THE GREEN ENERGY BLOG

Turbine Placement to Optimize Wind Power

Although wind power energy production in 2010 was estimated to be only about 2.5 percent of worldwide electricity usage, wind turbines are considered a mature technology with many experts suggesting that we’re approaching the theoretical limit of individual wind turbine efficiency. For this reason, researchers are now looking at new approaches to wind farm design to increase the power output of wind farms. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have been conducting a field study and claim the power output of wind farms can be increased at least tenfold by optimizing the placement of turbines on a given plot of land.

While most wind farms employing horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWTs) – the standard propeller-like turbines most commonly found in wind farms around the world – space the individual turbines around seven rotor diameters apart, a recent study found that spacing of at least 15 rotor diameters apart produced the most cost-efficient power generation. But even though spreading the turbines out increases the cost-efficiencies by allowing for fewer individual turbines, it also lowers the power output of a given plot of land.

To compensate for the energy loss resulting from the wake generated from one turbine interfering with neighboring turbines, HAWT wind farms also resort to…

Read more: Wind turbine placement to optimize wind power generation

http://www.gizmag.com/optimizing-wind-turbine-placement/19217/