Installation of a wind turbine in a wind farm near Düsseldorf
Image: Liebherr
Manufacturers have developed special machines so that the blades of wind turbines can also turn vigorously inland. They work with extra-high towers, particularly long rotor blades and smaller generators.
In the south there is hardly any wind, so setting up wind turbines isn’t worth it? This view is widespread, but it is not correct. Maps from the German Weather Service show that the average wind speeds in the low mountain ranges are almost as good as on the coasts. But not only the low mountain ranges in the south are windy. With special systems, the so-called weak wind systems, the wind harvest is worthwhile throughout the inland. They are characterized by particularly high towers, extra-long rotor blades and comparatively low-performance, smaller generators.
“Ultimately, the ratio of rotor area to generator output is crucial,” says Volker Quaschning, Professor of Regenerative Energy Systems at the University of Economics and Technology in Berlin. If the diameter of the rotor area doubles, the potential wind harvest quadruples. A smaller generator, in turn, means that less mass has to be set in motion, but above all that the system can be built more cheaply and therefore operated more economically.