Renewable Energy Resources

This chapter discusses various types of renewable energy resources such as wind, solar, water, geothermal, and fuel cells. It describes history, energy statistics, electricity generation method, working principles, and advantages and disadvantages of these resources. In wind energy resources, the wind turbine is used to convert the kinetic energy of air into electricity under favourable conditions and appropriate circumstances. The types of wind turbine are horizontal axis wind turbine, vertical axis wind turbine, and ducted wind turbines. In solar energy resources, solar cells directly convert the sunlight into electricity. The types of solar cells are amorphous silicon solar cell, crystalline silicon solar cell, monocrystalline solar cell, polycrystalline solar cell, and thin film solar cell. Wind is the major cause of waves resulting in the uneven heating of the earth's atmosphere by taking heat energy from solar radiations. Electricity can be produced by wave energy.