Meet WindRunner: The Massive Plane That Transports Wind Turbine Blades
spectrum.ieee.org
The world's largest airplane will transport massive wind-turbine blades to onshore farms in an attempt to reshape the future of wind energy logistics.

"Having fewer total turbines means a wind farm could space them farther apart, avoiding airflow interference. The turbines would be nearly twice as tall, so they’ll reach a higher, gustier part of the atmosphere. And big turbines don’t need to spin as quickly, so they would make economic sense in places with average wind speeds around 5 meters per second… "

  • squaresinger@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    1 day ago

    That’s literally the opposite we are talking about here.

    The point of large turbines is that they get high enough up where winds are stronger so that it can take the stronger winds up there and convert them into electricity.

    You are talking about a design that furls up to NOT take in stronger winds.

    No, we don’t need tiny wind turbines that already won’t make a lot of energy because they are too small and that then even shut down as soon as winds become strong enough to make it worthwhile.

    Also, every commercial wind turbine can rotate its blades, and when winds become dangerously strong, they just turn the blades flat into the wind so that less of the wind (or none of it) actually turns the rotor.

    • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      22 hours ago

      Also, the inventor of Harmony Turbines covers one of the big drawbacks of conventional turbines. Conventional ones use brakes in strong storms to slow down, which can and will overheat and cause them to burn up and even explode.

      Harmony Turbines however aren’t meant to completely stop at all, I think you misunderstood how the furling mechanism is arranged. It’s meant to keep a regular consistent RPM.

      If the winds are low, it opens all the way up. If the RPM starts to exceed a certain limit, it starts to furl in until it reaches a stable RPM again.

      Assuming they’re built structurally sound enough, Harmony Turbines could indeed keep functioning right through a category 5+ hurricane, assuming a tree doesn’t get blown into it or whatever, but basically everything is prone to storm debris anyways.

      Regardless, like I said, consider the strength in numbers vs the absurdity of building planes as big as a football field…

    • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      22 hours ago

      The idea is rather than the complexities of making conventional turbines even bigger and dealing with the logistics of even building and installing them, the same land space could have potentially a thousand or more smaller vertical Harmony Turbines in the same land space as a single conventional large turbine.

      Hell, they could even share the same land space as the existing large turbines. And they’re much more practical to install, you could even have one or two or so in your own back yard.

      I get that the idea is to tap into stronger upper atmosphere winds, but if you consider the idea of strength in numbers, then I think many Harmony Turbines could definitely hold their own and deliver a good bit of power, even if they are inherently meant to be closer to the ground.

      Plus it doesn’t require an airplane as big as a freaking football field to ship the parts around. Like, how green is such a large airplane anyways, how much fuel would such a large plane take? 🤔