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… "

  • Coopr8@kbin.earth
    1·
    20 hours ago

    Their prototype unit is 400 watts, based on their deck their target is residential use.

    While “a lot” would fit in a the footprint of a large turbine, 42,500 would not, which is how many would be needed to be equivalent to the large turbines the article is talking about, and I’d bet that many Harmony Turbines would cost more as well.

    Scale efficiency for grid scale wind projects is the bottom line, and bot accessing steadier and stronger high altitude winds with taller turbines and using larger diameter blades gain efficiency beyond what any fleet of smaller turbines can match.

    Not to say that larger scale vertical axis turbines are completely out of the picture, but they suffer from irregular bearing loading which wears out the drive train much faster among other issues. As of now large scale horizontal axis bladed turbines are far ahead in term of both cost and space efficiency. It would take something very groundbreaking to change that.

    No need to die on this hill, it’s just different technologies for different applications, there is a place for both.

    • over_clox@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      19 hours ago

      Irregular bearing loads can be largely relieved using permanent magnet levitating bearings to basically completely relieve the weight off of the mechanical bearings.

      Also keep in mind that Harmony Turbines catch wind equally from any direction, without having to regularly adjust and turn for changing wind directions.

      I’ve also noticed a bit of a flaw in the Harmony prototypes, they’re making their own generator mechanism and winding their own coils, around solid steel cores rather than the known more efficient design using many stacked discs as the electromagnetic windings used in everyday generators, alternators and motors.

      Yes sure there’s room for improvements, their project is fairly new, but I still see more strength in numbers rather than ridiculous large size.

      Like, how much fuel goes into an airplane the size of a football field again? How is such a large plane helping the green cause at all?