Big Wind is Getting Bigger

 Wind turbines and helicopters have an important component in common, the rotor blades. When you fly choppers, you make a living hanging from rotating blades. Inevitably you learn a little about turbines and rotors.

Helicopters are sometimes described as 10,000 rotating parts flying in loose formation. Unfortunately, if these rotating shafts, bearings, transmissions, jet turbine parts and rotors are not, “in sync” a vibration sets up. A vibration means something is wearing out.

Back in 1973 part of helicopter pilot training was to discover how to use our feet, hands, and even our rear ends to sense vibrations.  We were taught to use our bodies to detect potential impending doom. (Hence our inability to relax). As you can imagine, many conversations in the cockpit started like this, “Hey, do you feel that?”

Keeping a helicopter’s rotor blades flying in harmony was, in 1973, as much art as science. A helicopter mechanic who could simultaneously make adjustments in lead and lag, balance, and tracking was heralded not just as a master mechanic but a wizard.

As technology improved, mechanics were given reflective tabs to attach to the end of the rotor blades. With a light gun the pilot and mechanic could shoot the light gun out the windscreen and see the tabs which visually told us why we were experiencing a rough ride.

Later helicopters were pre-wired with pickups for both vibration and rotor tracking so a mechanic simply needed to plug in his diagnostic tool, a computer, into the jacks and it would do all the detection and computation. In a flash, a mechanic had on his screen what weight to add or bolt to lengthen to smooth things out.

Wind Turbines have all the same challenges. The engineers are also pushing the envelope of how long they can build a blade without it breaking. This includes how blades must be tracked and balanced and monitored to prevent failure. The new General Electric Haliade-X turbine just shook up the competitive and profitable wind turbine market. Each blade of the Haliade-X is longer that a football field. This is science and engineering miracles being created and applied as we watch.

But why are such long blades desirable? It is efficiency.  With efficiency comes profit. A tall wind turbine with long blades reaches higher and captures steadier stronger winds. From experience, when flying medical helicopters with a critical patient onboard and you need to get to the hospital pronto, if you have a headwind, you fly low. If you are flying with a tailwind you go high. Winds are stronger, steadier, and smoother up high.

An additional dramatic function of longer rotor blades is when  you increase the blade length you increase the circumference of capturable wind.

Here is an example. Do you remember “Pi times the radius squared equals the area of a circle?”   If you increase the length (radius) of a one-meter rotor blade to two meters the captured area increases by 9.42 meters squared.

Here are why the engineers of GE pushed the rotor blades out from 360 meters to 361 meters. By increasing the radius one meter, the wind area captured increased over 2,200 square meters!

By the way 361 meters is just short of 400 yards.

On a wind farm project, you can only put up so many wind turbines. If you are buying turbines, the bigger ones will generate more power. You will sell more electricity hence you pocket more profit.

This is the first time an American company has gained the lead in wind turbine size. Vesta, a Danish Company is the leader in deployed Mega Watts of big wind energy.  A German/Spanish company, Siemens Gamesa, is number 2.  GE is shaking things up with Haliade-X but remains in third place. Why is GE third?

Wind energy has been a force of nature humans have been capturing for centuries. The challenge to capturing more wind power has been to create better structural materials, aeronautical designs, and new ways to monitor and maintain a system to attain minimal vibration. This means a successful wind energy company must employ the best of the best in many disciplines of science.

In addition, it helps if your government is a motivated partner. In the 70s the Danish Government created and funded technical universities to push science forward. They also financially aided the fledgling wind turbine businesses by granting 30% of the capital needed to get moving. Today, since these businesses are successful, the government capital needed is zero while the Danes enjoy clean air, power, and businesses capable of generating taxable revenue.

What did we do here? Prior to the Reagan Republican Administration, the National Renewable Energy Lab headquartered in Golden Colorado was well funded. During the clean energy science purge of the Reagan Administration, its funding was cut by 90%. Despite the defunding, the lab still generated 20 patents. But, with funding slashed, the USA has been unable to compete. We lost 40 years of market share to the Danes, Germans, Spanish, and Chinese.

It is heartening to see a US based multinational business making it Big in the Wind Turbine Business today. As usual, success in green power not only means we are environmentally responsible, but we are generating many well-paying jobs for ambitious young Americans who want to make it Big. In 20 years, wind turbines have increased in power 50 times. With young scientists, engineers and technicians all leaning forward we can expect a new and bigger future spinning up.

Training sites in Michigan:

Henry Ford Community College, Michigan Institute of Aviation and Technology, St. Clair County Community College, MIAT College of Technology, Kellogg Community College, Kalamazoo Valley Community College, University of Michigan Law School, Lansing Community College, Muskegon Community College, Delta College, Lawrence Technical University, Macomb Community College, Monroe County Community College

For more on wind search:  windexchange energy gov

For the curious kid: windexchange energy gov K-12