How is renewable electricity generated?

Renewable energy is considered as any method of producing power that comes from a source that can naturally be replaced, such as wind or solar. Fuels such as gas and oil will not only run out one day but also produce large amounts of harmful gases when they are burned.

There are only two commercially viable methods of producing electricity on earth, which are solar panel technology and the turning of an alternator. Whatever the type of fuel burned in a power station, whether it is scrap wood, people’s garbage, or natural gas, these are the sources of creating heat to turn water into highly pressurized steam that blasts through a turbine. The turbine is connected to an alternator and it’s the alternator itself that creates the electricity.

The trick is to find something that can turn an alternator that is clean and won’t run out, but there’s another problem.

To create electricity, a series of magnets or conductors have to be spun around, and the more electricity you want to produce, the more powerful the magnets have to be. Magnets are solid blocks of metal alloy and weigh a huge amount, with the magnets and conductors from a 1MW alternator weighing as much as 5,000 kilos. To spin something this heavy round and round consistently would require a more reliable source than wind or water, which is why we still rely so heavily on burnable fuel today.

As for how renewable energy is produced, it all comes down to what can turn a turbine. Here are the most common types of methods used to turn an alternator using renewable sources.

Renewable wind energy

There will always be wind blasting around the planet and powering wind turbines the world over, but the problem comes when the wind stops. The turbines themselves are very simple and come in two main forms, the standard horizontal axis wind turbine is the most common by far and usually sits on the tops of hills or out to sea for the bigger farms, and the vertical axis turbine which is normally smaller but have the advantage of not needing to be repositioned towards the wind.

The spinning blades rotate an axis that turns the alternator and produces electricity but can only do so when it is windy enough. The smaller the turbine, the less amount of wind it needs to turn, but the less power it will produce. When it comes to powering an entire city, you will need numerous large wind turbines, but due to their size and the weight of the blades, they can only work in higher winds and are useless in a gentle breeze.

Water energy is the most consistent form of renewable energy, but can only be used in specific places.

Starting in the early 17th century, most of the fast-flowing streams and rivers in Europe were littered with industrial buildings looking to use the nonstop power that water could provide. Water wheels were built to power everything from grain mills to metal forges, but were almost always used mechanically by having tools and machines attached to the axis instead of using them to generate electricity.

Water wheels at the side of the river won’t be able to meet the demands of modern living and will do little more than power a few nearby houses. To generate a large amount of electricity with water, a dam must be built but this can only be done in specific areas where all the criteria are met.

A dam works by having an outlet so the water it’s holding back can escape but does so by passing through a turbine. On the larger dams, the opening is near the bottom of the wall so it can also use the pressure of the water to create additional force, and can hold enough water to maintain a flow until it’s topped up again by streams, rivers, or rainfall.

The main issue with building dams is you can’t choose where they can go or what’s near them. Having a large valley you can block up and use to produce a huge amount of power isn’t going to be much good if it’s in the middle of nowhere. There will also be a great deal of opposition from environmentalist groups and the holding back of so much water could lower the natural water tables downriver and affect farmland and forests.

Smaller forms of renewable water sources are an excellent choice and can be fitted along the majority of rivers, but can be expensive to build and difficult to maintain. This would only work if there were thousands of smaller stations spread out along the river so the environment wouldn’t be affected and fewer people would complain. The most efficient way of producing renewable water energy is through something called a vortex turbine, and might just be the answer to massively reducing our dependency on burnable fuels.

The vortex water turbine, how does it work and how much can it produce?

The amount of water that flows into them has its force increased through gravity and a vortex effect, like the swirling effect of water before it goes down the drain. The extra force created by the drop and vortex effect means that less water is needed to produce more power, and they also allow small fish to pass through unharmed. The initial flow is filtered using a grate to make sure no branches or anything that could block it up gets through, but smaller objects and living creatures can pass right through the blades unharmed and quickly rejoin the river’s main flow.

Advantages of the vortex turbine

• They need less water to create more energy.

• They don’t harm natural plant or animal life, even if they pass through the turbine.

• Their small size allows them to be put on small streams and rivers.

• They don’t create an eye sore like the larger wall-based dams.

Disadvantages of vortex turbines

• The price is still quite high and unless you’re using it for a business or something high-drain then it will take many years before it pays for itself.

• Rivers can have strange and awkward laws depending on where you live which may require planning permission or a special kind of permit to build the concrete base and redirect part of the flow.

• There’s always someone who will put in a letter of complaint and this may mean the local authorities telling you to remove it.
  The biggest disadvantage is the most obvious, what if you don’t live next to or have access to a water system you can build on?

After the standard wind and water-based methods of turning an alternator, there are only a few other types of experimental methods, like wave energy for example. This involves a series of floating plastic wave catchers that rotate slightly when a wave passes by, and they use this slight rotation to turn the axis they are attached to. Things like this create a small amount of constant energy but are expensive to build and maintain and involve having to block off entire sections of the coast to build long lines of floating plastic containers.

The only other method of producing large amounts of renewable energy that doesn’t involve the turning of an alternator is solar energy. These work by turning the sun’s energy into a usable form of electricity, and if you want to know how they do that then have a look at “how do solar panels produce electricity?”

The main issue when considering mass-producing renewable energy with solar panels is storing it. Just like wind energy, solar panels only create electricity when the sun is out, and not blocked by bad weather. The main reason that we aren’t swapping over to renewable sources for our energy needs is that we can’t store it, and battery technology is decades away from what we need it to be when it comes to powering entire settlements.

The only exceptions to this are the countries of Iceland, Albania and Paraguay

These three countries are the only ones on earth that meet all of their home energy needs through their renewable energy sources. Albania and Paraguay do this with 100% hydroelectric energy, and Iceland uses both water and geothermal power.