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This is the right question. A few years ago I worked for a wind turbine company (Admittingly a crappy one) and I was one of two software engineers, My first j
by malux85 8y ago
This is the right question.
A few years ago I worked for a wind turbine company (Admittingly a crappy one) and I was one of two software engineers,
My first job was to analyse all of the data about 300 turbines were sending back home, and build a dashboard.
Well a few weeks later after checking all of the data, it turns out that the entire fleet of turbines actually consumed slightly more energy than they produced.
This was because of many manufacturing problems meant there were several frequencies that the turbine couldn’t spin at because it would generate a resonance and shatter or break something. So the system was frequently applying the break to stop the turbine destroying itself.
After several days of head scratching and double-checking and triple-checking the data, I went to the mechanical engineers and they finally sheepishly admitted they knew these things were net energy consumers rather than producers.
This doesn’t even take into account the energy budget of cost of production and distribution.
This isn’t the case for the big turbines you see out in the field, I’m really just reenforcing the parent comments point that total energy needs to be considered.
- iagovar 8y agoIf this is common, then it's very bad news.
- stephen_g 8y agoIt's not. His comment is about a specific company who made faulty products, not about wind turbines in general.
- benj111 8y agoIts common for small (house mounted) turbines to not generate their embodied energy, which is why you don't really see them any more. Edit: Reference https://www.resilience.org/stories/2010-09-16/real-world-tests-small-wind-turbines-netherlands-and-uk/ https://www.resilience.org/stories/2010-09-16/real-world-tes...
- tgb 8y agoWhy was applying a brake so energy intensive? Seems like it'd be practically free.
- misterdata 8y agoAfter braking the turbine isn't generating the energy it needs to in order to be net positive.
- sundvor 8y agoHow bad would it be to insert a comment about regenerative braking here? But yeah, that sounds so bizarre. The Emperor's New clothes territory.
- mannykannot 8y agoRegenerative braking is not an issue here. Wind turbines slow down the wind to generate electricity, so, in a sense, they are always doing regenerative braking when operating as intended. They would only be mechanically braked when this (and also blade feathering) is insufficient or inapplicable for some reason.
- mannykannot 8y agoFor this to lead to a net negative, it has to be more than just a lost opportunity to make energy: either it is a significant energy consumer (i.e. not just a dissipater), or the turbines must be incapable of producing significant amounts of energy even when working correctly. There is something that has not been explained here.
- hopler 8y agoThat the turbines were incapable of producing significant amounts of energy even when working correctly, is not out of the really of reason.
- flavius29663 8y agoIn general, turbines use energy to start up! They need to do this in order to overcome the very large inertia. Imagine a wind that lasts for 4 hours, but to harness that, you need to be spinning up for 1 hour, leaving you only 3 hours or useful energy. Instead, they spin up the blades to the optimum speed and can get payback for that initial spent energy. Also, you still need energy to run the computer that monitors everything. https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Wind-Power/How-Much-Power-Do-Wind-Turbines-Use.html https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Wind-Power/How-Much-...
- scotty79 8y agoWhat the turbines use the energy for?
- eeZah7Ux 8y agoYou are cherry-picking a bad example.
- ThomPete 8y agoEven if he is then it still shows that it's not as rosy as many likes to claim.
- crdoconnor 8y agoIt's uncited and anecdotal.
- starbeast 8y agoSmall turbines are rubbish. Always have been. Wind turbines are a swept area game. Everyone in the industry knows this.
- stephen_g 8y agoWhat's not as rosy as many claim? There is simply not enough data in the comment to draw conclusions about anything apart from a specific unnamed producer of faulty products...
- ThomPete 8y agoIt's pretty decided that Solar will never be able to produce even close to sufficient energy to serve as a baseline energy source.
- agumonkey 8y agoI've read stories like that, people rushing products to benefit from subventions. It backfires badly on renewables.