Floating Wind Farms Could Maximize Power Output

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, maximizing power output to make windmills more efficient and more profitable has plagued mankind since the age of Don Quixote. The expression ’tilting at windmills’ derives from Cervantes’ Don Quixote – first published in 1604, under the title The Ingenious Knight of La Mancha. The novel recounts the exploits of would-be knight ‘Don Quixote’ and his loyal servant Sancho Panza who propose to fight injustice through chivalry. The symbolism for Don Quixote battle with windmills is not over looked by modern technologists.

In the novel “The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha”, or just Don Quixote, is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes, originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615. In the book Don Quixote battles the windmills because he believes that they are ferocious giants. He thinks that after defeating them — all “thirty or forty” of them! — he will be able to collect the spoils and the glory as a knight. However, when he charges the “giants,” his lance gets caught in a sail.

Floating wind farms could hold a lot of potential, but they have so far been too costly to deploy at a commercial scale. GE has received a $3 million award from the US Department of Energy to support a two-year project to solve some of the technical challenges of deploying floating wind farms. It has partnered with Glosten to develop advanced turbine controls that can automatically adjust to catch strong gales without tipping over. The turbines will allow the wind farms to maximize their power output, making them more profitable.

On the flip side its J=just in time for Hurricane season, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is predicting another above-normal Atlantic hurricane season. Forecasters predict a 60% chance of an above-normal season, a 30% chance of a near-normal season, and a 10% chance of a below-normal season. However, experts do not anticipate the historic level of storm activity seen in 2020.