In a study that could solidify the trend toward construction of gigantic windmills, scientists have concluded that the larger the wind turbine, the greener the electricity it produces. Their report appears in ACS’ journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Marloes Caduff and colleagues point out that wind power is an increasingly popular source of electricity. It provides almost 2 percent of global electricity worldwide, a figure expected to approach 10 percent by 2020. The size of the turbines also is increasing. One study shows that the average size of commercial turbines has grown 10-fold in the last 30 years, from diameters of 50 feet in 1980 to nearly 500 feet today. On the horizon: super-giant turbines approaching 1,000 feet in diameter. The authors wanted to determine whether building larger turbines makes wind energy more or less environmentally friendly.
Their study showed that bigger turbines do produce greener electricity — for two main reasons. First, manufacturers now have the knowledge, experience and technology to build big wind turbines with great efficiency. Second, advanced materials and designs permit the efficient construction of large turbine blades that harness more wind without proportional increases in their mass or the masses of the tower and the nacelle that houses the generator. That means more clean power without large increases in the amount of material needed for construction or fuel needed for transportation.
Bigger turbines, it turns out, not only are green, but save green, too. And will save even more in the near future. Better turbines perform better in lower wind speeds. That means more and more land area, that might have been uneconomical a few years ago for wind turbines, is now opening up and becoming useable.
Climatewire:
In fact, the analysis found that the amount of U.S. land area with ideal siting conditions for wind power has increased by between 130 and 270 percent since 2002-2003 due to improvements in turbine technology. Similarly, land area that can produce wind power for less than 5 cents per kilowatt-hour — a price that makes wind competitive with natural gas — has increased by almost 50 percent over the same period.
“We’re opening a lot of new ground in the U.S., so to speak, that wasn’t available a decade ago,” Wiser said.
Peter Sinclair,
Nice. Only issue I can see with this, other than aesthetics than is practically. Isn’t there an upper limit to how big we can make these things? Any idea as to what the practical size limit might be?
the largest sizes I have heard of being considered for offshore are the 10 to 20 mw range. Not sure how much bigger blade that would be.
I have an engineering book at work with an equation for approximation of physical blade size versus rated power output based on the Betz Law. It ends up that the swept area is in proportion with the power captured, and the radius of the swept area squared is proportional to the swept area (blade length).
Thus, it seems the economy of scale certainly works in the wind turbine’s favor. So the proposed 20MW big boy turbines will only be twice the radius of the existing 5MW offshore units, despite being 4x the power rating. Of course, this assumes the same design scaled up, same Betz coefficient, etc.
Now, that being said, twice the radius of a 5MW turbine is still huge. Materials and mechanical engineering are out of my depth, so I am not sure how close those engineers are pushing the limits of the materials and structure designs. One thing I have read, though, is that the manufacturing and delivering of blades is becoming a hassle. Blades are one thing you can’t transport in pieces (at least not yet). One solution is to develop mobile factory teams/units that can build the “too big to be transported” items on site, either out in the field or at the barge dock for offshore units.
Sci-fi movies like Blade Runner or Star Wars show these huge structures that seem to defy gravity and our human sense of scale. The larger wind turbines have that type of futuristic feel to them, at least to me anyway.
Not sure I like this trend away from localization. Nor am I convinced that small localized generators have been given any kind of fair shake with regard to research funding or in this comparison.
This stinks of big business justifying itself. Power to the people, not necessarily large corporations erecting multimillion dollar turbines.
there will be large corporations in the future. They will be generating energy, we hope with renewable tech.
There is a corresponding rapid movement toward distributed energy and localization, especially in the solar photovoltaic area, which is taking off rapidly, and may eventually eclipse other technologies.
see
http://climatecrocks.com/2012/05/29/germany-new-record-in-solar-energy-production/
I agree that local generation, energy efficiency, and conservation incentives ought to be emphasized. Nevertheless, the electrical energy consumption density of say New York City or much of the USA eastern seaboard (as an example) may not be met with just local solar PV and efficiency measures. Also, certain manufacturing centers may not be able to be fed locally.
So, it is nice knowing that we have both large and small technologies in our pocket for deployment in our quest to reduce electrical sector emissions to zero. I think the electrical sector will be the low hanging fruit. There has been so much progress and room for improvement with a little bump in the right direction.
Nothing–short of reform of the entire political-economic system–will prevent large corporations from co-opting and corrupting whatever is succeeding in the world. So we have 3 jobs to finish in about the next 20 years: revolution, psychological transformation and rebuilding our entire infrastructure, including apparently, a mix of sizes of wind generators, well-placed for efficiency. Methinks we better get started.
And never forget. We may be able to make homes and businesses less power hungry, but the way forward for buses, cars, taxis and small delivery vehicles has to be with EV. In the end, EV only, hybrid just won’t cut it. (Pun accidental but apt.)
That means we need at least the same amount of power delivered if we want to add vehicles into the demands on the grid. I know they’ll also, eventually, be able to work as balancing demand but they do have to be fed – and we won’t be able to do it for every vehicle every day with solar alone.
There’s definitely a place for large scale, non-local power generation as part of the generation/distribution mix. Just not the super centralised, fossil type of non-local generation.
The issue is not whether we should have large generators – we do.
But the article is about large corporations justifying large installations. The chart attached to the blog post is bizarre – it compares installations made in 2002 with small ones made more than twenty years earlier. What does that prove – other than the fact that large energy corporations are offering us unpersuasive data to justify large corporations being in the large installation business? (And is this even a fair comparison to decentralized installations)?
Why must we accept the fact that putting our energy futures in the hands of large corporations is desirable or necessary? Or that it can possibly meet the needs of our country and the planet in time to be effective? Or that for-profit energy companies need to be included – or should even be allowed to be included – in our energy future?
I live in a city which has been supplied by a municipal electric power company for many decades. It has consistently offered the lowest power rates in the state, and service has been exemplary. We would not stand for for-profit energy here. And why should our country do so when our carbon future is the most pressing national security issue that we have ever faced?
We need to convert to renewables asap – waiting for market solutions has not worked, is not working, and will not work. Energy is a national problem of huge scale and should it not be be solved socialistically – as a project of the commons? If there are large installations to be made – our government should be making them. We have seen this concept in action before when market forces weren’t working – Rural Electrification.
How are we going to solve our national energy problem with corporate players when the solutions involve one huge interconnected and interdependent system of millions of power sources/storage centers ( EV car batteries, wind, solar installations)? Waiting for the market elements to fall into place to give birth to such a system is what we are doing now – and it is going to be too little too late.
ok , well you work through your municipal utility, and when I have one, I’ll work thru it to, but right now, big utilities and big companies are the only ones building wind farms in my area, so I’m supporting that, because it’s a step forward.
good luck with your work.
Sure, the trend towards deregulation of the electrical sector is problematic for a world where decentralized generation will need to be a cornerstone. Nevertheless, there are some distinct organizational and technical hurdles to overcome before that begins to happen in earnest. The power grid is one big control system balancing act, and getting people to come together and make it work every day is a small miracle, let alone many more people.
The bottom line, though, I don’t think anybody is in disagreement with you here, but at least my thoughts on the matter also include a place for these larger turbines. They have been getting bigger over the years for both reasons of economics of scale as well as the energy return on investment. Also, technical and manufacturing breakthroughs have occurred in order to allow these ever-larger turbines to exist today. So, if the energy ends up being greener since the ratio of energy output to material input is higher, and the turbines are owned by a regulated utility, this is winning situation, right?
the technology itself, wind, solar in particular – push towards distributing energy production widely i.e. PC vs Mainframe, network vs hierarchy.
see Jeremy Rifkin
Think Progress has a new article up on wind power.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/06/24/504504/new-study-bigger-is-better-when-it-comes-to-wind-turbines/
Please don’t get me wrong, I am in favour of wind power (if the alternative is Venus Mk 2.0). However, rather than indulge in flights of fantasy about just how much wind energy we could generate for public consumption (ripe to be picked upon by those who oppose us), I do think it would be better to focus on getting everybody to minimise their energy consumption and/or be self-sufficient.
Since the United States doesn’t produce much anymore, why not raise the electrical rates up to the same level as what the Danes pay? Please note that petroleum only accounts for about .08% of the electrical production in the US; therefore, it was hard to understand how Waxman’s cap and tax bill would have had anything to do with cutting the amount of oil that the US imported.
“Climate mania impoverishes electricity customers worldwide
Global-warming-related catastrophes are increasingly hitting vulnerable populations around the world, with one species in particular danger: the electricity ratepayer. In Canada, in the U.K., in Spain, in Denmark, in Germany and elsewhere the danger to ratepayers is especially great, but ratepayers in one country — the U.S. — seem to have weathered the worst of the disaster.
America’s secret? Unlike leaders in other countries, which to their countries’ ruin adopted policies as if global warming mattered, U.S. leaders more paid lip service to it. While citizens in other countries are now seeing soaring power rates, American householders can look forward to declining rates.”
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/05/11/lawrence-solomon-green-power-failure/
This is the truth about the cost of wind power:
Global electricity price comparison
Canada 6.18== US cents/1kWh
Denmark 42.89== US cents/1kWh
France 19.25== US cents/1kWh
Germany 30.66== US cents/1kWh
Ireland 23.89== US cents/1kWh
Italy 37.89== US cents/1kWh
UK 18.59== US cents/1kWh
Sweden 27.34== US cents/1kWh
Spain 19.69== US cents/1kWh
Netherlands 34.70== US cents/1kWh
USA 11.20== US cents/1kWh and this is for year 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing
Spain Ejects Clean-Power Industry With Europe Precedent: Energy
Saddled with a budget deficit more than twice the European Union limit and a ballooning gap between income and costs in its power system, Spain halted subsidies for new renewable-energy projects in January.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-05-29/spain-ejects-clean-power-industry-with-europe-precedent-energy