标签: wind

 India has the world’s fifth highest onshore installed wind power capacity that contributes about 65 per cent of the renewable energy capacity. Currently, with over 23 GW of wind energy capacity already installed and generating power, India has a mature onshore wind energy system. To complement the existing onshore wind energy capability, the NDA Government is giving serious impetus to offshore wind energy generation. The National Offshore Wind Energy Policy, recently announced by the Union Cabinet, aims to provide a never before boost to renewable energy development in the country.The approval of the national offshore wind energy policy is welcome, but the NDA Government must take note of the potential challenges of such projects, so that India can set its own benchmark in offshore wind energy generation.--- The Pioneer

Fernando Birck greatly enjoys racing simulators—so much so, that he runs Fergotech, a company specialising in racing simulation hardware and tools. Recently Birck shared a really easy way to add a wind simulator to your home setup. The goal is to be able to have a variable amount of wind blowing in your face, getting stronger as you accelerate. He pulled it off pretty well and shared all his code and schematics so you could follow along. As you can see in this video , thanks to his amazingly technical and advanced method of displaying the fan speed (a piece of paper), it seems to be quite effective. As his car accelerates on the screen, the fan smoothly also accelerates to supply more air movement. Yes, he points out that the windshield on his vehicle would stop the wind, but the effect is quite nice anyway. How he's doing it is as follows. First, there's a piece of software installed on the computer that reads the speed of the car in the game. This data is then sent out to an Arduino, which is simply controlling a 12V DC computer fan via PWM (pulse width modulation). Fernando acknowledges that these fans aren't really made to run with PWM, so its life might be shortened, but they're cheap so he's not too concerned at this point in prototyping . The schematic is extremely simple, requiring only a single transistor to handle the 12V power to the fan. He actually points out that if you were to go with a 5V fan, you wouldn't even need a transistor. You can download the Arduino code as well as the client piece of software from his web page if you'd like to try this out for yourself. This kind of addition would be absolutely perfect not only for the kind of racing simulation in the video, but also for virtual reality setups like the occulus rift. Caleb Kraft Chief Community Editor EE Times  

Wind turbines often kill birds, and efforts are being made to build new models that reduce bird mortality. That raises the question whether wind farms might also generate enough turbulence to endanger light aircraft? Examining the risks of wind farms may pose for ultra-light aircraft, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System (Oldenburg, Germany) report that they have developed a simulation tool that can compute how power plants influence aircraft at various wind speeds and wind directions. Researchers said the simulation can calculate how much turbulence wind farms generate, how they can alter wind speed and what influence these factors have on airplanes. After conducting simulations under various scenarios, Fraunhofer's Bernhard Stoevesandt said "we simulated various wind directions, two different wind speeds and five different flight trajectories in which the plane is under the rotor's sphere of influence for various lengths of time." The German researchers created a computer model of the ground and a wind profile of the surrounding area where a wind farm is meant to be built. The model calculated how turbines alter wind conditions and create turbulence on a grid. "The true skill is in the creation of the grid because the points on the grid where the computer makes the individual calculations must lie at exactly the right places," said Stoevesandt, specifying that the software must calculate the prevailing currents within several million grid cells that mutually influence each other. Other challenges include accurately depicting the trail – the turbulence and the change in wind speed behind the rotor – and assessing how this might affect a small aircraft flying near a wind farm. A Fraunhofer simulation demonstrates the turbulence generated by wind turbines. The red area shows heavy turbulence, which is common near wind farms. To validate the simulations, Stoevesandt said the trail from actual wind energy plants was measured at individual points behind the rotor, then the measurements compared with the simulations. The researchers examined the effects of wind farms within an approximately 1,500m perimeter and an altitude of up to 500m. The simulations also illustrate something any any good pilot should know: Steer clear of large obstacles on the ground. - Anne-Françoise PELE