Major Disadvantages Of Wind Energy

There is big talk going on about clean sources of energy and renewable sources of energy. While the list of these source of energy is very long, wind energy is considered as one of the ideal examples of clean and renewable sources of energy. There are however certain disadvantages of wind energy which take credit to the fact that wind energy has not been widely accepted. Let us take a look at some of main disadvantages of wind energy.

The main disadvantages of wind energy can be attributed to three factors. These three factor are natural factors, commercial factors and other factors. To begin with here are the natural factors in concern.

The main disadvantage of wind energy is that it is really inconsistent. You can not expect the same level of wind to blow every day, day after day. The intensity of wind tends to change on a daily basis. On day the wind would be perfectly suited for generation of wind energy. Another day the wind would blow with an extreme force, so much that it would take the blade of mill with itself. In some cases, the wind would be too calm to be of any use.

Another nature related disadvantage of wind energy is that it adversely affects the bird population in a given area. In case of rural area, this can be extremely disastrous. The birds are an important part of the ecosystem and they are also a natural pesticide. Loss in the bird population would mean the growth of pests and insets which would be the bane of agriculture.

Now let us come to the commercial disadvantages of wind energy.

Apart from the fact that wind is rather unreliable, a big commercial disadvantage of wind energy is that it requires a huge initial investment. The equipment required to harness and store wind energy is simple but it is very expensive. The maintenance of windmills is not something which can be considered cheap. In a number of cases batteries are to be used to store the energy and overcome inconsistency issues. This is not an option for large scale power generation projects.

Secondly you would need huge land masses to install windmill. In order to make wind energy commercially viable, the number of windmills to be installed is very high. These windmills would require big areas to act as wind mill fields. Purchase or lease of such large pieces of land is not really an economically attractive option. It is not possible to find such stretches of land in urban areas which is a great hurdle.

Finally the other disadvantages of wind energy. The other disadvantages of wind energy encompass two disadvantages. The first is that windmills are rather noisy and the second is that windmills may kill the beauty of the landscape when installed in huge numbers.