All Our Energy

A long standing problem in wind farm siting may have been solved by researchers at cal tech.

According to BBC news, Schools of fish help squeeze more power from wind farms, the study of schools of fish and their “aqua-dynamic” schooling patterns has led researchers to
re- design traditional wind farm array spacing and alignment, allowing for the possibility of generating up to ten times the amount of energy a normal wind farm does today.

The problem: turbulence. Turbulence in the atmosphere, particularly in windflow causes a decrease in wind turbine power production. This is because the turbulence disrupts the super-high efficiency of the rotor blades and their ability to extract energy from the wind.
Turbulence is created by many different things, but usually is from objects on the ground, or from “rough” terrain features on the surrounding landscape like trees, houses, hills etc.   The turbulence extends to up to three times the height of the object.
In this case, the turbulence is from other wind turbines nearby. Like a propeller in the water, a wind turbine creates a “wake” of turbulent air behind it. Up until now, the only solution has been to spread out the turbines far enough away from each other at the point where the wake has dissipated. (if you ever hear the reasonable sounding, but absolutely incorrect theory about how wind turbines “kill off or stop the wind” ; ) LOL! this is where this purposely erroneous information is based on- I will address a full post on this later on, probably titled something like

best lies, propaganda, and misinformation fossil fuel and other anti- renewable energy shills keep foisting on the general public

as I have seen this pop up again and again, creeping into the dialogue, coming back again and again like a bad penny!
Back to the issue at hand… This new insight will help future wind farms site their turbines much closer to each other, allowing for up to 10 times as many in the same space, while still being 95% efficient.

This has huge implications for not only wind farms, but community and other smaller projects as well, as this changes the equation of available free space required and greatly expands the possibility of not only more “distributed generation”, but also makes wind power much more modular as extra turbines might now be able to be added on to an existing site, a huge advantage currently available in solar power.

The solution, or…How do they do it?
Glad someone asked! They do it with VAWT’s, or “vertical-axis wind turbines” which are not the ones you are probably used to seeing. These resemble an eggbeater or one of those roadside signs that turns in the wind. T you know the ones: Sale Today. Sale. Today. Like this, courtesy of Signsseen, http://shop.signsseen.com/p3326/Sidewalk-Spinning-Sign/product_info.html

A real VAWT (<=click that!) looks like this. or this:

The problem: VAWT’S are not in massive production, and design and mechanical failures over the years have kept this potentially exciting branch, albeit very old-school, of wind power at bay.  It is old school in the fact that it’s blades use aerodymanic drag, rather than modern turbine blades that use lift. Using lift is what airplane wings do, to maximize efficiency of squeezing every drop of usable energy possible out of the wind.

I believe VAWT’s may be the one to watch over the next generation. They have HUGE potential for home, and possibly even rooftop use, while being quite possible lowewr cost diue to their low-tech nature.   Currently, standard, horizontal-axis wind turbines (“HAWT’s”, you know- the regular ones) are not recommended for rooftops due to the loss if power from your roof’s own turbulence, plus the noise and vibrations they can send through your house, much less the home wind turbine siting issues presented by residential zoning laws. These are slowly, gradually coming into the modern era as safety and noise issues are better known (both with excellent records, all things considered). VAWT’s are somewhat immune to this turbulence as a mitigating factor to efficiency, and may also be less prone to noise and catastrophic failure in smaller, more robust designs.