Wind power will blow again in Bilbao with WindEurope 2024

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

The European Wind Energy Association – WindEurope – has announced that its annual event, which happens to be the most important wind energy event in Europe, will land again in Bilbao from March 19 to 21, 2024. Thus, the city will become the European capital of wind energy for the third time, after holding the 2019 and 2022 editions; highlighting the great potential of the region’s wind energy sector, which has a cutting-edge industrial and technological fabric.

Overall, this announcement only underscores the importance of the renewable energy sector, and wind energy in particular, 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 is the second-largest wind energy market on the entire continent, generating a contribution of €5.5 billion to the Spanish economy and providing more than 32,000 jobs.

The WindEurope fair, which brings together the most relevant players in the wind and energy sectors for three days, had a total of 330 exhibitors and 9,800 visitors from up to 78 countries in its 2022 edition. An impact that translates into 19 million euros for the local economy, according to WindEurope itself.

Do you know how an onshore wind farm works?

To understand how this type of energy works, the first thing to remember is that a wind turbine is not an individual element, but is part of a larger and more complex entity: a wind farm. Although individual wind turbines do exist in the case of small consumers, but that’s another story. This wind turbine is connected, both electrically and in terms of sending and receiving information, to the other wind turbines and other elements that make up the wind farm. Thus, at all times the operating company of said park is aware, thanks to the sensing and intercommunication of the different elements, of the real-time status of each wind turbine: mechanical problems, generated energy, electronic problems, technical stops… This is why, for the entire set to function properly, an onshore wind farm is made up of the following elements:

Wind turbine: It is responsible for generating electricity through the physical action of the wind on the blades, which are connected to the rotor by an element called a hub. Each wind turbine can have a power output ranging from 0.5 to 7 MW, depending on its size. The generated energy is already output at medium voltage thanks to the medium voltage transformer and cells housed inside in most cases, or at the foot of the wind turbine in exceptional cases.
Medium voltage electrical grid: These are the arteries of the wind farm through which the electricity runs on its way out to consumption.
Substation or connection point: This element is responsible for raising the generation voltage to the transport voltage and pouring the generated energy into the transport or distribution electrical grid.
Transmission or distribution lines: Highly recognizable actors, thanks to their distinctive towers, and which are responsible for transporting green energy to our homes.

In this way, once the wind turbine is in operation, through the rotational movement, it causes the generator installed in the nacelle to produce electrical energy thanks to the transformation of mechanical energy into electrical energy. In turn, the transformer raises the voltage to avoid electrical losses, and the energy is transferred to the medium-voltage grid, where it runs through underground wiring (in some countries like the USA or Brazil this route is aerial) along with the energy generated by other wind turbines. At this point, the electrical energy reaches the transformer substation to be raised to high voltage and facilitate its evacuation to the transmission or distribution grid; it is distributed to the final consumer thanks to the role of the high and medium voltage transmission lines located in the electrical towers.