Question: what is a wind turbine

Stephanie Mann answered on 6 Mar 2018:

A wind turbine is like a windmill that makes electricity from the wind. You can see them dotted across the countryside especially around the north east and in Scotland.

The good thing about making electricity from wind power is that the wind never runs out – it’s not like burning coal and gas that costs lots of money in the long run and can be very polluting. Also Britain is a very windy place, and it’s windiest during the cold month of winter when we need electricity the most.

The problems we look at with wind power is what do we do when the wind stops blowing? We still need electricity for our phones and TVs but we can’t turn the wind on and off. Some solutions are to build big batteries next to wind farms, the power up the batteries when it’s too windy and let the batteries run when it’s not windy enough… or maybe we can have smart houses that only charge our laptops and turn on dishwashers when there is enough wind? There are lots of opportunities in the future for wind power!