Conventional energy sources such as oil, natural gas, coal, or nuclear are finite and generate pollution. Alternatively, renewable energy sources like wind, fuel cell, solar, biogas/biomass, tidal, geothermal, etc. are clean and abundantly available in nature. Among these, wind energy has the huge potential of becoming a major source of renewable energy for this modern world. Wind power is a clean, emissions-free power generation technology. Like all renewable sources it is based on capturing the energy from natural forces and has none of the polluting effects associated with ‘conventional’ fuels. In 2008, 27 GW wind power has been installed all over the world, bringing world-wide installed capacity to 120.8 GW. This is an increase of 36% compared with the 2007 market, and represents an overall increase in the global installed capacity of about 28.8%. From this scenario, it is clear that wind power is going to dominate the renewable as the conventional energy market in sooner future. Wind energy is the only power generation technology that can deliver the necessary cuts in CO2 emissions from the power sector in the critical period up to 2020, when greenhouse gas emissions must peak and begin to decline if we are to have any hope of avoiding the worst impacts of climate change .

This book is the result of contributions from many researchers in different fields. A wide variety of research results are merged together to make this book useful for students and researchers who will take part in further development of the existing technology.

Print copies available from Intech Open.