Wind power will blow again in Bilbao with WindEurope 2024

The Basque city will host the WindEurope trade fair for the third time, showcasing the potential of the region’s energy industry.

The European Wind Energy Association –WindEurope– has announced that its annual event, considered the most important wind energy event in Europe, will return to Bilbao from March 19 to 21, 2024. This will make the city the European capital of wind energy for the third time, following the 2019 and 2022 editions; highlighting the great potential of the region’s wind energy sector, whichIt has a state-of-the-art industrial and technological infrastructure..

However, this announcement only serves to highlight the importance of the renewable energy sector, and especially wind power, for Spain, which covers 24% of its total electricity consumption thanks to the power of the wind with 28 GW of wind farms; this country being the second largest wind market on the entire continent, generating a contribution of 5.5 billion euros to the Spanish economy and providing more than 32,000 jobs.

The WindEurope trade fair, which brings together the most important players in the wind and energy sector for three days, featured a total of 330 exhibitors and 9,800 visitors from 78 countries in its 2022 edition. This translates into an economic impact of 19 million euros for the local economy, according to WindEurope itself.

Do you know how an onshore wind farm works?

ForTo understand how this type of energy works, the first thing to consider is that a wind turbine is not an individual element.Rather, it forms part of a larger and more complex entity: a wind farm. While individual wind turbines do exist for small consumers, that’s a different matter. This wind turbine is connected, both electrically and in terms of sending and receiving information, to the other wind turbines and various components that make up the wind farm. Thus, thanks to the sensors and interconnection of the different elements, the operating company is always aware of the real-time status of each wind turbine: mechanical problems, energy generated, electronic problems, technical shutdowns, etc. Therefore, for the entire system to function correctly, an onshore wind farm comprises the following elements:

• Wind turbine: This device generates electricity through the physical action of the wind on its blades, which are connected to the rotor by a component called the hub. Each wind turbine can have a power output ranging from 0.5 to 7 MW, depending on its size. The generated energy is then output at medium voltage thanks to the…transformer and medium voltage cellshoused inside in most cases, or at the foot of the wind turbine in exceptional cases.
• Medium voltage electrical network: These are the arteries of the wind farm through which electricity flows on its way to consumption.
• Substation or connection point: This element is responsible for increasing the generation voltage to the transmission voltage and delivering the generated energy to the electrical transmission or distribution network.
• Transmission or distribution lines: Highly recognizable actors, thanks to their distinctive towers, and responsible for transporting green energy to our homes.

In this way, once the wind turbine starts operating, its rotational movement causes the generator installed in the nacelle to produce electrical energy by transforming mechanical energy into electrical energy. The transformer then increases the voltage to minimize electrical losses, and the energy is fed into the medium-voltage grid, where it travels through underground cables—in some countries like the USA and Brazil, this route is overhead—along with the energy generated by other wind turbines. At this point, the electrical energy reaches the transformer substation to be stepped up to high voltage and facilitate its transmission to the distribution network; it is then distributed to the end consumer via high- and medium-voltage transmission lines located on power pylons.