Dreus A. J., Kriachunenko O. L., Stoyanovskiy M. A.

Oles Honchar Dnipropetrovsk National University

TO THE PROBLEM OF DEVELOPMENT OF WIND ENERGY IN UKRAINE

Nowadays the development of world`s resources of power is based on the use of traditional fossil fuels. In the further future the development in this area will be limited by ecological, resource and social factors. Though the demand for energy consumption associated with economic development and population growth will increase. The full range of conventional and renewable energy resources needs to be used to meet this demand. At the result of irrational human activities the mankind has come up to exhaustion of traditional power resources. Moreover, due to fuel utilization, a lot of toxic pollutants waste the atmosphere which has a negative impact on a biosphere state. All these activities cause catastrophic effects that are irreversible. That is why it is necessary to implement alternative power sources. Among them the most perspective is wind power. The foregoing stipulates currently large-scale development of wind energy in industrialized and in developing countries.Wind energy exists in the environment continuously and does not require the cost for its production.

Wind energy is the kinetic energy associated with the movement of atmospheric air. It has been used for hundreds of years for sailing, grinding grain, and for irrigation. Wind energy systems convert this kinetic energy to more useful forms of power. Wind energy systems for irrigation and milling have been in use since ancient times and since the beginning of the 20th century it is being used to generate electric power. Windmills for water pumping have been installed in many countries particularly in the rural areas.

Wind turbines transform the energy of the wind into mechanical power, which can then be used directly for grinding etc., or further converting it into electric power that generates electricity. Wind turbines can be used by themselves or in clusters called ‘wind farms’.

Wind power engineering is also developing in Ukraine. The perspective areas of wind power electrical stations location are mountainous regions of the Carpathians and Crimea, the seaside regions with high wind intensity, the valley of the Dnepr, the surface of the Azov and the Black seas. In Crimea 80 wind power stations were constructed in 2003. Thus the number of such stations in Ukraine is 355 with the total capacity of 39 Megawatt. Especially, Crimean coasts make Ukraine the second country in the world (after Norway) in shallow water areas that are suitable for large wind farms.

There is a great potential for wind power energy in Ukraine. If, for instance, the 2,700 sq.km.of shallow waters in the Black and Azov Seas were used for wind turbines, this would cover the entire electricity consumption of Ukraine.

Wind power engineering is attractive not only because it is environment-friendly and it saves traditional power resources. Wind power stations can be mounted rather quickly in the places where other power resources are not available or there are not enough of them. The analysis of wind power engineering world trends allows making a conclusion that this environment-friendly and resuming power is going to satisfy power demand of the mankind in the near future. And increasing the number of wind power electrical stations will permit to decrease the cost of alternative electrical power and improve power production in case of maximum loading.

Actual problem of wind energy development in Ukraine is: first of all it is the monopoly of traditional energy, based on outdated energy flows, the necessary infrastructure, but especially – a whopping percentage of different types of power plants in the nation's capital. Secondly, alternative energy requires a different mentality and a different kind of skills.Third, the impact neglect problems at the national level, so the invasion of Ukrainian producers on the world market of wind power equipment must pass the same bumpy ride as their approval in aircraft or missile technology.

For wind energy development the following stepss should be done:

- to provide a national scale of serial production capacity of wind turbines for the Ukrainian windfarm;

- to eliminate subsidies for environmentally harmful energy production;

- to include to the cost of energy its ecological price;

- to support research, development and dissemination of new techniques and technologies in the area of wind energy.

- to continue the improving of designs and manufacturing wind aggregates;

- creating expert (certification) centers for independent evaluation and quality assurance, as well as to improve the reliability of wind technology.

One more economically efficient and promising direction development of wind energy is the production and operation of the network capacity of wind turbines in the range of 15 – 20 kW. Due to existing serial production of necessary components for these wind turbines, they are cheap and available for consumers such as farming, mining and forestry, etc. Implementation of this direction promises great benefits for the energy of the whole country as it allows significantly reduce the power losses in power lines.

Based on the above, one can conclude that wind energy in Ukraine can not be replaced by traditional energy. It can be only added to it. This requires an a traditional generating capacity, covering the entire load of consumers. Wind power in Ukraine, as well as throughout the world in modern conditions high-cost, and in the short term can not be recommended for implementation in large quantities because of the high unit cost of wind turbines, low capacity factor units (0.15-0.25), the weakness of the economy and other factors. It is hardly expedient in the coming years to receive a substantial government investment in wind power production for the internal market and building large wind farm. The first step is to create the conditions for the introduction of wind energy in the energy system of the country.

At the moment, wind energy is a part of the alternative industry, which is fighting for a place in the sun with the venerable opponent – the energy in fossil fuels.