4 ms·

Source? I have personally seen one operating in Alaska during the winter.

throwawayboise 6y ago
It's not the temperature per se, it's icing. I read it here https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-14/deep-freeze-sends-gas-soaring-to-600-over-the-long-u-s-weekend https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-14/deep-free... “When wind-turbine blades get covered with ice, they need to be shut down,” said Joshua Rhodes, a research associate at The University of Texas at Austin who focuses on energy.
- bombcar 6y ago
  A windmill is basically a inverse airplane - and airplane wings don’t like icing. I assume you could heat the blades but at some point you’re consuming more energy than you’re making.
  - o-__-o 6y ago
    Planes have deicing boots. Holes in the leading edge of the wing that has a balloon on the inside. A non freezing gel is usually pumped in which expands the balloon out of the hole and causes the ice to crack. It then retracts and this process repeats keeping the wing clear of ice.
    - bearbin 6y ago
      Not really usable for wind turbines though, the energy cost would be significant first of all (compare the blade area of a wind turbine to a plane!) The bigger issue is maintenance. Wind turbine leading edges are a very hostile environment compared to a plane and even normal materials get abraded very quickly, plus they are expected to last for many years without significant maintenance. Anti-ice systems would just not be economical if they had to be maintained to a working condition at all times.
      - xxpor 6y ago
        Given they can generate their own electricity, wouldn't it make more sense to just heat the blades?
        r00fus 6y ago
        Probably not worth the EROEI
        conk 6y ago
        Heating the blades would be nearly impossible with any significant wind chill. I imagine anyplace that has wind turbines is going to have significant wind chill.
      - o-__-o 6y ago
        If you consider plane propellers, they do not have de-icers and must avoid known icing limits. The rotation of the blade causes the ice to fly off the blade up to a certain point. After that point, thrust will be impacted and altitude cannot be maintained. Dropping to a lower altitude will usually resolve the problem. Wing surface deformation is a larger issue for planes and probably not the solution here
  - xxpor 6y ago
    That's because they lose lift though. For a turbine, that wouldn't matter (at least directly). I have to imagine it's really the overall weight or the unbalanced weight not being good for the bearings and such. Not to mention a blade flinging a piece of ice off when it starts to melt...
    - bombcar 6y ago
      The wind turbine spins because of an analog of lift - without “lift” it won’t spin. There’s also the issue of balance.
      - xxpor 6y ago
        >The wind turbine spins because of an analog of lift - without “lift” it won’t spin. Thinking about it, that does make perfect sense, but just intuitively, I would think say, making a blade that had a flat side perpendicular to the wind direction would work, because the force can still be imparted to the blade. I can also intuitively surmise why that wouldn't work for a plane though. When dealing with a plane, you want to generate force perpendicular to the wing (i.e. up when the plane is moving horizontally), but in a turbine you want the force to be in the same direction as the blade is moving. I feel like I must be missing something.
        bombcar 6y ago
        You're not - a flat board works as a wing with enough force behind it. There's a description on how a wing works involving Bernoulli's law - but it's more accurate to think of it how your hand feels when you hold it out the window of a car at speed. And of course old windmills were just boards - and I suspect they only stop working in the cold if the bearings freeze.
mimikatz 6y ago
“We are experiencing record-breaking electric demand due to the extreme cold temperatures that have gripped Texas," Bill Magness, ERCOT President and CEO, said in a press release on Sunday. "At the same time, we are dealing with higher-than-normal generation outages due to frozen wind turbines and limited natural gas supplies available to generating units. We are asking Texans to take some simple, safe steps to lower their energy use during this time."
nimos 6y ago
Turbine manufactures have cold weather packages and deicing systems. I'd wager they don't get installed in Texas.
- every 6y ago
  Quite likely because we rarely have heavy icing. This current storm is the worst since 1989. I've been in Austin for over 50 years and can count such incidents on one hand with fingers left to spare...

It's not the temperature per se, it's icing. I read it here https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-14/deep-freeze-sends-gas-soaring-to-600-over-the-long-u-s-weekend https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-14/deep-free... “When wind-turbine blades get covered with ice, they need to be shut down,” said Joshua Rhodes, a research associate at The University of Texas at Austin who focuses on energy.

bombcar 6y ago
A windmill is basically a inverse airplane - and airplane wings don’t like icing. I assume you could heat the blades but at some point you’re consuming more energy than you’re making.
- o-__-o 6y ago
  Planes have deicing boots. Holes in the leading edge of the wing that has a balloon on the inside. A non freezing gel is usually pumped in which expands the balloon out of the hole and causes the ice to crack. It then retracts and this process repeats keeping the wing clear of ice.
  - bearbin 6y ago
    Not really usable for wind turbines though, the energy cost would be significant first of all (compare the blade area of a wind turbine to a plane!) The bigger issue is maintenance. Wind turbine leading edges are a very hostile environment compared to a plane and even normal materials get abraded very quickly, plus they are expected to last for many years without significant maintenance. Anti-ice systems would just not be economical if they had to be maintained to a working condition at all times.
    - xxpor 6y ago
      Given they can generate their own electricity, wouldn't it make more sense to just heat the blades?
      - r00fus 6y ago
        Probably not worth the EROEI
      - conk 6y ago
        Heating the blades would be nearly impossible with any significant wind chill. I imagine anyplace that has wind turbines is going to have significant wind chill.
    - o-__-o 6y ago
      If you consider plane propellers, they do not have de-icers and must avoid known icing limits. The rotation of the blade causes the ice to fly off the blade up to a certain point. After that point, thrust will be impacted and altitude cannot be maintained. Dropping to a lower altitude will usually resolve the problem. Wing surface deformation is a larger issue for planes and probably not the solution here
- xxpor 6y ago
  That's because they lose lift though. For a turbine, that wouldn't matter (at least directly). I have to imagine it's really the overall weight or the unbalanced weight not being good for the bearings and such. Not to mention a blade flinging a piece of ice off when it starts to melt...
  - bombcar 6y ago
    The wind turbine spins because of an analog of lift - without “lift” it won’t spin. There’s also the issue of balance.
    - xxpor 6y ago
      >The wind turbine spins because of an analog of lift - without “lift” it won’t spin. Thinking about it, that does make perfect sense, but just intuitively, I would think say, making a blade that had a flat side perpendicular to the wind direction would work, because the force can still be imparted to the blade. I can also intuitively surmise why that wouldn't work for a plane though. When dealing with a plane, you want to generate force perpendicular to the wing (i.e. up when the plane is moving horizontally), but in a turbine you want the force to be in the same direction as the blade is moving. I feel like I must be missing something.
      - bombcar 6y ago
        You're not - a flat board works as a wing with enough force behind it. There's a description on how a wing works involving Bernoulli's law - but it's more accurate to think of it how your hand feels when you hold it out the window of a car at speed. And of course old windmills were just boards - and I suspect they only stop working in the cold if the bearings freeze.

mimikatz 6y ago

“We are experiencing record-breaking electric demand due to the extreme cold temperatures that have gripped Texas," Bill Magness, ERCOT President and CEO, said in a press release on Sunday. "At the same time, we are dealing with higher-than-normal generation outages due to frozen wind turbines and limited natural gas supplies available to generating units. We are asking Texans to take some simple, safe steps to lower their energy use during this time."

nimos 6y ago

Turbine manufactures have cold weather packages and deicing systems. I'd wager they don't get installed in Texas.

every 6y ago
Quite likely because we rarely have heavy icing. This current storm is the worst since 1989. I've been in Austin for over 50 years and can count such incidents on one hand with fingers left to spare...