Question

what are the limitations of using wind energy

Answer 1

Due to the limitations of wind energy, it is not a favorite choice of energy source. Some of the major disadvantages of wind energy are that; no electricity is produced if there is no wind, it is expensive to install, big acreages of land have to be used, and the turbines kill birds.

The limitation of wind power is that no electricity is produced when the wind is not blowing. Thus, it cannot be used as a dependable source of base load power. Utilities and merchant generators will not invest huge sums of money into a technology that does not work when the wind is not blowing. Americans want the lights on when they flip the switch, no questions asked. Wind power will probably increase its market share when we develop a 'smart grid' that can handle multiple distributed generation input sources of electrical power.

Wind Turbines Killing Migrating Birds

It has been estimated that about 45,000 birds (golden eagles, kestrels and red-tailed hawks) have been killed over the past twenty years by the whirling blades of wind turbines. The rows of spinning blades at Altamont Pass, east of San Francisco, turn wind into electricity, but they are killing many predatory birds whose annual migration route includes the pass. Past attempts to reduce bird kills have included painting the tips of turbine blades to try to make them more visible to birds and installing screens around generators. These measures have failed to substantially lower the number of bird deaths.