Wind farm developers are worried about neighbours stealing their wind
Full details
| Authors & editors | |
| Publisher | New Scientist |
| Year of publication | 2025 April 12 |
| Languages | |
| Medium | Digital |
| Edition | 1 |
| Topics | Contemporary news > 2025 |
| Tags | |
| Scope & content | The problem lies with wind farm wakes. "The job of a turbine is to rotate a set of blades that extract energy from the incoming wind. But, as you extract that energy, then you leave behind much lower energy," says Pablo Ouro at the University of Manchester, UK. That creates a region of "low velocity wind", he says, which can extend for tens of kilometres. The issue has become critical as more offshore wind farms have sprung up and turbines have become larger and more powerful, creating bigger wakes. At least a dozen disputes have broken out among clean-energy developers in the UK as they jostle to protect their wind resources from neighbouring projects, according to Sarim Sheikh, who previously led General Electric's offshore wind business. "Wake effects are nothing new. It's been there since the very beginning of wind farm development;' says Sheikh. "What has changed over the last few years has been the rapid scale of the growth in the size of wind turbines." The article may be viewed at the Mills Archive Trust. Copyright restrictions prevent it being displayed. |
