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Power

G.E. Wind Turbine Prototype: 853 Feet Tall, Can Generate 13 Megawatts (nytimes.com) 315

Long-time Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shares a report from the New York Times: Twirling above a strip of land at the mouth of Rotterdam's harbor [in the Netherlands] is a wind turbine so large it is difficult to photograph. The turning diameter of its rotor is longer than two American football fields end to end. Later models will be taller than any building on the mainland of Western Europe.

Packed with sensors gathering data on wind speeds, electricity output and stresses on its components, the giant whirling machine in the Netherlands is a test model for a new series of giant offshore wind turbines planned by General Electric. When assembled in arrays, the wind machines have the potential to power cities, supplanting the emissions-spewing coal- or natural gas-fired plants that form the backbones of many electric systems today... [A]lready the giant turbines have turned heads in the industry. A top executive at the world's leading wind farm developer called it a "bit of a leapfrog over the latest technology." And an analyst said the machine's size and advance sales had "shaken the industry."

The prototype is the first of a generation of new machines that are about a third more powerful than the largest already in commercial service. As such, it is changing the business calculations of wind equipment makers, developers and investors. The G.E. machines will have a generating capacity that would have been almost unimaginable a decade ago. A single one will be able to turn out 13 megawatts of power, enough to light up a town of roughly 12,000 homes.

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G.E. Wind Turbine Prototype: 853 Feet Tall, Can Generate 13 Megawatts

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  • Units, sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Sunday January 03, 2021 @06:27AM (#60890228) Journal

    The turning diameter of its rotor is longer than two American football fields end to end

    How many damn meters?

    Later models will be taller than any building on the mainland of Western Europe.

    What is the tallest building on mainland Europe and how tall is it? METERS!

    A single one will be able to turn out 13 megawatts of power, enough to light up a town of roughly 12,000 homes

    Thank you.

    • It's hard to photograph too!!! The author doesn't know how many football fields distance to get to make the big blades fit in the frame! Perhaps it should be expressed in cubits.
      • It's hard to photograph too!!! The author doesn't know how many football fields distance to get to make the big blades fit in the frame! Perhaps it should be expressed in cubits.

        It's the 21st Century. You're not thinking of the hype and merchandising. We need a whole new word here. I'm thinking giga-twinches. Just imagine the ruler sales! That profit-less IPO could be worth zillions.

    • Re:Units, sigh. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Sunday January 03, 2021 @06:52AM (#60890312)

      Meanwhile, the New York Times readers are still trying to figure out what the fuck a meter is, since most of them know a football field is 100 yards long, and measure every-fucking-thing in feet.

      Yes, it is stupid that the world runs off different standards of measurement, but know your audience. You're welcome.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Actually, the world is metric. There are just some backwaters that have not gotten the message yet. As in "We use an inferior system and we are proud to do so!"...

        • Re:Units, sigh. (Score:5, Informative)

          by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Sunday January 03, 2021 @08:32AM (#60890540)

          >"Actually, the world is metric. There are just some backwaters that have not gotten the message yet. As in "We use an inferior system and we are proud to do so!"...

          * Every school in the USA teaches every student metric in school, for well over 50 years.
          * All of science and related fields here are metric.
          * Almost all packaging and product specifications have both imperial (USC) and metric units.
          * The Metric Act of 1866 declared the metric system to be "lawful throughout the United States of America" and in all business dealings and court proceedings.
          * All USC units were redefined to base on metric in 1959.
          * Most devices (car speedometers, tape measures, measuring cups, etc) have both USC and metric scales.
          * The Metric Conversion Act of 1975 started a voluntary metrication process in the US

          What seems to hold back a full dual system to the public eye is mostly transportation, since all the signs are still in miles and fuel is in US gallons (I have yet to see a pump that lists liters). And the main holdback seems to be based on "safety", primarily the confusion of dual MPH/KPH signs. I have given up on seeing them in my lifetime at this point.

          https://usma.org/ [usma.org]
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          • by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Sunday January 03, 2021 @09:32AM (#60890634)

            What seems to hold back a full dual system to the public eye is mostly transportation, since all the signs are still in miles and fuel is in US gallons

            They really need to fix this, it’s a major problem. Everyone knows it’s far more sensible to measure fuel efficiency in leagues per hogshead.

        • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          That's not really the whole story either. The world is metric, and there are some places that think metric is too easy so they add in some inconvenient conversions to keep the plebes occupied.

          A yard defined as precisely 0.9144 metres in the US and British Commonwealth, by the International Yard and Pound Agreement of 1959.

      • >"Meanwhile, the New York Times readers are still trying to figure out what the fuck a meter is, since most of them know a football field is 100 yards long, and measure every-fucking-thing in feet."

        First, most people here know a meter is almost a yard.
        Second, metric is taught in every single school in the USA.
        Third, an [American] football field is 120 yards, not 100. (Yes, I had to look it up).

        >"but know your audience. You're welcome."

        Indeed. Also, you're welcome, too...

        • First, most people here know a meter is almost a yard

          Shouldn't that be "First, most people here know a yard is almost a meter"? Although, if you are using "almost" to mean "very nearly but not exactly" then I guess you are technically correct.

          • >"Shouldn't that be "First, most people here know a yard is almost a meter"? Although, if you are using "almost" to mean "very nearly but not exactly" then I guess you are technically correct."

            Yes, the latter was my intent. It probably would have been better to say a yard is almost a meter. Perfect example of the ambiguity of English :)

      • Meanwhile, the New York Times readers are still trying to figure out what the fuck a meter is, since most of them know a football field is 100 yards long, and measure every-fucking-thing in feet.

        Serious exaggeration. Typically 6 inches. Unless you are pervert using thing not intended for that purpose was being used.

    • It's about 68 micro library of Congress' (linear).

      DUH.

    • In less time it took you to write that post, you could have scrolled down half a screen and looked at the infographic that illustrates the machine and includes dimensions.

      =Smidge=

      • In less time it took you to write that post, you could have scrolled down half a screen and looked at the infographic that illustrates the machine and includes dimensions.

        =Smidge=

        But 1. it still in British Empire before 1775 units, 2. not everyone leaves slashdot to RTFA.

    • 853 feet, or 260 meters. It wasn't so difficult to include this in the summary!!

      Btw, the tallest building in Europe [wikipedia.org] is 462 meters (if you consider Russia as part of Europe), or 309 meters (in the UK). The largest building in a European Union country (after Brexit) is the Commerzbank Tower in Germany, 258.7 meters, so this turbine is slightly taller.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by jabuzz ( 182671 )

        The UK is in "Europe" regardless of whether it is in the EU or not. There are plenty of countries in Europe that are not in the EU.

      • In addition to laziness, I'm convinced that the editors pull this units crap on every article simply to get more comments and clicks. For example, almost all of the comments on this article are about the choice of units.
    • How many damn meters?

      Many educated Americans struggle with metric.

      Many uneducated Americans struggle with any unit.

      But all Americans understand things expressed as football fields, baseball pitches, libraries of Congress, number of cars or number of 747 jet engines.

      If you run a generalist newspaper, no scientific or technical article is complete without a comparison to football fields, baseball pitches, libraries of Congress, number of cars or number of 747 jet engines.

    • by DeBaas ( 470886 )

      A single one will be able to turn out 13 megawatts of power, enough to light up a town of roughly 12,000 homes

      OK to help out those on imperial units, that's enough for roughly 8,000 American homes

    • >>"The turning diameter of its rotor is longer than two American football fields end to end

      How many damn meters?"

      Beats me. I am American and have no idea how large a football field is. Two seconds on Wikipedia- it is 120 yards. So it is about 120 meters (actual conversion is 110).

      >"What is the tallest building on mainland Europe and how tall is it?"
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      If you don't count Russia as "Europe", nor is Britain "mainland", "The Shard" in London at 1,016 feet (309.6 meters)

    • megawatts of power

      Since the watt (and by extension, the megawatt) is, by definition, a unit of power, can we drop the "of power" redundancy? Or should we require "metres (or meters) of length"?

      And can the Metric fans among us (I'm looking at the Europeans who always whinge about the USA not using their favorite system) stop using the kilogram as a unit of weight? The unit of weight in SI is the Newton, the kilogram is a unit of mass.

      And no, "mass" is not a synonym of "weight"...

      Okay, deep breath...got

    • by xonen ( 774419 )

      A single one will be able to turn out 13 megawatts of power, enough to light up a town of roughly 12,000 homes

      Thank you.

      American homes or European homes? That differs about a factor 2.

      • by jiriw ( 444695 )

        Power generation of windmill in question (at optimum efficiency ?): 13 MW
        Percentage of 'full capacity' days at sea (estimation): 50%. (To compare; on land, the windiest places in the Netherlands have strong breezes 45% of the year).
        Projected production in GWh: 56.94
        Average household electricity use in the Netherlands: 2,800 KWh.
        Number of homes powered in that case: 20,034.

        So I guess they measured in American homes? Of course if you'd play with the estimations in here it could go both ways.. a factor 2 is no

    • And how many birds can it kill per hour?
    • Metric please !

  • Let's see how durable the thing is.

    The place where it's located is one of the most punishing marine environments on the planet.

    And when things go wrong on devices that big, they can go REALLY REALLY WRONG.

    • Like what? A blade landing in the water somewhere betwen nowhere and Fuckall, Empty county?

      • by burni2 ( 1643061 )

        Yeah, but I would not like to have had a falling blade striking a CTV.

      • Like what? A blade landing in the water somewhere betwen nowhere and Fuckall, Empty county?

        Power outages create deaths, much like the fire that took two engineers lives before they could be saved. (They were only 19 and 21 years old.)

        http://i.imgur.com/YHoiqz7.jpg [imgur.com]

        Nothing massive that humans build, is simple to operate or maintain.

    • by burni2 ( 1643061 ) on Sunday January 03, 2021 @07:42AM (#60890428)

      1.) There are wind farms in the north sea for a certain amount of time now, starting with Danemark (NEG Micon/Vestas) smaller turbines
      going through to the german part of the north sea with Alpha Ventus seeing "big"(big in 2010) turbines (5MW Class)

      So to sum it up, we have had time to try, fail and learn from failures, this generation of wind turbines you are seeing there are a quantum leap away from what has existed in 2010.

      But even those "relics" from the not so long ago past have proven to withstand those harsh conditions.

      2.) Yes, engineers know: every technical systems can fail and the amount of power and energy will affect the outcome.

      But I hope you don't want to give up modern medicine with the same argument, because these meds have been produced often in closed chemical process plants involving even such toxic and dangerous substances like Phosgen - some times neighbouring settlements.

      In short, it is more dangerous when such a chemical plant blows up instead of a wind turbine crashing - because WTGs are mostly far away from humans.

      But safety isn't taken lightly and duly maintenance is essential on all industrial installations, because humans do work in those turbines and CTVs (crew transfer vessels) are sailing under and along those wind turbines in a wind farm.

      Also the control systems in wind turbines are very reliable and utilize the multiple redundant braking systems (three independent blades -> one blade out of wind = WTG stops) to safely control the WTGs

  • by simlox ( 6576120 ) on Sunday January 03, 2021 @06:42AM (#60890266)
    Seems to exist: they simply keep growing. In the 90s we had something like 600 kW turbines, in the 00s we had 3 MW, now we got 10 MW. So around a factor of 3 per decade?

    Notice that the power goes as area swept which is radius squared. So the radius is only multiplying with 1.5 per decade.

    • But there's a much harder limit with these wind turbines - their mass. Real Engineering channel on Youtube has a good discussion of it. Simply being able to manufacture these monsters will stretch the technological know-how of any company.
  • by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Sunday January 03, 2021 @06:42AM (#60890272)

    Then ... you've clearly never been to the canal or north sea. :)

    • Then ... you've clearly never been to the canal or north sea. :)

      Hopefully not. It's freezing cold, for one.

  • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday January 03, 2021 @06:46AM (#60890288)

    In the background of the new Turbine is the 1800MW Energiecentrale Maasvlakte, a coal fired power station the most recent unit of which went into commission in 2016. That new power station was supposed to demonstrate how "clean coal" could work with a 250MW carbon capture and storage unit.

    As you can imagine, after getting $300m in taxpayer funding there has been precisely zero development and the world is now stuck with another shitty dirty emitting coal plant built on the back of a broken promise. Better still they've been told to shut by 2030 and are now whining to the government for another $200m funding. If anyone ever asks me why the term "clean coal" makes me want to punch whoever said it, this is why.

    The opening photo is a lovely contrast of *actual* green development against shitty broken promises from the coal industry.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      The obvious reality being that should they actually shut down as Dutch gas reserves are running out, i.e. if Netherlands follow in footsteps of Denmark, they'll become another de-industrialized nation with intermittent power grid fully dependent on foreign producers for stability. Something needs to back up that wind. And Netherlands are not going to be rich in natgas for much longer.

      At which point, expect German grade electric bills for consumers as well, or even higher as government will likely make best

    • Lets talk about how when you buy wind turbines you are in fact end up using natural gas [washingtonpost.com] generators.
      • by Uecker ( 1842596 ) on Sunday January 03, 2021 @08:21AM (#60890506)

        Electricity production in Germany in 2010 from wind power was 38 TWh and from gas 89 TWh. In 2019 it was 126 TWh from wind and 91 TWh from gas. So electricity production from gas did not increase.

        • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Sunday January 03, 2021 @10:24AM (#60890778) Journal
          Large utility scale batteries have not yet come on line. Almost all the new gas powered peaker plant to handle the neck of the duck curve [wikipedia.org] have been shelved. They are being replaced by utility scale batteries. Not the "frequency stabilization for a few seconds" or "grid imbalance for a few minutes". Solid 4 hours of 350 GW. Each battery bank takes out a peaker power plant designed for 6 hours / day use.

          These peak powerplants were the cash cows for the generating companies. Enron artificially created crisis and over charged. But even without a malicious operator, there are enough crises and enough opportunities for enormous profits. All will be gone once these batteries come on line. Remaining gas plant operators will come to the government hat in hand to be bailed out. They will also engage in serious misinformation campaign scaring people saying, "you need us for the time when sun does not shine and the wind does not blow".

    • I used to do blacksmithing with coal as a hobby in my younger days. There is no such thing as clean coal. It turns everything it touches black. The smoke it gives off as you burn off the impurities is toxic (sulfur and whatever else was mixed in with the 2/3 typical carbon content).

  • to make these propellers larger.
  • 13 megawatts of power, enough to light up a town of roughly 12,000 homes only 10% of the time, when there's wind.
    as for the other 90%, a russian gas burning boiler will be used...

    #ThisIsBullshit

    • by dskoll ( 99328 )

      It's near the shore in The Netherlands. There's almost always wind.

    • by stooo ( 2202012 )

      yes, this things you say is bullshit.
      Yes it's intermittent, but more like 90% ON.
      No, it will not be supplemented by gas, but rather by far away meteorologically decorrelated wind

  • by mattr ( 78516 ) <<mattr> <at> <telebody.com>> on Sunday January 03, 2021 @10:07AM (#60890714) Homepage Journal

    Okay, somebody tell me if I am wrong. From what I can tell, this is using misdirection and lying by omission. It compares an experimental unit to something ancient, while ignoring the world leader that already has something close in commercial operation, which is just an outright lie. Actually the outright size of the thing is not earth-shattering and the efficiency numbers appear to be awful.

    I looked up Vestas who for a long time I thought was pretty cool with their wind turbines. Nothing to do with them personally though I have seen the Lillegrund turbines (by Siemens, 2006) from the Oresund bridge which was very cool but difficult to photograph (because of mist, not the height.) I'm not an expert. So this article quotes an unnamed figure saying it is a "leapfrog over the latest technology" and has "shaken the industry". Really? I would certainly like to know if that is true or not because it would be interesting. I mean they compare it to the London Eye, a Boeing 747, and the Empire State Building! And TFA tells us that "G.E.’s Haliade-X generates almost 30 times more electricity than the first offshore machines installed off Denmark in 1991." Breathlessly.

    Wait, why are they comparing this to 1991 technology? Turns out Wikipedia knows all. The London Eye is 1998 technology. The 747 is 1969 technology. The Empire State Building is 1930 technology. And I could see comparing the Haliade-X to a ferris wheel since they both spin, but the Empire State Building? Why not a taller building? Or how about comparing it to a free standing tower? The CN Tower from 1976 is 1,815 feet high. Of course there are a lot taller ones now. Tokyo Skytree (2012) is 2,080 feet high, not the highest though pretty well known. London Eye is not the biggest ferris wheel actually. It is 443 feet high but the High Roller in Las Vegas is 550 ft. tall and the Ain Dubai when finished next year will be 689 ft. tall.

    So it turns out according to Wikipedia, the biggest fully operational (not experimental) turbine is manufactured by Vestas, not G.E. It has been in operation since 2014 and since 2017 it has been rated at 9.5MW with a 538 ft. diameter. In 2018 they announced a 10MW model to be available in 2021. So the experimental GE turbine is not 30 times better or earth shaking, in metrics. It might have amazing technology, hope it does. Is it actually an advance? I don't know how experts compare these things so I tried 3 ways.

    Rated power: GE 13MW, Vestas 10MW. So GE is 30% bigger. Or a bit more if you use the 9.5MW figure.
    kW per foot in diameter: GE 18.006, Vestas 17.658. So GE is nearly 2% better.
    W per foot^2: GE 99.754, Vestas 131.29. According to this metric, Vestas is over 31% better..

    Another omission: Siemens Wind Power's Siemens SWT-8.0-154 is close to what Vestas has it seems. 8MW, 154m (505 ft) diameter. W per ft squared is 125.35. So the leading Vestas turbine is 4.7% more efficient than the leading Siemens turbine by this metric. Sure there are things like rated wind speed but we get the picture.

    In terms of power per swept area, GE is far behind Vestas and Siemens Wind Power. I'd love if an expert here could give their own assessment.

    According to the fteploring.com site below, wind turbine efficiency is calculated based on the square of the turbine blade diameter, so this means that actually GE totally sucks! That said, even the big Vestas turbine has gained in power between 2014 and 2017 so maybe GE's could scale higher too. Who knows. NYT isn't saying.

    However you slice it, leaving out the current world's best turbines while comparing GE's product to ancient technology is just flat-out lying your pants off, and is very embarrassing for GE and the New York Times.

    Reference:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
    http://www.ftexploring.com/win... [ftexploring.com]

    • by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 ) on Sunday January 03, 2021 @12:14PM (#60891088)

      The leapfrog is the fact that GE up-rated the unit to 13MW from its original 12MW nameplate. Same product, but they were able to squeeze an extra MW out of it.

      When you get into these large turbines, reducing count becomes pretty important. A farm with 10MW turbines is going to be at a huge economic disadvantage compared to 13MW. I follow the industry from the periphery, and as far as I understand, Vestas does not have a plan for blades over their current ~107m limit within the next 5 years. They felt that it was an economic ceiling for single-piece blades.

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