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Upwind wind plants can reduce flow to downwind neighbors
New National Science Foundation and Department of Energy-funded research highlights a previously unexplored consequence of the global proliferation of wind energy facilities: a wake effect from upwind facilities that can reduce the energy production of their downwind neighbors.
In collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) and the University of Denver (DU) developed the paper, "Costs and consequences of wind turbine wake effects arising from uncoordinated wind energy development," which appears in Nature Energy. The study uses atmospheric modeling along with economic and legal analysis to demonstrate that wind facility wake effects -- which occur when groups of turbines reduce wind speed for miles behind them -- are measurable and predictable.
"This work argues for more thoughtful deployment of wind energy," said Julie Lundquist, a researcher at CU and lead author of the study. Lundquist, who works with NREL's National Wind Technology Center, is an associate professor in CU Boulder's Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a fellow of the CU/NREL Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute. The paper is co-authored by K. K. DuVivier of DU's Denver Sturm College of Law, as well as Daniel Kaffine and Jessica Tomaszewski of CU.
Wind facility wakes have been observed to extend up to 25 miles. Of the 994 individual wind facilities in the United States in 2016, nearly 90 percent are within 25 miles of another wind facility, all of which could experience wake effects.
"Just as upstream water users can knowingly or unknowingly impose additional costs downstream, the same effect is in play here," said Kaffine, a professor in CU Boulder's Department of Economics. Research shows that wake effects do not undermine wind energy because they are predictable and only occur in specific atmospheric conditions.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @01:11PM
existence or non-existence of wind-turbines has absolutely no effect on global warming.
local temperature may increase because wind turbines increase air turbulence, but this simply means that the turbulence is happening "earlier" in the airflow than it would happen without the wind turbines (for instance the turbulence would have been generated over a forest if not for the wind turbine, warming the forest instead of the wind-farm field).
Here's a very dumbed down explanation: assume there's a little guy living on Mars (let's say his name is Marv for simplicity).
Marv looks at the Earth through hist telescope.
He sees that the Sun shines on the Earth, he can calculate the surface of Earth, and he can calculate how much energy is being received by the Earth (entire system of ground + water + air).
He can also see infrared light, and he sees that the Earth shines in infrared; he can then calculate, based on the intensity of the infrared light, how much energy is being lost by the Earth (entire system of ground + water + air).
Assuming Marv can live for millions of years, he can notice that on average the amount of energy being received and lost by the Earth evens out.
But over shorter time-spans it is possible to see net gains or net losses of energy --- these are automatically associated to changes in the average temperature of Earth.
Whatever daily weather happens on Earth, be it hurricanes or wind farms, will not affect the yearly energy budget that Marv is keeping.
The only weather that matters to Marv is any event or systematic trend big enough to affect the yearly budget, and wind-farms only register as extra drag on the wind, which ultimately leads to less intense winds.