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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

HAWT Disadvantages

I don't like the line "Downwind variants suffer from fatigue and structural failure caused by turbulence." If they all suffer from fatigue and structural failure then what engineer would be dumb enough to choose them? Choosing the right materials and paying attention to vibration modelling will solve that problem at the cost of something else. With a failure mechanism of something as expensive as a wind turine, if the lay-man knows about it, then it doesn't happen anymore. Also, turbulence is not the only factor causing fatigue loading in turbines, the rotation of the blades and fluctuation in mean wind speeds (on which turbulence is superimposed) are also contributors. Anything can fail if subjected to a high enough level of fatigue loading for long enough, but I don't see Yuri Geller's trick listed as a disadvantage on the spoon page. 86.44.200.132 (talk) 17:50, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I also just spotted "The blades rotate at 10-22 revolutions per minute", when myself and my friends measured one at 30rpm last weekend, so the two citations must be wrong (or the turbines we saw were out of control) 86.44.200.132 (talk) 18:09, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Is it even possible to buy a commercial-scale wind turbine with a downwind rotor? NASA discovered the downwind blade fatigue problem with its early MOD series test turbines. Each time a blade passed through the tower wind shadow, the sudden drop and then immediate rise in wind force on the blade was like dropping an elephant on it. NASA quickly gave up on downwind rotors, as did the rest of the industry. As far as rotor RPM goes, it's a function of rotor diameter - bigger rotors turn more slowly (although the tip speed ratios are similar due to the longer blades). --Teratornis (talk) 03:24, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Small scale (sub-25kW range) often have rotor speeds in the hundreds of RPMs. Slower turbines are usually commercial scale and linked directly to the grid so are required to turn slower to allow for proper synchronization with the grid frequency(Joryn (talk) 18:39, 30 September 2009 (UTC))

Internal arrangement needed

We could certainly use a cross-section drawing through a typical turbine, showing the blades, hub, speed increaser gearbox, generator, blade pitch controls,blade teetering, nacelle yaw controls, weather instruments, brake, slip rings, cables,and cooling system. Also, we need a description of these sub systems. Someone commented at one of the other wind articles that we don't explain *how* the process works, and he's right! I know, I know, [WP:Be Bold]] and write it myself... --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:04, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Eventually I might get around to uploading some images from this page to Commons, although I'd like to find higher-resolution versions of them:
Also see some of the diagrams in commons:Category:Wind turbines such as:
some of which are in other languages. Someone could make English versions. --Teratornis (talk) 10:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Wind Turbine Life Span

I think it would be beneficial to have a paragraph on wind turbine life spans. I have heard that the average life span of a turbine is 30 years, but I don't have any sources to back that up. Does anyone know that number and have any sources offhand to improve the article with?--Swithich (talk) 04:13, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I read about the Kamaoa Wind Farm in Hawaii with an original construction in 1987 that recently repowered to new wind turbines. I saw some photos on Flickr of the original wind turbines just before repowering. They looked to be in pretty bad shape after 20 years of getting pounded by the weather - towers rusted, some with broken blades, etc. Presumably new wind turbines are getting more durable, but who knows. A lot depends on the level of maintenance, of course. If you keep painting the towers and replacing the moving parts that wear out, a wind turbine could theoretically last as long as any other large building that gets good maintenance. Anyway, we can look for photos on Flickr with a {{Flickr free}} template I recently created:
--Teratornis (talk) 10:21, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

History photo- which is better for the article?

The world's first megawatt wind turbine at Castleton, Vermont
The world's first automatically operated wind turbine was built in 1888 by Charles F. Brush

Unfortunately, both these photos won't fit in the history section, so a choice has to be made. The current photo is on the left depicting the first 1MW turbine. The proposed new photo on the right of is of Charles Brush's electric wind turbine from the 19th century. I believe it better suits the article for a number of reasons:

  • visual value- What new information to you get from a photo versus a text description? What does the 1 MW turbine photo add? It is a generic design- seeing it doesn't tell you much. The 19th century photo has a dense amount of visual information.
  • historic value- The 19th century turbine was the first automatic wind turbine, built by a notable historic figure in early history of electricity (Charles F. Brush), was the first wind turbine in the US for continuous production of electricity, and was a very early example of practical use renewable energy (not an experiment- used 20 years). The 1MW turbine is from much later- 1941 after many different turbines had been produced. What makes this one notable? 1MW was simply a quantitative leap, and whatever the project is not even notable enough for the article to discuss. (Why not the first 500kV turbine?)
  • asthetic- better quality photo (1MW is washed out with blades blurred- can hardly make out what it is), The 19th century turbine has a higher visual impact- due to the target shape, variety of textures and the gargantuan dimensions (note size of the man in the photo).


Aparently not everyone agrees the 19th century photo is superior, since the change was reverted. Any comments either way? -J JMesserly (talk) 22:41, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I think more photos are (usually) better than fewer. Wikipedia has far too many articles with no photos at all yet, so I'd be more concerned about filling the photo gaps before we worry about trimming "excess" photos out of the relatively few articles one could consider adequately illustrated. This article surveys some wind turbines through the ages, and I think depicting as many as we can with historical photos makes the article better. Old wind turbines look different than modern wind turbines, so how else can the reader picture these antiques? We can fit arbitarily many photos by using one or more gallery tags. See for example:
It's often hard to fit many photos into sections with "loose" image links; the layout can get busy, and it looks different on every browser, so two editors might start reverting each other because one who sees a good layout can't tell that the other editor sees a mess. In contrast, I suspect galleries maintain a more standard appearance across browsers. (And for future reference, WP:TALK#Editing comments says we can hide image links on a talk page after discussion of them has ended.) --Teratornis (talk) 04:04, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Of course the section has the {{Main}} link to History of wind power where we can put as many photos of old wind turbines as we want. Thus it may not matter as much which photo makes the cut here. If we don't want to put a gallery into the summary section of Wind turbine#History, then I suppose we can argue over which one photo to put in. If there can only be one photo, it seems the choice will be arbitrary and different people are unlikely to agree. People don't select their favorite photos by checking through a list of rational arguments. Photo preference tends to be immediate, impulsive, and emotional, like taste in food or music. Oh and incidentally, I have found some better photos of the wind turbine from Grandpa's Knob, but they are all under copyright (boo, hiss). --Teratornis (talk) 04:56, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
As it is now, the 1888 picture is clearly preferable, for the reasons given by JMesserly. I can't see any reason for the 1941 turbine. — Sebastian 22:22, 31 December 2008 (UTC)    (I am open to changing or amending this vote or statement. If you feel facts changed sufficiently after I posted this, please let me know, as I may not be watching this page.)

Article needs Wind-Harvesting Efficiency Examples

While Betz is discussed as an upper limit on efficiency, one would not expect to have zero wind speed downwind from a wind turbine. 100% efficiency (not achievable) would result in a zero speed downwind from the cross sectional area swept out by the blade. Should we find and add references with data for upwind versus downwind speeds (if known) for various wind turbines? This could be complicated, because approaching wind is approximately laminar, and downwind will have vortices. References, anyone? Want to start a draft section here? Navuoy (talk) 17:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the utility myself - I'm sure Betz's chain of reasoning started from the (inutitively obvious?) proposition that the air coming in has to go out, so exit velocity can't be zero. Upstream and downstream velocities would be meaningless to the general reader, and would be measured in various ways at various points. What would the numbers actually tell you? "Efficiency", in terms of wind energy theretically available vs. kwh produced, is not signficant economically because you're not paying anything for the wind. There is possibly a second-order effect in terms of the cost of the machinery required to harvest a given number of MWH/year at a site, but this would be small, and to a first approximation all commercial wind turbines will have "effciencies" so close that the differences don't matter to the cost of energy production. Cost of shipping blades is probably more of a determination of energy production cost than the actual efficiency of the turbine. --Wtshymanski (talk) 22:22, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Efficiency is not a major issue for wind turbines. This is in contrast to photovoltaic cells, where efficiencies are low, one of the factors keeping solar PV about 5 to 10 years behind wind power in terms of installed capacity. Even if we had data on wind speeds downwind from wind turbine rotors, adding it to the article would add lots of boring bulk with very little gain in clarity. Lots of data would be necessary as well, because the efficiency of a given wind turbine varies with the wind speed, and the wind speed varies significantly across the vertical extent of a large wind turbine (wind speed increases with height above ground). So you're talking about a dataset with at least three dimensions (nominal wind speed, height above ground, and wind turbine model). About all the reader needs to know is that modern horizontal axis wind turbines are pretty close to their theoretical maximum efficiency already, and a wind farm needs to space its wind turbines fairly far apart (five to ten rotor diameters) so the upwind turbines don't rob too much power from the downwind turbines due to their wind shadow. The biggest issues for wind turbines now are getting sites approved for installation, building transmission lines, dealing with the transient nature of wind, supply chain problems for the manufacturers as they try to ramp up production, and the logistical challenges of moving enormous rotor blades, tower sections, and nacelles. --Teratornis (talk) 09:54, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, your reponses are taken to heart. My ignorance of this subject is the problem. Here is a simpler idea, but first let me give you the basis for the idea and perhaps we can find a solution. From this article, I noticed that the cross sectional area swept out by old farm windmill is almost 100%. The blades cover almost the entire area. Then, if you look, the next level in size shows about 50% coverage in the cross sectional area for the Danish, old-style mills. Then we go on to the modern wind turbines, which have a single blade intersecting a very small area of the disk that would outline its radius. So here is a proposal: Can we find an on-line calculator that gives efficiency in terms of wind spped, radius, pitch, number of blades, etc.? Navuoy (talk) 06:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
But this is an encyclopedia, not a textbook on the history of wind turbine design. All that we'd need here is an overview to the effect that many combinations of variables have been tried, and that in the commerically-important megawatt grid-connected turbine sector the 3-blade horizontal machine is the current state of the art for good reasons of adequate "efficiency" and construction cost (preferably backed up by a reference that the more curious reader could follow for the detailed maths). You're never going to find an on-line "efficiency" calculator until you define "efficiency", and to do that you must understand why you'd need to define a concept like "wind turbine efficiency" in the first place. The number of blades uses has little to do with abstract "efficiecy" but instead is dominated by concerns about speed and structural strength. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:39, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
An encyclopedia of wind energy generation would have this information, and WP can be regarded as a massive union of such encyclopedias. For example, WP also has an in depth explanation of what a Delibird (one of the hundreds of pokemon characters) is. Perhaps the proposed material could be covered not in the main body of the wind turbine article, but a more detailed technical article? -J JMesserly (talk) 19:07, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Do you think it is fair to conclude, that in an ideal case, much like the derivation of the gas law, that a solid disk positioned perpendicular to the wind would generate the "Betz Limit" of energy, wherein W=fd is also ideally optimized? If so, then perhaps there is a reference we can find that rates turbine blade efficiencies relative to this so-called "Betz Limit". Navuoy (talk) 21:31, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Your comments above about blade count seem to suggest that you are equating more blades with higher efficiency. The opposite is actually true: modern wind turbines are much more efficient than the old multi-bladed water-pumping windmills (according to the description in File:USDA windmills.jpg). The common intuition that leaving empty space between the blades equates to throwing away energy is misleading. One of the consequences of Betz' law is that adding lots of blades doesn't help, because the additional blades just end up robbing power from each other. (See the Propeller article which discusses the analogous problem of optimizing the blade count on an engine-driven propeller.) As a weak analogy, consider that many earlier airplanes were biplanes, triplanes, or had even more wings. Modern airplanes are monoplanes for the most part. A biplane's second wing only increases lift by about 20% compared to the same wing in monoplane arrangement, according to the biplane article. As far as what Wikipedia can include, Wikipedia is not paper, which means we can go into whatever depth anyone feels like writing (and then defending against deletion). It might be worth pointing out somewhere that modern three-bladed wind turbines have the almost magical ability to extract a large fraction of the available wind power from a huge swept rotor area, without having to fill the whole area with anything solid. (It may help to realize that as each blade slices through the air, it disturbs a large volume of air around it, and if you could see the size of this disturbance, you would see that the rotor disk is not as "empty" as it appears.) This is one reason why commercial wind power is several times cheaper than commercial solar power right now - if you want to collect solar power from a large area, you have to fill the whole area with something (e.g. mirrors, panels, photovoltaic cells, a solar pond, a photobioreactor, etc.), and something costs a lot more than nothing. --Teratornis (talk) 03:03, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
Tera, That is very helpful, especially the propeller article. I have been reading the Betz article, and I asked Crowsnest to comment here. I can't get further without finding the book cited in Betz.
I thought the idea with fast props was to approach about 60% of the speed of sound before adding more blades - unless ground clearance is a problem (belly-draggers).
My other thought is that long blades get into higher altitudes and higher winds, so with a v^3 effect, one might get more out of the top than the bottom, on average. Navuoy (talk) 23:35, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
You can see the effect of wind speed increase with height in some photographs of wind turbines in high winds - the blade tips visibly bend farther back when the blades are above the hub than when they are below. This difference in blade loading with height above ground is one reason to use three blades instead of two. With just two blades, there is a bigger periodic twisting load on the hub, when the blades align vertically. The blade pointing straight up generates its maximum bending moment on the hub, at the time when the blade pointing straight down generates its minimum bending moment. With a three-bladed rotor, there are two blades just 30 degrees below horizontal, so you don't have a situation where blades are experiencing maximum wind vs. minimum wind at the same time. Instead there are three height-related surge cycles per rotation, but they aren't as large. --Teratornis (talk) 21:18, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

From my understanding, what is being described in the "H vertical wind turbine" is a standard giromill. This section was added by someone from aeolius turbine and has repeatedly been linked to their commercial site. Is there any reason that this section should not be deleted?

Reading into the HAWT/VAWT controversy further, there seem to be a lot of suspect additions to this article.

The following seem to be specious:

From HAWT disadvantages:

HAWTs have difficulty operating in near ground, turbulent winds.

-so does any wind turbine. The assertation that VAWTs do not suffer this limitation is a myth.

The following seems to be commercial promotion or original research:

From VAWT descriptions:

Recently, this type of turbine has been advanced by former Russian rocket scientists who claim to have increased the efficiency of the VAWT up to 38%. A company, SRC Vertical Ltd.[2], has been formed, and has begun selling the new turbine.

seems to be promotion.

The Alvin Benesh rotor and the Hamid Rahai rotor improve efficiency with blades shaped to produce significant lift as well as drag.

Doesn't really add anything to the description and seems like a vanity link.

From subsection "special turbines:

Variable pitch wind turbines are another special (yet low-cost) design. Designs such as the Jacobs are said to be inexpensive, highly efficient and usable in DIY-construction.[15]

This seems to be out of context here - variable pitch is the standard speed control technique used in current utility scale turbines.

Let me know if I am off base on any of this. Tspine (talk) 19:15, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Economics of Micro Wind Turbines

I believe reference to this article is appropriate in this section dealing with micro turbine installations http://www.bsdlive.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3132514&origin=bsdmonthly--81.136.195.82 (talk) 11:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

It's nice to believe in things, isn't it? Could you perhaps explain WHY this random Web site is relevant to this encyclopedia article? Perhaps you could summarize the most significant points of the Web site and put it into the article in an appropriate way? --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:35, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

If you'd bothered to read the article (not from a random site but a specialist one on sustainable development) you would see that it is itself a summary of a report from a reputable agency on the economics of microturbines but then it is easy to criticise isn't it. I thought the object of Wikipedia was to improve human knowledge by sharing it? On the other hand why did I bother to contribute?--92.20.118.253 (talk) 21:33, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

There, now, you've explained the relevance of the link. Now if you could just be so kind as to use the information from the site to update the article, you'd be all set. --Wtshymanski (talk) 23:11, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


"H vertical wind turbine" contributions from aeolius88

This section on the "H vertical wind turbine" in which the author is describing a giromill is back. The information, always linking back to shanghai aeolius wind turbine, is not cited and is promotional in nature. When asked for citations, links to the aeolius turbine site are provided; I plan to re-delete this addition to the VAWT section, but do not want to get into an edit war here. Someone with more experience let me know how this type of thing is usually dealt with. Tspine (talk) 18:48, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Anyone want to weigh in on this? I've reverted the inclusion of the aeolius turbine image and some text that was included again. This user clearly has a conflict of interest as I assume they work for Shanghai aeolius wind turbine. This turbine is really nothing new or special and doesn't warrant inclusion in addition to the images of VAWTs that are already in the article. Tspine (talk) 17:24, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Clean up of this talk page

Anyone want to do this :)Tspine (talk) 18:48, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone care that this page is unmanageably long? I would be happy to archive the discussion except for the last few topics. Tspine (talk) 17:24, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
I have archived the old talk entries to clean up this page. Please use colons instead of blockquote to set your talk entry apart from the previous one. Binksternet (talk) 07:55, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Error in Wikipedia article under Types of wind turbines, Horizontal axis

The article says "Downwind machines have been built, despite the problem of turbulence, because they don't need an additional mechanism for keeping them in line with the wind"

This isn't true. A wind turbine rotor does not behave like a windsock or a parachute. Its aerodynamic action does not have much of a yaw moment component. Wallyflint (talk) 02:16, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the [skystream 3.7] is built as a downwind machine for this very reason. I don't know how much moment arm you would need to have enough yawing action, but this is likely going to be limited to smaller scale turbines anyway. If you want to change this, give it a [citation needed] tag, then change it if nobody comes up with a citation. The skystream I linked above should demonstrate that there are in fact downwind machines with no additional yaw mechanism. Tspine (talk) 03:23, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


Construction of Offshore HAWT

The article noted that the components for HAWT are large & difficult to transport in built up areas. I understand that the construction of offshore HAWT is easier because the components are moved to site by ship, in calm weather of course. I suggest that the article include this point. --DavidJErskine (talk) 11:41, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


Upwind vs Downwind HAWT

A subtle advantage of upwind HAWT is that the lopsided weight of the rotor is upwind, so wind pressure on the tower is offset to some extent by the weight of the rotor. For a downwind HAWT the lopsided weight of the rotor adds to the wind pressure on the tower. There is a similar feature in large modern sailing ships; the masts lean sternwards, & this lopsided weight offsets to some extent the pressure of the wind on the mast. --DavidJErskine (talk) 14:00, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Factual errors about wildlife impact

The article states that birds and bats can be killed, but it doesn't say much about the larger birds, such as eagles. They are the ones that are killed by the wind turbines, as seen around in Norway these days. Small birds are usually quick enough for windmills to become a threat Rkarlsba (talk) 14:37, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

This is covered in greater depth on the Environmental effects of wind power page. I have updated the links on birds and bats to be more helpful.Tspine (talk) 04:21, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Strange turbine picture

What is the odd picture of a polish turbine doing at the top of the page. Is this notable? Without some kind of description I am going to assume that it is some kind of promotion and delete it. Tspine (talk) 03:47, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Wind turbine economics under criticisms

I think that some mention of this as a criticism belongs here. Like bird and bat kills, it might not be a valid criticism when compared to the cost of energy production by other means, but this criticism is often brought up so it does bear mentioning here. [This reference] on the financing methods for wind installations in the US makes it pretty clear that the price per kwh of wind is higher than that of natural gas for new installed capacity, but that there are some inherent inequities between the two that make straight up economics a poor predictor of overall cost. This is covered well under the section of [wind energy] that this section linked to. The other complaint you hear is about the amount of subsidy paid for wind energy, and I believe this complaint is somewhat valid as well. The root problem is that the competing technologies have much higher externalities, but that doesn't mean that there is no controversy. Tspine (talk) 03:47, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

HAWT vs VAWT debate

So while Burt.windon's edits were mostly off-base, he has a point about the "disadvantages" of HAWTs as presented on this page. Nearly all of the supposed disadvantages are those of size, not rotor orientation. The HAWT vs. VAWT debate is a little out of hand on this page and is getting more attention than it needs - I am thinking about re-writing this page to put a little less emphasis on this debate, since it is essentially over anyway. Tspine (talk) 17:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Claiming that a disadvantage of vertical-axis machines is that some people overstate their effectives is about as bad as claiming that a disadvantage of the internal combustion engine is that some people sell miracle pills that turn water into gasoline. It's not a really central point and need not be remarked on in the article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 13:40, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Health effects

I rolled the section on "wind turbine environmental impacts" under criticisms and tweaked it a little bit. The linked news report source mentions nothing about noise; the only cause for the reported symptoms mentioned in the report is "electrical pollution" measured by David Colling, a consultant. This seems to be a reoccurring criticism so I don't think that it should be deleted or suppressed, but a lot of the sources used are anti-wind groups. The same revert war is being fought on the Environmental impacts of wind turbines page.Tspine (talk) 18:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

POV tag

I've added a POV tag to the Criticism section as it is far too negative and unbalanced. For example, Ardrossan Wind Farm locals have found wind turbines to be impressive looking, bring a calming effect to the town and, and "silent workhorses". Black Law Wind Farm has received praise from RSPB for benefitting wildlife. Johnfos (talk) 21:46, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

So balance it! The section is entitled criticisms, and could be a chance to present both sides of all the issues about which individuals criticize turbines. I've tried to take a crack at adding [citation needed] where I think something is dubious rather than just deleting it like seems to be the general tendency. My personal belief is that a lot of the "health effects" are mostly NIMBY stuff, but I don't think we do wind turbines any service by pretending that no criticisms exist. I'm sure that we can find news articles from people who love wind farms just like we can find news articles from individuals who don't like them. By all means, add things to bring this section into balance.Tspine (talk) 22:42, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Done. Rather than trying to re-invent the wheel, I've brought in the lead section from Environmental effects of wind power, per WP:SS. Johnfos (talk) 23:05, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
You basically just wiped out the whole section and replaced it with one on the environmental impacts rather than the criticisms. This is not really equivalent - the discussion of intermittency and economics of the turbines is gone, and doesn't really fit into a section on environmental impacts but does have a place in a discussion about the criticisms of wind power (not unique to turbines necessarily).
I don't like the constant addition of complaints about "noise, flicker, tinitus" or whatever, but maybe if we had something in there to acknowledge and balance these complaints editors would stop adding them. I do not believe that these complaints are much other than an attempt to pathologize wind turbines, since this is often a fruitful avenue in resisting a technology, but having no mention and no refutation seems to be ignoring an often raised concern. In fact this paper would be a good start in refuting this kind of assertion. I do believe that such a section is warranted, as are links to the discussions of intermittency and capacity factor from the main wind energy article. Tspine (talk) 17:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm going to revert your wiping out of that section because I don't think that the current content is at all equivalent to what you have replaced it with. We should be able to work with the existing section to resolve the POV problems without eliminating content. Tspine (talk) 18:21, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
I've worked on this section some to remove uncited, unsupported and POV language without removing valid concerns. Can people chime in on what could be improved? This issue generates some controversy but I think that the criticisms are fairly presented in this section. I welcome any comments.Tspine (talk) 19:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Considerable improvements have been made and I've removed the POV tag for this section. Johnfos (talk) 20:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks like the criticism content has been removed again and replaced with solely an environmental impact section. There are other issues besides environmental ones. A study done by some British company found that aviation primary RADAR systems have difficulty handling windfarms as the constantly rotating turbines cause the RADAR to pick up an intrusive object. There are complex ways of eliminating this problem but at the moment it is being cited by aviation safety organisations that wind farms pose a significant risk to their industry. I would also argue that the title is misleading as the intermittent nature of wind and the economic cost of wind turbines are not environmental issues. --Spuzzdawg (talk) 11:10, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
If you are the one who added the problems with RADAR, add them again and put some references in there. Unreferenced criticisms are hastily deleted on this page. If it is truly a problem, finding some references should be easy. Tspine (talk) 20:38, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Unbalanced tag

Worldwide installed capacity 1996-2008

Wind turbines are a fast-growing technology which is used commercially in 80 countries, and so we might expect that the technology has more advantages than disadvantages. Yet this article has an extensive criticism section, but little on the benefits of the technology. And so the article is one-sided. That is why the Unbalanced tag is at the top of the article. Johnfos (talk) 20:19, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

This article could use a benefits section and comparison of the life cycle impacts of wind vs. other forms of power generation. Wind as a generation technology is inherently and fundamentally different than a conventional fueled power plant as the "fuel" is free. However, many of the avoided costs (CO2 emission, nuclear waste disposal) are still externalized in conventional power plants. This entire article would be improved by being re-structured, which I plan to do once I get the time to do it right. It comes off as a debate between VAWT and HAWT, as if there were even a debate. There is little on how turbines actually work (betz limit, kinetic-shaft work energy conversion, tip speed ratio, speed control techniques, synchronous vs. asynchronous, terrestrial vs. off-shore etc... Anyone know if there is a protocol for sandboxing significant re-writes? Tspine (talk) 21:20, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Combined Electricity Pylon/Wind Turbine Concept

I knew it was a good idea! Wind'It will in time be a reality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.254.83.228 (talk) 09:54, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Looks like a hoax to me. How do you dump power from an itty-bitty turbine into a 400 kV transmission line without a step-up transformer? No numbers. No facts. The "project Web site" looks like it's been unchanged since 2007 and the illustration is quite odd looking - where's the generator? Where's the step-up transformer? Those don't look like existing towers, so you must build brand new towers. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:36, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Oh, I wouldn't say it's a hoax just because of that. Sure, there would have to be new towers and obviously the illustrator left out the step-up transformer and maybe made the generator too small. (Though I suspect a real implementation would only have a transformer on every nth tower with smaller transmission lines linking the ones without.) Their proposal as it stands now may be technically inadequate, but that hardly invalidates the idea. Somebody somewhere will in time build these things for real and if they prove practical and economical, there may in time be millions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.254.87.139 (talk) 05:21, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


Image

Can someone take over the picture at http://express.howstuffworks.com/gif/wind-power-horizontal.gif for the construction and design section ? Upload at wikimedia commons and show image here —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.176.215.15 (talk) 10:49, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

No, because it is copyrighted, and belongs to the website... - Adolphus79 (talk) 13:08, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
I already took over the image myself, legally. Perhaps that the EERE_Illust_large_image may be imbedded to the image; the image I draw thus being the larger whole, and the with the EERE image as magnification of the head of the turbine (as it contains more info). The large picture has added info as it mentions the nacelle, rotor blades, rotor hub and transformer. See

91.182.191.178 (talk) 17:04, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Article name

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was not moved, per WP:SNOW. Jafeluv (talk) 17:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Wind turbine → Windturbine — The main name is not in line with the other articles (eg windpump, windmill), I suggest that the name is changed to windturbine (without the space). —Preceding unsigned comment added by KVDP (talk • contribs) 08:40, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Intro change

A wind turbine is a rotating machine which converts the kinetic energy in wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used directly by machinery, such as a pump or grinding stones, the machine is usually called a windmill. If the mechanical energy is instead converted to electricity, the machine is called a wind generator, wind turbine, wind power unit (WPU), wind energy converter (WEC), or aerogenerator.

Change to:

A wind turbine, wind generator, wind turbine, wind power unit (WPU), wind energy converter (WEC), or aerogenerator is a wind energy conversion system in which a electricity generator is imbedded in the device itself.

I'm guessing everyone agrees on the change ? If so, please update the page. KVDP (talk) 14:21, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Please, no. Guess again. Let's not give every synonym in the first line. Let's try to cling to the shreds of English grammar and composition. Let's have simple declarative English sentences in the lead instead of falling down the rabbit-hole of jargon and cant. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:56, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Statement on bird kills is unfounded

The statement in the section on "HAWT Disadvantages" that they "Kill thousands of birds a year, some of which are rare or endangered.[14]" links to a USA Today article that does not mention specifics of any scientific study, only that "The size of the annual body count — conservatively put at 4,700 birds — is unique to this sprawling, 50-square-mile site in the Diablo Mountains" This is not an adequate reference. Who counted the bird kills? What are the specifics of the study?

I reccommend that this statement be deleted from the article as it does not have an adequate citation, so is unfounded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.36.209.14 (talk) 03:47, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Or better yet, mention that this is or has been a concern with some designs and placements, and mention that the concern has been either refuted or confirmed (with citation).

Wind Turbines Causing Infrasound

There have been reports of Wind Turbines (probably limited to certain designs) producing infasound at uncomfortable, or possibly unhealthy, levels. The Wikipedia Infrasound article mentions that "Infrasound can also be generated by ... machinery such as ... older designs of down tower wind turbines", however it may go beyond that. Doing an advanced search on AltaVista for "wind turbine" and "low frequency" found 77,700 results for instance. I think at least mentioning this, and the controversy surrounding it, in the main Wind turbine page is in order.

The page mentions "vibration" in a few places, but only in relation to the mechanical effect on the trubine itself. I suggest dropping "and vibration" from the "Cyclic stresses and vibration" section title as that section does not discuss vibration directly, and creating a new section "Noise, Vibration, and Infasound" that briefly goes into those issues in relation to their effect on the surrounding area/environment, physiology, and how those issues are now shaping regulations with respect to Wind turbine design, placement, noise, and wind turbine setback from dwellings. Such a section could include a summation of some of the information and citations at http://science.howstuffworks.com/wind-turbines-health.htm/printable

The old Wikipedia Wind microturbine page, which now redirects to the main Wind turbine page, had "Wind Turbine Syndrome is a clinical phenomenon first coined by Nina Pierpont. According to her research, some people, when living in close proximity to horizontal axis industrial wind turbines, are affected by low-frequency vibrations emanating from the turbine."[1] It could be noted that VAWT [Vertical-axis wind turbines that have the main rotor shaft arranged vertically] do not lend themselves to this effect as they do not rotate faster than wind speed if that is true.[2]

You know what to do. Toddle down to your public library, get a look at the top 10 books on the subject, summarize their arguements, and put 'em up here complete with page numbers and ISBN numbers. --Wtshymanski (talk) 13:32, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
Documentation about the phenomena may be too new for the local library. It may be in reports and papers submitted to forums like the International Conferences on Wind Turbine Noise. See http://www.windturbinenoise2009.org/.

how to i use d wind turbine for to start my small mill. plz contant me n give me d information. at4sh@rediffmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.95.57.195 (talk) 11:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

VAWT need not have axis of rotation vertical, only traverse to stream

Such invites much rewrite of some paragraphs. Verticality relative to horizon is not the essence of VAWT, but traverseness to the wind stream, often generally normal to the stream. The actual orientation of a VAWT to the horizon thus could be "horizontal" as evidenced in terrain-enhance Darrieus or tether-lofted flown Magnus-effect turbines. Because of the error in the article about the essence of VAWT, advantages and disadvantages of VAWT. Any VAWT can be launched and used with its axis of rotation situated by fixture into a horizontal position without become a HAWT. HAWT are with axis of rotation parallel with the wind stream; and such again does not essentially relate to earth horizon. Joefaust (talk) 00:46, 28 November 2009 (UTC)


We are all refreshed and challenged by your unique perspective. But it seems tautological that a vertical axis machine has the axis...oh, you know. Got any literature to back this up ? And a lot of the "advantages" of a vertical machine disappear if you have to put up two towers or cantilever the rotor from a single tower. --Wtshymanski (talk) 00:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Please provide a citation that people who discuss wind machines with the axis of rotation traverse to the wind flow routinely call these "vertical axis wind turbines" when the shaft is not vertical. It seems to needlessly obscure the matter. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:48, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

What size is the cheapest?

The article doesn't tells what is the best choice, in terms of KW/US$. A big wind turbine or some smaller wind turbines, must be bought and installed? I read in a Cuban book that turbines at about 200-300 KW are the best in terms of price for each KW, but the book was writen more than 20 years ago. What size of wind turbine is the best in terms of price for potency in terms of KW today? Agre22 (talk) 16:32, 19 December 2009 (UTC)agre22

Like most questions suitable to be answered by adults, the correct answer is "it depends". Look at any dozen announcements of wind power projects and note the range in unit sizes. Ask yourself if investors in wind power projects would deliberately choose a size that increased their overall capital cost. A wind power project is usually more concerned with annual kwh produced per dollar invested and not so much kw per dollar - think about why the project is built and you will see why this is so. --Wtshymanski (talk) 00:22, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Wind turbine vs windmill

Suggest to remove images of windmills as windmills are not the same as wind turbines. Windmills produce rotational motion mainly for grinding, wind turbines produce electricity for power. —Preceding unsigned comment added by IPodAddict181 (talk • contribs) 04:12, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi IPA181: There is only a single image of a non-electrical generating windmill in the article. I personally favour keeping it in place, or perhaps replacing it with an image of the Schiedam windmill (the Noletmolen), built in traditional windmill style in 2005 to generate electricity (can anyone provide it?). Another alternative would be to move the existing windmill image up into the History section, which actually discusses the historical origins of today's wind turbines. Best: HarryZilber (talk) 17:41, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Wind-it and Robbert & Rudolf Das wind turbine

The Wind-it (see http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20090513/harvesting-the-wind ,http://encoreheureux.org/2009/12/wind-it/) and the Robbert & Rudolf Das wind turbine need to be mentioned.

The first one would use existing electrical towers, and the second one would be a new, v-shaped wind turbine design with 2 propellers and hydraulic pumps. It would be able to operate at wind speeds over 7 beaufort.

12:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.176.1.254 (talk)

Placed a schematic of the Wind-it WECS concept at the article at "unconventional wind turbines"; however, I feel that a new section should be made, eg "implementation in urban environment", clearly describing the difficulties of implementing wind turbines correctly so they blend with the environment or cause as little hindrence as possible. This, as the design of the turbine itself isn't revolutionary, but the idea of implementation is.

KVDP (talk) 09:48, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

We should not give undue weight to concepts that only exist in imagination. Those towers don't look like any transmission tower I've ever seen. They cannot use "existing" towers which are very carefully and very economically designed for loading conditions that never included sticking a propeller on the top of the tower. Transmission towers are vastly shorter than turbine towers, and transmission line routing is designed to *avoid* the wind more than capturing the wind. I still think it's a hoax and has no sources other than some innumerate coverage as column-filler. There is already a long discussion of turbine siting at wind power and it would not be good to replicate that content in every wind article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:44, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Possible content

metal tabs
closeup look at the tabs - the larger tabs are closest to the root of the blade (i.e., closest to the hub)

The tabs near the leading edge of the upper surface (more convex surface) of the wind turbine blades appear designed to limit the "lift" of the blade at extreme wind velocities by causing turbulance - but that is purely speculation. They are clearly there for some purpose. Before adding them to the article, they are posted here in hope someone can provide an accurate discussion of their aerodynamic function.

Insights or thoughts? Williamborg (Bill) 15:52, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

All we need is a reference! These tabs don't have anything to do with lightning protection, do they? --Wtshymanski (talk) 02:23, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

____________________________

Pretty confident they'd have nothing to do with lightning protection. They change it size - being large where the cross-section of the blade is larger. One would expect them to be larger where the lightning probability is larger if they served a lightning protection purpose - that is to say, larger near the end of the blades. Although one might postulate that they limit the buildup of static electricity on the blade by corona discharge...
Cheers - Williamborg (Bill) 21:35, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
While researching your comments on lightning, I found an article from Sandia (Johnson, Scott J. (2008). "Active Load Control Techniques for Wind Turbines" (PDF). Sandia National Laboratory. Retrieved 13 September 2009. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)) and incorporated the material plus photos at Wind_turbine_design#Stall. Thanks - Williamborg (Bill) 22:14, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Those strips are vortex generators. They produce small amounts of turbulent air close to the surface of the blade and thus reduce the boundary layer effect which arises at wind speeds in excess of approx 10 m/s. [[1]]. They increase the amount of energy the blade can remove from the wind and boost performance at medium to high wind speed. Apologies for lack of edit skills. Not often here 86.175.140.25 (talk) 21:47, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

In addition to the above, on most HAWTs the lightning protection is relatively unobtrusive, limited to a small stud towards the tip of the blade with wires running down to the hub through the inside of the blade then by some arrangement out to the tower and to earth. The external visual impact is minimal. SomewhatMouse (talk) 23:48, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Drawbacks or Criticisms section?

I feel like maybe there should be a 'drawbacks to wind turbine technology section' specifically pertaining to the wind turbine's disruption of eco-systems. There have been reports that bird populations in the vicinity of wind farms have been completely wiped out. I'm not sure the exact mechanism behind these detrimental effects upon ecosystems, but i do know that it's a significant and notable problem that should be touched upon in this article. I'd love to hear everyone's response to this idea. --Peterpumpkin87 (talk) 20:30, 6 February 2010

There have been reports that Elvis is still alive. Cite it and write it. You might find what you're looking for at Wind_power#Environmental_effects or even better at Environmental effects of wind power. We can't put everything we know in one article, it would make the index useless (and the one-page encyclopedia would take forever to load). --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:40, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Contradiction in History section

The caption for the image in the history section describes the turbine in the image as the "world's" first, whereas the section content describes it as America's first, with the world's first being a year ealier. They can't both be correct. LowKey (talk) 01:39, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

VAWTs on towers?

Could I see one somewhere? The only VAWT's I've seen mounted off the ground wete tiny units on roof tops. If it's a multi-kilowatt unit, they seem to all sit on the ground. How do you guy the top of a 50 m high VAWT on top of a 50 m high tower? You've got to guy the top of the VAWT, don't the guy wires interfere with the turbine blades? --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:29, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't show you thousands of examples, but here's one good company making them [2]. Guy wires don't have to stretch from above the turbine blades, but they do on some of the Darrius type turbines. And surely one of the great benefits of some types of vertical axis turbines is that the turbine blades don't pass close to the supporting tower, which allows a lighter weight tower to be held up with guy wires stretching from the generator hub ( as in the example I've given ), which can result in less material being used and therefore a lower cost since the tower makes up such a large percentage of the cost. Flumstead (talk) 13:15, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I note that these are *very small* turbines (to 6 kW), not utility-scale. Why don't we see any megawatt vertical turbines on towers? --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:14, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

The company is attempting to create turbines of 100kw and beyond possibly. You maybe right that it is difficult to put megawatt size VAWT's on towers, who knows, but then VAWT's aren't being produced at that scale,..... yet? Maybe the way to increase the size of turbine and reduced the cost of of electricity from wind is to eliminate the supporting tower altogether as in the case of the Aerogenerator design (9MW+). In the solar power industry there isn't so much concern about which technology is the most efficient, but which provides the lowest cost per watt, and which can be scaled to provide energy for the entire world. As a result all sorts of different solar technologies are being pursued. The same doesn't seem to be true in the wind industry where HAWT's are mostly being developed. It may be the development of VAWT's and smaller wind turbines that could bring down the cost of wind energy and allow wind resources to be exploited in a larger number of locations in the world ? Flumstead (talk) 15:40, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Wind-sail [3] is the name of the company developing these high efficiency VAWT's. They intend to build them up to Megawatt size over the coming 5-10 years. It'll be interesting to see how they develop and compete, and what cost the electricity is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Flumstead (talk • contribs) 08:04, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Looks to me that they are getting to the party 30 years too late; by the time they have a deliverable product, all the good spots will have HAWTs on them already. Hydro Quebec had the mother-of-all 4 megawatt vertical axis turbines in the Gaspe region from 1988 thorugh 1993 [4], but it only made 12000 MWh in 5 years (about 7% capacity factor according to my back-of-the-slide-rule calculation), so it obviously had some issues. *That* unit sat on the ground, not on a tower. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:50, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Spiral Magnus

Wind turbines which utilise the Magnus effect have been developed.. OK, so I looked at the Web site linked after this statement and I still don't know "Why?". The inventor's site sure doesn't give any arguments in favor of the invention, outside of the coolness factor of having five blades instead of three. Does anyone know anything about this other than the fairly useless Web site? What problem are they trying to solve? Seems like a waste of effort to me; none of the problems of wind power of which I am aware have much to do with the shapes of the blades. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, they claim that the turbine is highly efficient, 50% perhaps, I don't know if that is a genuine claim though. And they also say that the turbine can reach maximum power at relatively low wind speeds, 6m/s.Flumstead (talk) 09:24, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

But there's less energy in a 6 m/s wind? If the wind blows faster than that and you've already reached maximum power, that energy is wasted. No-one can beat the Betz coefficient (unless you have a duct or diffuser). There's probably good and sufficient reason these things haven't caught on, and I look forward to reading about the reasons. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Wind class

Hello. In certain description on wind turbine models, I have noticed that they particularly mention "IEC Wind Class". I did not find that phrase mentioned in this article or in the wind power article. Unfortunately, I don't really know what these classes are. So, do any of you think its worth adding it to this (or related) articles? Kind regards. Rehman(+) 14:31, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

According to Google Books preview at http://books.google.ca/books?id=4UYm893y-34C&pg=PA209&dq=IEC+wind+class&cd=4#v=onepage&q=IEC%20wind%20class&f=false, the IEC 61400 wind classes are for categorizing the wind speeds a turbine can withstand. They don't seem to pertain to wind energy potential. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Health effects

We do not have a section on health effect. Here is a good 2010 reference [5] --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:46, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

and see Environmental effects of wind power. --Wtshymanski (talk) 00:39, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
I would not call health effects and environmental effect? But okay. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:54, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
It contains Environmental effects of wind power#Effects of noise. --Thrissel (talk) 10:24, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

The first practical windmill?

How about the "first known" practical windmill? History can be a bit sketchy, especially after thousands of years. There's no way to know if the first one we've read about was actually the first one built. Landroo (talk) 23:08, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Entry needs far better technical drawings

The gearbox shown with spur-cut gears is factually incorrect. All typical HAWTs run at just under 20 rpm with a back to back planetary gearsets which raise the rpm of the generator shaft to a nominal 2,400 rpm. The planetary gearsets are typical (in both design and weight) to those manufactured for truck/bus/tractor automatic transmissions. The primary "high wear" item on HAWTs is the thrust washer assembly which prevents the wind forces on the turbine from pushing the driven shafts backwards on their horizontal axis. We need a better, more detailed drawing, please.Homebuilding (talk) 01:55, 8 October 2010 (UTC) this can not be true tough lol —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.204.254.166 (talk) 20:15, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Is this article about wind turbines or windmills?

The hatnote at the top of this article says it is about wind-powered electrical generators rather than windmills. I appreciate that there should be a little about windmills in the history section as they were the precursor of electricity generating turbines but why under Horizontal axis subtypes is there a section on 12th century windmills that talks about Dutch water pumping windmills and then goes on to an electricity producing mill built in 2005. The next section on 19th century then witters on about windmills for pumping water before rural electrification in the US (which seems to have come about in 1935) and then goes on to talk about the 1950s and American type windmills that are still in use today. Can these two sections just be deleted? I've also removed some of the images from the article as it was cluttered up with lots of oversized pictures that didn't really add much. After all, how many similar pictures of wind turbines and wind farms do we need to see? Richerman (talk) 01:03, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the article is about wind turbines and the windmills material can be removed. Johnfos (talk) 06:58, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
I've deleted the Subtypes section as it was just a confused mess. Some of text may be useful somewhere but it didn't belong where it was, so I've copied it below in case anyone has the inclination to reuse it. Richerman (talk) 10:35, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

The Eclipse windmill factory was set up around 1866 in Beloit, Wisconsin and soon became successful building mills for pumping water on farms and for filling railroad tanks. Other firms like Star, Dempster, and Aeromotor also entered the market. Hundreds of thousands of these mills were produced before rural electrification and small numbers continue to be made.[3] They typically had many blades, operated at tip speed ratios not better than one, and had good starting torque. Some had small direct-current generators used for charging storage batteries, to provide power to lights, or to operate a radio receiver. The American rural electrification connected many farms to centrally generated power and replaced individual windmills as a primary source of farm power by the 1950s. They were also produced in other countries like South Africa and Australia (where an American design was copied in 1876[4]). Such devices are still used in locations where it is too costly to bring in commercial power.

Image removal

This:

11x E126 7,5 MW turbines Estinnes windfarm Belgium 10 October 2010, after completion

Too many images in one section - Sf5xeplus (talk) 07:16, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Types

The Types Section needs a little work.

Since a tower produces turbulence behind it, the turbine is usually positioned upwind of its supporting tower. Turbine blades are made stiff to prevent the blades from being pushed into the tower by high winds. Additionally, the blades are placed a considerable distance in front of the tower and are sometimes tilted forward into the wind a small amount.

This is unclear and confusing. Jhunt47 (talk) 01:22, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Record holding turbines

I propose to move the entire (useless) section "Record-holding_turbines" to a seperate page. Also, can someone make a better image of how a turbine works; see http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:Wind_turbine/Archive_2#Image

KVDP (talk) 09:53, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't see this section as "entirely useless". It looks a bit excessive in size at present, because the rest of the article is so short. The topic of "which is biggest" though is a popular fact that readers are looking for. Neither do I think that it's really enough to stand alone.
I think our best option here (rather than moving it) would be to expand the main article (!), after which it would look a lot more balanced. In the short term though, we can tidy the records - anything dubious or really insigificant can go, but we can still keep the major points of "first", "biggest", "biggest farm" etc. There might be a more compact presentation we can use too. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:14, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
I actually think that articles should be made informative; rather than just focusing on what people "are looking for". The intent of wikipedia is to inform and provide useful info, it was never intented as yet another populist website/wiki. Regardless, in order to make a descision on this, more wikipedians should give their opinion on the matter.

KVDP (talk) 14:24, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Windside wind turbines

I was wondering which type of wind turbine the windside is (see http://www.windside.com/ ). I think it's a Darrieus/giromill, but I'm not sure. Depending on the outcome, we can mention it on this article or on the article describing the special windturbine designs. The windside seems very sturdy and compact, so I think it is useful to mention it somewhere. KVDP (talk) 14:24, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Wide vs narrow blades

I still think there should be an explanation on the main page describing why your average house fan has wide blades that seem to move a lot of air, yet your average wind turbine has skinny, narrow blades that would seem to let a lot of air pass right through them and hence not capturing most of the wind energy occurring over the swept area of the blades. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.231.94.216 (talk) 04:04, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Is there an aerodynamicist in the house? It's got something to do with optimum extraction of energy based on changing the velocity of the wind; but I haven't found an accessible explanation as to why house fans have paddle blades but airplane propellers and wind turbines and airplane wings are skinny. I suspect "specific speed" is a criterion, too. "Reynolds number" is another term I've run across; maybe if a house fan was 20 metres across, it would have to have skinny blades, too? --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:36, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
From what I recall, wider blades (and/or more blades) *would* produce more power, but not much. It is question of optimizing output relative to cost, ie. a compromise, and as such not easily verified by formulae. But since the vast majority of manufacturers chose the 3-blade thinblade model after heavy research, I guess that is the "best" solution. But again, not easily verifiable. Enercon has wider blade roots, though. The "more blades" issue could probably be verified, similar to helicopter rotors. TGCP (talk) 14:55, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, blade number is a different issue. Siemens CTO Stiesdal has given a popular but reasonable explanation here , though I am not sure the debate form is a valid reference. TGCP (talk) 20:14, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
The Googlish translation is suggestive, but I wouldn't use it as a reference. If only Mr. Danish Science had referred to some rule or law or textbook...--Wtshymanski (talk) 23:38, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Chinese Wikipedia article

I had a look at the Google translation of the Chinese article - it appears to be much shorter than this article. Unless someone can specifically identify *what* information can be gleaned from it, I suggest the tage is not required. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:34, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

I saw it too, and I agree. TGCP (talk) 14:56, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Astralux Ltd --- wind turbine scam?

Astralux Ltd with their vertical axis wind turbine is referenced in the article under Largest Capacity. I suggest others take a look at their site (http://newwindturbine.com/). No real engineering, misleading artwork showing large turbines that don't exist, absurd pompous claims (works with increasing power to 40 m/sec (88 mph) wind), looking for an investor to build factories, contacts in Ukraine, 50% up front on orders, off the wall side claims like the world's first wind powered car, which can be pre-ordered end of 2011. As a power engineer, I smell a scam, I think this company is fraudulent. Please others take a look.

For reasons listed above references to Astralux Ltd have been deleted from the article.

(update) My edit deleting the two lines referencing Astralux Ltd was later reversed (not my me), and Astralux Ltd is again mentioned in the Wind Turbine article, and now the Wind Turbine page is locked. Why is this article locked? 24.61.212.124 (talk) 05:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC) Don Fulton 24.61.212.124 (talk) 20:30, 13 December 2011 (UTC) Don Fulton

Comparison of wind vs. nuclear accidents

What is the point of stating the size of nuclear accidents in this section. The reference is merely advocacy of a point of view, that windmills are safer than nuclear energy. Is this a factual writeup or a persuasive essay? Typical wikipedia garbage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.94.33.192 (talk) 01:08, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 8 February 2012

Under accidents, please change the Searsburg state to Vermont from New Hampshire. Source 9, states the accident occurred in Vermont and there is no Searsburg, New Hampshire.

Searsburg, New Hampshire, USA October 16, 2008 Zond Z-P40-FS 1997 Rotor blade collided with tower during strong wind and destroyed it [9] 98.229.136.17 (talk) 02:34, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Done Thanks! Celestra (talk) 06:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Environmental Problems Caused by Wind Turbines

This page doesn't mention any environmental problems caused by wind turbines, yet their damage to raptors and migratory birds, as well as bats, is well documented, and there are human health implications indicated as well (use of their converters to AC power adds high frequency transient "dirty" electricity to currents being transmitted off site, and utility uses of the ground to conduct this electricity to sub-stations may add to the problem). Some links: http://windeis.anl.gov/guide/concern/index.cfm http://www.aweo.org/problemwithwind.html

The imposition of large-scale industrial wind (and solar) projects stand to have an adverse effect on the tourism industry in the western U.S. by destroying the sweeping vistas and viewsheds that tourists, including international tourists, find appealing.

There is no mention of the lawsuit by the Audobon Society vs. a wind farm in the Tehachapi area of California to try to get a wind farm to shut turbines down at night for six weeks per year to avoid decimating night migrating songbirds. And no mention of the early vertical turbine prototype that disintegrated during a media event near Palm Springs, California. Nor, the group of windmills that were built near there to capitalize on government incentives for renewable energy that were found to not be hooked up to the grid - they just spun around and around without generating any power whatsoever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shanghaibrown (talk • contribs) 03:46, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

This is a technical article focusing on the machine itself. For enviroment impacts, see Wind power which deals with the general topic of economy, ecology and so on. Biasing, and obsolete and outdated events, should not be given undue weight. TGCP (talk) 10:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
I was thinking the same reading the article. I think it should be mentioned in a small paragraph and treated extensively in the wind power article, since it is the wind turbine that is the cause. Maybe some turbines have environmental benefits like Darieus or the other way around, what is the effect of windmill size et cetera. So the environmental damage does relate to a technical article on wind turbines also. With bats it is a serious problem because bats have lifespans of 30 years and a limited number of young and if a significant proportion of the bats gets caught by the blades high flying migratory bat species will quickly get extinct.Viridiflavus (talk) 22:55, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree. There is increasing impact to the environment from the wind turbines. In this article,it is very important to mention this impact. I don't know if i'm allowed,but there is a yt video capturing by chance a vary rare(only a dozen left) bird getting struck. If a passer-by filmed this by chance,imagine how much wildlife is generally destroyed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RcTjdY1aN4 --94.70.108.92 (talk) 21:40, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm personally glad that the vulture was rescued. But in relation to wind power articles, for an explanation of wp:Undue, click on the link. Then see this section in the Environmental Impact article on wind power, and see the section related to birds, which has an uptodate table of bird mortality. Wind turbines account for 20,000 bird deaths in the US per year, while several other causes run into the hundreds of millions per year. See the table for the details. Thus, those suggesting that wind turbines are unacceptable should also be demanding the removal or elimination of millions of tall buildings and structures, all cars, trucks, nuclear powerplants, conventional powerplants, powerlines, farms, and of coarse, cats. Please elaborate on how that should be accomplished in Wind Power and other Wikipedia articles. HarryZilber (talk) 15:34, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

ehhh the vulture was rescued but its life is destroyed. these indigenous to Crete vultures will surely be extinct in a few years because of the turbines. anyway,it should be mentioned in this article,at least with a small paragraph ultimately linking to the main article about the env.impact. if you want my opinion,we can't vanish the cars and tall buildings right now, but there is the solar power alternative to the wind power,so it's unacceptable to rely on wind power with the impact its got(we also got hawks,owls and many migratory).here in crete everything benefits solar power(there are some natural little dry hills here and there to put the generators),but you know why every govegnor wants wind? cus with the excuse of "green" wind energy and power of corrupted factors the multinationals want to create hybrid parks and poach the clear waters we have in these mountains. soon the shit will hit the fan and they're gonna retret this--94.70.85.131 (talk) 12:55, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk pages is about facts supported by references, not about opinions. The Crete vulture seems to be a very specific circumstance, not a general condition - and I see no reference about a general statistic problem. Most modern societies have strict rules for placement of wind turbines, and birds are expressly mentioned as a nescessary area to study before approval. Usually birds are not a problem. An article on the Greek/Turkish Wikipedia may contain notes about flawed laws, but content about a single bird casualty will probably not be notable on World Wikipedia. Most wind turbine sites do not have sufficient solar power (Crete may be an exception), and solar is much more expensive anyway, at least for the time being. As for water, wind turbines do not use any, but perhaps you mean hydropower which is a different technology. TGCP (talk) 16:05, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
the vultures and what happened are not my argument about putting this paragraph here.i just wrote them additionally.i and others have written why this paragraph should be added. putting the specific paragraph is an urgent need.please refer to that next time--94.70.113.137 (talk) 13:11, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
i see you(tgcp) talked about statistical problem being unexistant. when there are all these recorded deaths of birds and an incident where a cameraman was there and filmed the 1 of about 10 vultures left being hit by the generator,you obviously know little about statiscics. the problem is very existant and with huge importance.also remember, putting negative aspects in articles is never a thing to be ignored for aesthetics reasons(which is your claim if i understand right),because if we forget history we are destined to F-a-i-l --94.70.113.137 (talk) 13:30, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Much of the discussion here is really beyond the proper scope of this page. I'm tempted to add (so I will, very concisely) that global warming will almost certainly prove fatal to far more birds than wind turbines ever will. Back on topic, I'll just say that of course the environmental impact of wind turbines has negative aspects, and of course it is proper to say so in the article. The table listing accidents strikes me as potentially undue weight, as would any link to a YouTube video about a specific incident. The article should rely on reliable, independent secondary sources. Rivertorch (talk) 16:48, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

I mostly agree. But my main point is that there is already an article about this topic as pointed to above where all this content should be considered (notable or not). It does not fit into this article whose scope is the technical aspects of the singular machine - there are several wind power related subjects that also does not fit into this article, as they have their own article. The parent article (if one could be called such) is probably Wind power which may have many branches; this turbine article is just one of many such smaller branches. As for statistics, they are to be made by reliable sources, not by wikipedians performing original research. Wikipedia has these rules that are to be followed - beginners should learn them or find other channels for their opinions. TGCP (talk) 22:25, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
  • I can't determine why you are so insistive on not putting the paragraph. What's so big deal? together with any situation its all aspects positive and negative must be put in paragraphs(even short,directing to a main article) in wikipedia. the point of not including it because it's somewhere else or it messes up the reputation is simply non existant. This is how articles work. Anything else is subjective--94.70.89.216 (talk) 12:26, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
  • I also see there is no positive-paragraph either.Look guys,we've taken it wrong here. When a person wants to learn about the wind turbines,he wants to learn about positive-negative aspects too. They are not included here and this average viewer is probably never gonna find them in the wiki. We should definitely add these paragraphs. There is not only the technical aspects viewer are interested in. Now you are the admins,you will know what is better. So you're saying this here situation is applying in all articles like this? I disagree with that--94.70.89.216 (talk) 12:40, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Because it's already in Wikipedia as shown above, and it is also already part of the article. This article is a minor area (simply about the device) of the parent Wind Power article, which covers all relevant areas and have been split to create more comprehensive articles with specific and well defined subjects. If articles have significant overlap of content they can be merged to avoid duplicate content. If we include all the other wind power areas in this article it will simply have a structure similar to the Wind Power article, and should be merged. I have included Wind Power in the lead to provide a better path to related subjects. TGCP (talk) 21:01, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
  • ok lets see it from another view. my objection here is that wind turbines have specifically the main share of environmental destruction in the wind power sector. that makes it suitable to put a paragraph here,even if it's a little intro directing to the main article.same thing with its pros.this type of organizing happens a lot in wiki already. And i assume that's because editors know the avg user will not suspect the link to wind power to find what he was looking for. Not everyone has the ability to wander well in the internet ,people. You need to help with more content but the least complexity possible. That's why i'm suggesting short paragraphs linking to further. It's a technique--94.70.109.96 (talk) 20:27, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Wind turbines

is there any chance that the wind turbines in any way are having an affect on not just the environment but possibly steering the planet in any way sending it on a spiral course,i know it may sound stupid but anything can be steered explaining an astrological change within the solar system.just curious but then how do we learn if we dont ask.or is it a case that these wind turbines rotate to the direction of the wind therefore not creating a steering mechanism — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.93.138.19 (talk) 21:11, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely no chance of causing earth's orbit to change. That would only be possible if an external (to earth) source of some type were present, or if a significant portion of the earth's mass were to be split off by a coordinated series of super massive nuclear explosions. The local environment (wind patterns) around the wind farm could (and does) change slightly, but the energy extracted is overall such a miniscule amount compared to the entirety of energy contained in wind that it would have no measurable effect on the planet as a whole. --Aflafla1 (talk) 02:34, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Wind has nothing to do with the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. Maybe they meant rotation? Any structure including trees, buildings and walls will restrict the wind. Due to the Coriolis effect, I presume that wind reduces the Earth's rotation, therefore wind turbines do not. 114.245.205.26 (talk) 05:38, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

A note and explanation of the reason why wind turbines rotate clockwise in Ireland and the other direction in every other country would by appreciated here. I'm surprised it's not present already. 109.76.193.178 (talk) 16:15, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

All modern wind turbines rotate clockwise when viewed from the upwind direction (wind in the viewer's back, looking at the turbine). See history - I guess that section could be copied to this article or to Design. TGCP (talk) 14:23, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Relevent comparisons of risk/danger

Wtshymanski, I hope you can appreciate that WP does not limit discussions of risk or danger to only the immediate subject. A comparison of dangers in not irrelevant to the subject, otherwise the subject is left open to misinterpretation by reason of wp:undue. Best: HarryZilber (talk) 20:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not relevant to disucssing wind turbines. We already have articles about wind power, environmental impact of wind power, impact of nuclear power, etc. - we don't need to perpetually rehash every peripherally connected topic in *this* article. If our reader wants to read about nuclear disasters, it's unlikely that she would have typed "wind turbine" in the search box. --Wtshymanski (talk) 22:00, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
A short general safety comparison between various power sources is relevant for context, but it should probably reside in Wind power, which is a more general article. TGCP (talk) 23:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Relevant risks / danger would seem to belong to an article in itself, and tends to be a pretty fraught discussion anyway. But I'm interested in the bigger picture of how some engineering failures (currently section 7 of the main page) are even vaguely notable? We don't include every combined-cycle gas turbine breakdown on the CCGT page. Not one of the incidents shown here are notable at the global, long-term scale. ErnestfaxTalk 09:14, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit Request Accident Reference, March 14 2012

The accident at Schneebergerhof is referenced to "http://mitglied.multimania.de/WilfriedHeck/ellenst.htm" (Ref. 40), the same site that is referenced for the accident at Ellenstedt (Ref. 39). This site only mentions the Ellenstedt accident. I suggest Ref. 40 to be changed to "http://mitglied.multimania.de/WilfriedHeck/umfall3.htm". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.103.6.28 (talk) 13:02, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

What are those, personal web sites? I clicked on both, and got so dizzy from staring at those absurdly vibrating animated gifs that I immediately closed the windows. No idea if this edit request has been acted upon. Either way, I'm inclined to remove any links to those pages. It doesn't look like a reliable source. Rivertorch (talk) 16:51, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Amounts of Energy Produced

I would like to see something in the article that describes how much energy is produced by the wind turbines in the USA. There is one statement that is positive in the lede (spelling?) which is 'The smallest turbines are used for applications such as battery charging or auxiliary power on boats; while large grid-connected arrays of turbines are becoming an increasingly important source of wind power-produced commercial electricity.' But there is nothing in the article that mentions how much wind-power is actually produced anywhere in the article. There are two very small paragraphs 1. Theoretical power captured by a wind turbine and 2. Practical wind turbine power which describe rather negatively about wind power. An article I read said, 'Windmills in the U.S. currently produce enough power for 1.6 million homes.' They might have gotten the information from the Pennsyvania Wind Working Group, but I am not sure. Mylittlezach (talk) 02:52, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Around 95 TWh in 2010, you can insert data and sources from Wind_power_by_country#Annual_wind_power_generation and Wind_power_by_country#Electricity_generation_by_wind_2001-2010 . But that information may be beyond the scope of this article. TGCP (talk) 16:31, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Recurring vandalism

For the month of November, I count 8 edits of questionable value and a further 6 edits of vandalism, according to revision history. Before and after November, the same pattern exists. Should this article have some kind of protection ? TGCP (talk) 15:36, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems as if a sizable number of people are actively watching the page. Someone else has almost always reverted the problem edits before I notice them, at any rate. Are there constructive edits coming from IPs and new users, do you know? That also needs to be factored into the equation. You could request semi-protection, but I'm guessing it would probably either be declined or implemented for such a short time as to be meaningless. Rivertorch (talk) 18:48, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
OK, thanks. We'll leave it at that for now. I guess a robot counting the word "vandalism" in revision history Edit summaries (and maybe measuring time before reverts) could show the weight of vandalism and flash a warning on Talk page or Project page for editors to deal with. Just an idea if anyone wants to take it further and relieve editor attention. TGCP (talk) 19:17, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

WRONG DATA

Some of the data regarding turbine models is wrong. The Siemens 6MW 154m diameter turbine will not be commercialised until 2015. In addition, the REpower 6MW 126m diameter turbine seems to have been missed off the table. It was commercialised in 2012. Thanks 94.116.50.71 (talk) 14:52, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Agree. The 6MW Siemens are installed for testing at Gunfleet Sands, operational in a few months. The list is already too long, and probably doesn't even belong in this article, but non-commercial should not be in it. I suggest moving most to List of wind turbines. Feel free to add the REpower. TGCP (talk) 16:23, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The Enercon design is no longer the largest wind turbine in the world. This distinction now goes to the Siemen's B75 with a blade diameter of 150 m. The turbine has already been built and has been transported to the place of installation. ref: here. This change should be made as soon as possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vinven7 (talk • contribs) 21:58, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Accidents section for removal

The accidents section consists of incidents of machinery failure, and shows only one case of a human life lost which is a very good safety record. Other turbine articles such as Gas Turbines and Steam Turbines do not show individual, or even notable, incidents of machinery failure so I propose the accidents section is removed, or cut down. Any thoughts? I will leave this comment for one week before removing the accidents section.

Jfh2012 (talk) 11:26, 20 November 2012 (UTC)


I agree. This section adds no real value, there's no completeness to it, and no real hope of it being complete. The incidents listed lack details for the most part, and and when they have them they're not from reliable sources. Let's remove this section.


Jburstein 15:26, 20 May 2013

I finally removed this weird section. Andol (talk) 21:53, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
Though not an accident, 8 turbines blew down in typhoon Usagi. As turbines move offshore, this may be a notable risk. TGCP (talk) 14:37, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  1. ^ Wind Turbine Syndrome. Nina Pierpont's research
  2. ^ Math and Science Activity Center. About Wind Turbines
  3. ^ Texas
  4. ^ Extract from Triumph of the Griffiths Family, Bruce Millett, 1984, accessed January 26, 2008
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