Wind Turbines and The Future of Consumer Energy

Over the years we have had advances in the way we get our electricity for common everyday household things. In the days of Thomas Edison who if you remember invented the light bulb we would soon find out that we could harness energy from the common sources of nature like lightning from a thunderstorm or the sun on a clear day. Edison found out that the atmosphere has this capability by flying a kite in the air and getting shocked which caused his kite to fall apart. In the days of the 80s and 90s decades the common way companies got electricity to consumers was by a transformer with currents that run a route on a grid to several houses at once through lines that are connected by poles. I definitely remember my house having the power go off more often before we got upgrades in my area where every time we got a storm during Spring and Summer extra sources of light like flashlights and candles would be kept in storage.

In today’s energy landscape we have electric companies like Xcel begin to build a system that uses wind generators to create currents by use of natural resources like wind that blows on places like the flat High Plains where open spaces exist. This system helps with energy conservation methods by burning less fossil fuels like coal and other similar products like this that can put off gases that affect the air quality of the Earth. Turbines have been put up in areas that are rural and situated in open spaces with backup generators have a system that stores energy to be used at a later time to power a house or electrical equipment used by farmers and ranchers.

Wind has become a major resource within the new electrical infrastructure and more changes to this are more than likely going to take place within the next several years as technology advances. The grid systems we have today are capable of handling more load than previous equipment. Wind turbines have served as backup for traditional systems as well by storing the energy and using it when it detects the power to a house is out. In the Texas Panhandle you can see these going down the highway all the way down to Sweetwater and Abilene. In other cities where the wind blows often there have been turbines put up as well to make energy conservation efforts happen in a nationwide manner.

Hopefully we see this become a thing in the next several decades.

-Tristan