The increasing of power of machines at one end of the scale and the growing interest in microturbines at the other end, the extension of windfarms, both onshore and offshore, are accelerating and lead to challenging issues of technical requirements, planning and legislation for all participants in wind turbine and wind farm design. There is need for updating of participants and dissemination of the information available.
The urgent need to reduce dependence on fossil fuels is being met, in part, by the introduction of wind turbines, either singly or in multiple arrays, both onshore and offshore. There are over 70000 turbines installed world-wide. Europe is leading in the development of wind-generating capacity, with about 70% of the world total, encouraged by the realisation, at the highest political levels, of the problems of energy security and global warming. Germany (~19000MW) and Spain (~11000MW) are currently the primary producers of wind power in Europe,. Denmark is the country which produces the greatest proportion of its energy requirements from wind and also dominates the global export market. The USA, which was an early commercial provider of wind energy, has fallen behind Europe and presently has about 10000MW capacity. World total is about 60000MW. India, Australia, New Zealand, China and other countries are developing their wind generation. China has a current target of 30000MW by 2020. If the annual growth rate, in excess of 20% a year, is maintained there will be a global installed power of around 1000000 MW by 2020.
Development of onshore wind power brings wind turbines closer to habitation, leading to the possibility of noise problems, such that a frequent objection raised in planning procedures is that of noise and vibration.
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