There are a number of companies and people working on potentially innovative ideas, but it's not an easy thing. Serrated trailing edges and vortex generators are easy enough to test (reduced noise from one, increase energy from the other). Others such as shrouded turbines, or multi-segment blades are difficult.
Another thing vendors are doing now is purposefully running generators beyond their design at higher wind speeds (getting 2.2 MW from a 2.0 MW generator, for example), provided that other operating parameters are measured to be within range. This is usually driven by cooling requirements.
Right. It's a diverse industry with the chance to make some very large money over the next few decades and beyond. The engineering efforts are fascinating. So when Cringely rolls his eyes and smirks at those conventional wisdom know-nothings ignoring the genius of his buddy... well, I suppose it's about what I expect from Cringely.
This over-confidence in your ability to change an industry is a good trait IMO. It powers entrepreneurial activity. While his hypothesis might be wrong in full implementation, it's possible there is some partial innovation here that could come out of testing out this idea. It's possible the constraints faced by large wind mills are not the same for smaller ones, for example.
It's easier to dismiss radical thinking than to continually pursue them in the face of pervasive dismissiveness.
Radical improvements aren't generally from minor refinements.
Re:Why Wind Turbines Have Three Blades
by LoSboccacc on Saturday May 07, 2016 @04:16AM
(#11648822)
time for this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolved_antenna but with fields of turbines as a system
Wind power is still largely a greenfield industry.
It's not. There are a limited number of good onshore wind sites near big loads. California has only four good sites, and they all have big wind farms. There are lots of sites with enough wind northward from the Texas panhandle, but no big loads within a thousand miles.
But your assumption that the industry is already doing the right thing is exactly what the article is speaking out against. Personally I don't know but I do believe there is a lot of value in questioning conventional wisdom.
Re:Why Wind Turbines Have Three Blades
by mixmastamyk on Friday May 06, 2016 @03:12PM
(#11646062)
Further, some empirical data would be nice. A few different configurations in different areas over a year would be a good start.
These may exist but I've not yet seen them.
Cringely's assumption that new designs aren't being tried because the industry is stupid is almost certainly wrong. More likely, they're still going after the low hanging fruit, and will start optimizing design for suboptimal locations once they've fully exploited the optimal ones. But there's a lot less profit in using more expensive turbines to harvest less wind.