Direct Drive Wind Turbine Market with Current Trends Analysis,2015-20 FMI | Page 3

Report Description Report Description Wind is one the fastest-growing energy sources in the world. With the accelerating electricity consumption and increasing threat from the green-house effect and consequential environmental degradation, all the industries are stepping forward into the reduction of energy consumption and loss of energy. Though increasing the energy production will meet the demand but it will lead to increased strain on non-renewable energy sources and hence the environment. Commercially more than 80 countries are now utilizing the wind energy for electricity-generation. Technological developments have made it possible for more effective and reliable equipment and machinery, which has resulted in the growth of the wind energy market. Traditionally the electricity generation from wind energy was made possible by gearboxoperated wind turbines. In the gearbox-operated wind turbines, the shaft is connected through a gearbox to the generator. This makes the gearbox as the highest-maintenance part of a wind turbine, as it consists of multiple wheels and bearings; due to which it suffers from tremendous stress because of wind turbulence. Any defect in a single component can halt the functioning of the wind turbine. In offshore turbines, the gearboxes have to withstand faster wind speeds; making it even more vulnerable than those in onshore turbines. Technically, removal of the gearbox from the wind turbine will eliminate the most complicated part of the machine. This will result in improved reliability by cutting downtime and repair costs; which is an especially important consideration for offshore turbines, where it’s quite expensive to send technicians for the maintenance. But using direct drive instead of a gearbox system has its own challenges namely cost and weight concerns.