useful to consider when evaluating the opportunities to install wind generating capacity.
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