Depending on how wind turbines are situated relative to each other and to the prevailing wind, those not directly in the path of the wind could be left to extract energy from significantly depleted airflow. However, according to researchers, there are ways to get around this issue of diminishing wind returns.

You’ve probably seen them, perhaps on long road trips: wind turbines with enormous, hypnotic rolling blades, harnessing the clean power of wind for conversion into electric energy. What you may not know is that for the explosion in the number of wind turbines in use as we embrace cleaner sources of energy, these wind farms are quite possibly not as productive as they could be.

The main goal, according to the researchers, is to give all turbines access to high-velocity airflow, from which they can extract a greater amount of energy. Since the wind above the farm is much faster than between the turbines, mixing the airflow in the wake of the turbines with the air above could be the key to getting more bang for your wind turbine buck. Yet another potential solution is a relatively new version of the wind turbine, in which the blades rotate on a vertical axis — like eggbeater blades — as opposed to the traditional horizontal axis.

For further information:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181004131821.htm