Wind power engineering in the world and perspectives of its development in Turkey

The development of a world wind power for the last decade is reviewed. Leading positions are taken by Germany, Spain and USA. The rates of growth of this branch of power engineering exceed 39% annually. It seems that the wind power is esteemed in these countries as the most perspective branch of electric power industry. The great success achieved by Germany and Spain in last years in developing wind power industry served as an example for all countries that have wind energy potentials. Information describing growth of powers, single wind power turbines, dynamics of increments of power of WPT on separate countries are submitted. During the last 10 years, the cost of WPT construction decreased more than twice, and it seems that specific investment costs reached a stable point for about 10 years. Furthermore, it can be concluded from wind farm investment costs that the cost of a WPT is about 1.3 times the cost of wind turbine. The information on the sizes of large WPT are adduced. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.