• Question: how meany light bulbs can a wind turbind power

    Asked by popecon to Daniel, Jon, Louise, Sharon, Zoe on 22 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Louise Dash

      Louise Dash answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      An modern wind turbine can generate around 3 megawatts (3,000,000) of electricity.

      An old-fashioned incandescent light bulb uses 100W, so one wind turbine could power 3,000 of these.

      A new energy-efficient bulb uses only 10W or even less, so it could power ten times as many – 30,000!

    • Photo: Jon Copley

      Jon Copley answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      That depends on how big the wind turbine is. Most offshore wind turbines at the moment produce up to 5 megawatts of power, which would power 25000 40-watt light bulbs. And even more, if we all switched to more energy-efficient low-wattage light bulbs.

      But engineers are designing much bigger wind turbines (as big as the London Eye) that can produce 10 megawatts of power (so that would be 50000 x 40-watt light bulbs).

      The new giant wind turbines were in the news this week:

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/10359529.stm

    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      It really depends on the size of the turbine.

      The standard 60W bulb running for 1 hour uses 0.060kWh.
      Wind turbines being manufactured now have power ratings ranging from 250 watts to 5 megawatts (MW) so they can power a lot of bulbs! . if you were making your own wind turbine, they would probably make a lot less, so less bulbs!.

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