Thu 21 Nov, 2013 08:46 am
Dramatic weather changes are obvious in Europe now. Extremely disastrous tornadoes used to form most frequently in the USA and Asia. Now they are becoming a regular occurrence in Europe too!
I'm working for a Danish firm involved in some vital research work and production of wind turbines. You know, we deal with the European Severe Storms Lab maintaining a database of all severe weather events in Europe. Naturally, we take special interest in windspeed. As a general rule, most economic wind generators of various models require windspeed of 4 to 10 metres per second. But in recent times based on ESSL data we unfortunately observe a steady rise both in number of tornadoes and strong winds in Europe and their scale which is often more than this mark! In 2013 of the 57 (!) reported tornadoes in France 20 were rated F3-F4 by Fujita scale to classify tornadoes (F5 is the highest).
Ye, some time ago wind generators were on the rise as the cheapest energy source of all but now I'm scared we may find ourselves in the red! The equipment we manufacture is no match to rising windpower in Europe. There are more and more malfunctions and repairs work needed in such cases makes the energy produced far more expensive than at the start. So I'm being rather pessimistic relating future of windpower facilities in Europe.
@Arnolv,
Very interesting Arny. Can't you instead redesign the turbine to withstand tornadoes etc