Algorithms Help Turbines Share the Wind (ieee.org) 81
carbonnation writes: As Spock so elegantly opined, "Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Today Stanford U researchers presented the clearest proof to date that self-sacrifice can also benefit wind farms. In their demonstration at an Alberta wind farm, one turbine sacrifices a fifth of its generating potential to enable better performance by neighboring turbines, boosting the group's collective output. And all it takes to harness this altruistic behavior is a small (but intelligent) tweak to their control systems. "It is called 'wake steering' because rotors are turned about their towers to point slightly away from the oncoming wind and thus deflect their wakes away from downstream turbines," reports IEEE Spectrum. "To determine the best yaw angle for their experiment, the Stanford team fed five years of wind speed, wind direction and power generation data from the six test turbines to their proprietary optimization algorithm. Combining that data with a simple wind model, the algorithm projected that yawing each of the five upstream turbines about 20 degrees to the north would maximize the group's generation from the northwest winds."
Next, since the researchers couldn't reprogram the control systems running at Pincher Creek, they repositioned the direction-tracking wind vanes atop the turbines' nacelles during the 10-day test and thereby tricked the control system to turn 20 degrees off the wind. The results were significant: power generation rose 13 percent under 7-8 meters per second (mps) wind speeds. "Steering had a still greater impact amidst slower northwest winds by reducing the times when the wind hitting turbines fell below the 5 mps -- the threshold at which they automatically shut down," the report adds. "For 5-6 mps winds wake steering boosted generation by up to 47 percent."
Next, since the researchers couldn't reprogram the control systems running at Pincher Creek, they repositioned the direction-tracking wind vanes atop the turbines' nacelles during the 10-day test and thereby tricked the control system to turn 20 degrees off the wind. The results were significant: power generation rose 13 percent under 7-8 meters per second (mps) wind speeds. "Steering had a still greater impact amidst slower northwest winds by reducing the times when the wind hitting turbines fell below the 5 mps -- the threshold at which they automatically shut down," the report adds. "For 5-6 mps winds wake steering boosted generation by up to 47 percent."
If you have code, you have an algorithm (Score:2)
Expect it's not power you want to optimize for (Score:3, Informative)
Getting maximum power is dandy but the more important effect is vibration. If you are sending turbulence down stream or putting uneven loads on the blades you may be vibrating the hell out of this thing leading to shorter lifespan.
Re: Expect it's not power you want to optimize for (Score:2, Informative)
The algorithm's purpose is to steer the turbulent wakes away from other turbines.
You and the researchers are in agreement.
Also, turbulence is hard to extract energy from--it's a high entropy zone. Perhaps we ought to be siting windmills and RNGs together.
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Yes, but wind turbines are not devices that extract energy from vibrations. They extract energy from rotational energy.
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Not random enough. The "turbulence" of a wake is chaotic, but not really random.
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Also, we might reasonably expect that these turbines are designed to fully face the wind, not point slightly askance. That additional side-loading may have an effect on decreased bearing lifetime.
"The needs of the many outweigh needs of few." (Score:1)
That logic has led to the murder of 100s of millions of people.
You can build collectivism atop respect for the individual, but you cannot build respect for the individual atop collectivism.
The foundation of Civilization is necessarily and only respect for the individual.
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And the quote is even less relevant to the algorithmic optimization of the output of a turbine field.
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If only wind renewables were an always-on system. Sometimes the wind just doesn't blow hard enough, and then the wifi would go off if it wasn't for all those gas turbine power plants.
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That logic has led to the murder of 100s of millions of people.
Can you give me an example where that is actually the case.
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Cause all I can think of are things like when a democracy ends up replacing dictatorships or monarchies.
Very clever (Score:5, Insightful)
A significant efficiency win at approximately zero cost, since it requires only a software upgrade.
Well done!
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Nuclear proponents always pretend that is is clear that nuclear power is needed and renewables somehow are not capable to produce enough power to replace fossil fuels. But there is no evidence that this statement is true. Fiven that renewables already produce more energy than nuclear at less cost it also seems rather unlikely to be true. For example, in Germany which is densely populated with a very high standard of living and a lot of industry, renewables produced 226 TWh of electricity (35%) while nuclear
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I didn't forgot to mention it. It is simply not true. Germany is basically at all times a net exporter of electricity. Total net exports were 51.5 TWh in 2018.
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There actually is an easy way to prove if renewables can cut it on their own or not. Put a town of reasonable size on nothing b
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Again, this is a claim nuclear proponents make although it is not true. Of course it is possible to power a town completely by renewables if you add storage and/or have the right mix of renewables. The reason that this is not done is that it does not make sense economically. It doesn't even make sense for a country like France to be powered mainly by nuclear power. Quite often, they have to import power from Germany because too many power plants are offline (due to heat waves or maintainance). So no, you d
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the environmental damage that amount of mining (batteries don't fall from the sky) would be likely worse than the damage from fossil fuels
Absolutely not. That is not to say that the environmental damage is not significant, but it's in an entirely different scale than global alteration of the extant carbon cycle.
we won't be able to grow enough food for the existing populations
Global warming is a threat to that, mining for batteries is not. No more than past mining has been. There isn't a large overlap between arable land, and land that is mined.
Perhaps I'm wrong, good luck...perhaps you might want to reconsider nuclear now?
I'm personally OK with nuclear, but your argument is definitely wrong. The same goal can in fact be accomplished without it.
Nuclear has very significant risks with
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Fukushima was a very big and very expensive mess, but it's also very safe despite the claims otherwise
Uh, no.
HBO's show on Chernobyl has taught people that nuclear power isn't nearly as dangerous as socialism.
No, but it has apparently taught us that we will never be responsible enough for nuclear power as long as fuckwits like you exist who could possibly run it.
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Re: We cannot get to zero carbon without nuclear p (Score:2)
Batteries (at least the tech currently in commercial production) are super duper un-green. Toxic as fuck. Dangerous. Short-lived. A cleanup nightmare.
Power generation from clean, safe, renewable sources is a great idea. One whose time seems to be arriving. Power storage - in the form of pumped hydro or other newer clean tech - has an important part to play in the evolving green power grid.
Batteries have no part to play whatsoever. They are not even a little green. Wherever battery storage for the grid is i
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LoB
Misplaced turbines? (Score:2)
Spoiler: I am not a wind turbines guru.
Nonetheless I wonder whether instead of using AI and special algorithms we'd have placed the turbines in a more (humanly) intelligent way.
I fully understand that the winds can change strength and direction at any time, but I am also sure that turbines are not placed without proper studies and planning.
Maybe just a little bit more of NI (natural intelligence) can suffice.
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Of course, turbines are placed optimally for the dominant wind direction. However, when the wind comes from a different direction, you may end up with a problem. It is not possible to place them optimally for all wind directions - unless you space them very far apart, which makes cabling much more expensive.
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They did use natural intelligence to lay out the turbines to well capture the prevailing winds. But during some parts of the year that alignment is not great - which the wake-steering algorithm aims to ameliorate. Possibly t
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The wind in southern Alberta is primarily from the W or SW. The wind farms are geometrically optimized for that. When the wind comes from the NW, as discussed in the article, they're not optimized.
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Why are wind turbines arranged in grids? (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't this basically attempting to resolve issues caused by the grid placement of the turbines. Wouldn't it be simpler to just not install the turbines in a regular pattern, but to randomise the placements? I was kind of expecting the designers to have run fluid dynamic models to choose the placements, but maybe not?
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Wind direction varies though and the turbines rotate accordingly. The optimal adjustments will depend on the wind direction and therefore needs to be adjustable independent of layout. Obvious case being the downwind turbines on the edge of the grid don't need to sacrifice anything. The grid layout could be the most flexible as a result.
Hardly (Score:2)
"one turbine sacrifices a fifth of its generating potential to enable better performance by neighboring turbines, boosting the group's collective output. And all it takes to harness this altruistic behavior..."
If MY turbine number 6 allows MY turbines number 1-5 to make more power, 'altruistic' ain't the right word, since it wouldn't do that for my neighbor's turbines.
I'd call it 'teamwork'.
Nice (Score:2)
*tips hat to Mr. Nash*
This ladies and gentlemen is also what has broken in the competition model of capitalism.