The wind turbines of the future with the structure of a palm tree will be higher Empire State Building

A group of researchers from several universities in the United States proposes to significantly increase the size of wind turbines. Such a system will produce energy several times more than any modern wind generator. True, such a giant and will cost a lot, in addition, the problem is the structure of the blades.

The size of the blade is about 200 meters, which is almost three times the size of the blade of the largest modern generator (80+ meters). The height of the "tower" in this case should be about 500 meters (the height of the Empire State Building - "only" 443 meters). The sweep of the blades can be compared with the size of four football fields. The technology itself is called Segmented Ultralight Transforming Rotor (Segmented Ultralight Morphing Rotor, SUMR). The power of the windmill in this case is 50 MW (the maximum power of a modern windmill is 8 MW).

The blades of the windmill have a special design that allows them to take shape in the event of a significant increase in wind speed (the system will be able to withstand wind up to 320 km / h). During a storm, the blades are folded so as to ensure the minimum area of ​​interaction with air masses. This design engineers created after studying the leaves of palm trees and observing how palm leaves interact with the wind.
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In addition, this design facilitates the transportation of the blades. To transport even a modern blade with a length of 50-80 m is not an easy task (after all, there are no special roads for this purpose, you have to drive along a regular route). And the transportation of giant blades would be a problem at all if it were not for the possibility of folding (although it would still be possible to transport something like this - a separate project).

Windmills will be installed away from the coast, on the leeward side. The working group includes specialists from organizations such as the University of Virginia, the University of Illinois, the University of Colorado, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, plus partners General Electic Co., Siemens AG, and others.

The first prototype of a giant wind generator should be ready by 2019 (only 1/10 of the size of the original system). And the first system of the original size will be ready no earlier than in 10-15 years.