Recent technology and challenges of wind energy generation: A review

Energy is an integral part of economic growth and social development. Renewable energy sources are naturally occurring, which can help in reducing the dependency on non-renewable resources. The increasing effects of climate change have led to the utilization of renewable energy resources for power generation, among which wind is one of the significant sources of power generation. It provides a reliable, sustainable, and environmentally friendly alternative contributing to national energy security in the current age of decreasing global reserves of non-renewable resources across the globe. This paper reviews the wind energy technologies used, mainly focusing on the types of turbines used and their future scope. Further, the paper briefly discusses certain future wind generation technologies, namely airborne, offshore, smart rotors, multi-rotors, and other small wind turbine technologies. It also briefly discusses ways to improve the efficiency of different turbine generation technologies, majorly non-conventional ideas of wind turbine technologies based on cross axis wind turbine (CAWT), vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT), magnetic-based wind turbine. Overall, the summarization of wind energy here consists of four aspects: (1) wind turbine structure, (2) wind power generation technologies, (3) wind energy assessment methodologies, (4) limitation of developed technologies and future scope of wind energy development.