ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we start with a brief overview of atmospheric circulation patterns that will help us understand where and when we expect higher winds on the surface of the Earth. Then, we study how to calculate power in the wind taking into account air density, pressure, and temperature. Statistics of wind speed are important to calculate expected production by wind turbines, thus we will show how to analyze wind speed data using known distributions. Details of wind turbine types and performance are examined next, emphasizing the power curve. After a brief overview of large wind farms, we go into details of off-grid and microgrid wind power installations. Most textbooks on renewable power cover wind power generation [1-5] and can serve as supplementary reading to this chapter.
