birding-aus

windfarms

To:
Subject: windfarms
From: MetaSense Pty Ltd <>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 12:54:05 +0800
After reading the posts of windfarms I was interested in relative sizes of windfarms vs the Latrobe valley power stations (for example), although I have never been there so I can't make judgements.

The capacity of the 4 major LaTrobe powerstations is about 6000 Megawatts and presumably is able to supply most of this capacity more or less continuously.

The windfarm which I know, the Albany windfarm, has windmills with a capacity of about 2 MW. However this is only achievable in sufficiently strong winds so the average generating capacity is very much less.

The towers are about 65 metres high and the rotors which are affixed to the top of the towers are about 50 metres in diameter. Since each windmill interferes with the airflow they need to be spaced sufficiently far apart to minimize this effect. As a result the maximum density is apparently around 4 to 5 per square kilometre. ie. one would need about 6000 windmills spread over about 1000 square kilometres to equal the capacity of the LaTrobe valley power stations.

Within this area the maximum distance you would be from a windmill would be about 200 - 300 metres.

Of course one could have many, smaller concentrations spread over the landscape.

Cheers

Andrew
===============================
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com

To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message: unsubscribe (in the body of the message, with no Subject line)
to: 
===============================

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU