Humans have been using wind power to help with work for hundreds of years. The most popular example of this is the wind mill which is used to help process grains. However, in recent years the focus of wind power has shifted to generating electricity.

Wind power to generate electricity is used both in large scale wind farms and by individual home or business owners on a small scale. How does wind power work though? Wind blows past fan blades turning them which in turn rotates a shaft that is connected to an electrical generator. Sounds simple, right? Well, there is a lot more to a typical wind power generator than that but that is the basic concept.

There is a wind speed controller that detects wind speed and controls various components of the system as well. If the wind is too slow then the blades will be stopped as they won't generate any electricity and will just cause unnecessary wear on the components. If the wind is blowing too fast the system will also be stopped as the generator could overheat. There is a brake in the system that is connected to this wind speed controller.

Also, the shaft connected to the fan blades is a low speed shaft which connects to a gear box that increases the rotations per minute many times in order to get the necessary rate to power the generators. For example, the fan might turn at 30 rotations per minute and be increased to 1000 rotations per minute.

In addition to these components there is also a yaw drive which rotates the blades to face directly into the wind as the wind changes direction. This ensures optimal wind power generation. All of these pieces fit together to generate electricity from wind power.