New Design may make Wind Farms More Efficient
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We’ve been stuck in a quagmire on individual wind turbine efficiency, meaning wind energy is now a mature technology that is not really a viable mass solution for replacing fossil fuels. But California Institute of Technology researchers have revisited some of the fundamental assumptions that guided the wind industry for the past 30 years, and now believe that a new approach to wind farm design, one that places wind turbines close together instead of farther apart, may provide significant efficiency gains.
This challenges the school of thought that the only remaining advances to come are in developing larger turbines, putting them offshore, and lobbying for government policies favorable to the further penetration of wind power in energy markets.
Current thinking, increasing height and size, leads to frequently cited issues such as increased cost and difficulty of engineering and maintaining the larger structures, along with visual, acoustic, and radar signatures problems, not to mention more bat and bird impacts.
Read more: New Wind Farm Design
http://www.sciencecodex.co/new_wind_farm_design_may_make_them_efficient_enough_for_mass_use
Tags: California Institute of Technology, energy, Mature technology, renewable, wind, wind farm, wind power, wind turbine
Latest Post | admin August 28, 2011
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