Wind Turbines

Thanks for the links.Very clear and instructive.GA from me.

I found the videos very interesting SE. Looks like the problems with erosion to the leading edge may be something to worry about for the wind farmers. Lately even the smallest storm here generates hailstones from pea to tennis ball size and even larger.

Just last year a hail storm ripped through the area not far away and smashed laminated windshields on cars and destroyed the corrugated iron on the rooves and walls of buildings.

It would be interesting to see how the blades handle big hail stones after reading the article. Maybe someone can tell me if the blades are painted or do they have a coating of gelcoat like FRP boats?

It's cost effective.

Haha...

https://infrascapedesign.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/horst-glaesker/

To answer your question, "Why are they painted white?" which seems to have been overshadowed by the peanut gallery's false narrative, neutral colors like white help the turbines "blend in" especially on cloudy days. Painting wind turbines white also helps reduce expansion and cracking of the outer shells that houses and protects the turbines' "gubbins" and fiberglass composite rotor blades.

Wind turbines don't turn if they're not needed to supply the grid. They can be brought on-line in a matter of minutes, if needed.

Cost effective. It's a real answer.

Why are planes white? Ships?

Color is expensive branding. Not needed.

Interesting answer but totally incorrect, as to the broad brush approach, as a visit to any port be it air or ocean will bear this out.

By your analogy then it would be more cost effective to leave the material in its natural finish.

Broad brush. Yes, but totally incorrect? No.

White paint is the aesthetic choice for a reason.

Boats and planes painted other than white? Yes, many of them. For a premium and special order.

Any other color coating has a specific purpose.. like the red paint below the waterline.

No, The google master bully was correct, or at the very least, partially so. it’s for aesthetic purposes.

If he's partially right? No arguments there.

Then I'm not completely wrong.

You could say painting them in high visibility orange was for safety and to avoid bird strikes or whatever.. but it costs more. So white.. yeaaahh.. it's for the people to ... relax.. ok.

it's for the people to ... relax.. ok

There’s an orchard if wind turbines (near Pipe, Wisconsin) that went up that I drove past, a lot of protests from neighbors. That it benefits only the few... the leasor who owns the property the wind turbine sits on, which is very lucrative.

I drive past one about 10:00 pm it was closer to the road (about an 1/8 of a mile maybe), and I stopped, rolled down the window... it was just put up for maybe a year, but it was noisy where it was more than just a swosh,... but of metal Clanging, like an old fashion windmill that used to pump water on a homestead.

So pleasing to the eye is important, but not the ear? Or the neighborhood..

Surely they can insulate the noise better. But that cost money.

My educated guess is that if you heard metal clanging, that turbine is in the process of failing.

I too have stopped the car near medium and large turbines, both in Europe and in California, but I actually turned the engine off and got out of the car. I hate noise in general, but did not find any of these objectionable.

I did the same, that is when I understood the protests.

Electric substations that hum and buzz continuously... they don't seem so loud.. until you imagine living near one.

Now add the strobe effect of turbine blades, gear boxes and flashing red lights across the countryside..

Just like downtown.

Digressing further,,, Yes, the feuding between the farmer that has a wind mill on his property and his neighbor got to be pretty serious.

But the lease on the farmers land that the power company pays I heard was about $7500.00 a year,... a lot more than planted crops the land could produce.

so a did a little research... I also don’t blame the farmer...

Actually the cost of the painting is taken up in the preparation, labour costs to apply the paint and all the associated costs with cleanup afterwards. The cost of the white pigment of whatever chemical is used is negligible.

Do you know that to make white paint appear more white, black pigment is added at the blending stage?

I thought someone may have noticed my humourous reference to white elephants but no it didn't happen so I assume it is because engineers like police have no sense of humour.

The cost of paint when you're painting your wagon may be negligible, but when you are talking about painting, and maintaining the paint of dozens ofsuper structures. The cost of the paint is massive.

Titanium white IS the least expensive pigment.

Cheap.. like a pale of pachyderm dung.

Check this out.

You give them ideas!

https://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/29685/Why-Does-Bodywork-and-Painting-Cost-So-Much-We-Break-It-Down

Digressing even further about paint, when I worked at the shipyard a lifetime ago, on one of the contracts with the ship being built:

• Length 224 ft
• Beam 39 ft
• Draft 15 ft

I was talking to the paint supervisor, where they were going through training on the paint thickness on the ship, where he said, they are trying to rope in quality control for paint thickness. He had said, depending on where the current draft of the ship is to it hull, for every mil thickness of extra paint the ship has, the ship pulls an extra inch of draft.

i thought was quite interesting, an somewhat unbelievable,... I think he may have took some liberties and embellishment,...

Lyn,

part of your answer is actually good, but where did you learn that wind turbines can be brought "on-line" in a matter of minutes? Can they, if no wind is blowing?

If they are not good for base load, which they are not, why would they not be "needed to supply the grid"? Does that mean there is a base load present and we do not need them anyway?

More insight in this part of your thinking would be appreciated.

I have a problem with the figures found online about wind turbines...they say that it costs about $2 mil per MW installed, and they say the payback period is 6 mos...how is that possible? Even if a wind turbine is operating 10 hours a day it never comes close to the quoted figures of payback....@ $0.15 per Kw 1 MW is $150. per hour retail...10 hrs a day that's $1500. per day...for 180 days that's $270k...and I think 10 hrs a day is rather optimistic...

..."Every wind turbine has a range of wind speeds, typically around 30 to 55 mph, in which it will produce at its rated, or maximum, capacity. At slower wind speeds, the production falls off dramatically. If the wind speed decreases by half, power production decreases by a factor of eight. On average, therefore, wind turbines do not generate near their capacity. Industry estimates project an annual output of 30-40%, but real-world experience shows that annual outputs of 15-30% of capacity are more typical."...

They keep trying to fudge these capacity numbers up, but come on how often does the wind blow in excess of 30 mph...I think the 15% is more realistic as an average capacity output....

https://www.wind-watch.org/faq-output.php

Ref...

The other 39 wind turbines weren't running because they didn't have their batteries installed yet?...

yuk, yuk, yuk ...

I'm surprised that after 25 replies, no one that I saw has mentioned heat. White reflects all colors of visible light and some IR and UV, and does not radiate well when it's dark, so the blade temperatures remain more nearly constant.

Thermal expansion and contraction is bad for layered products. it tends to make the layers de-laminate over time, since the internal layers change temperature less than the outer layers.

Didn't I say that? In more simple terms of course.

Where? in "Why are planes white? Ships?"?

It's not at all obvious what you were implying by that question.

(Cost effective) It's a boiler plate all encompassing statement.

..rather than a dissertation.

Thanks for that btw

I used to get a monthly wind energy rag.

And I read it. Now I read the on line content.

Re: I'm surprised that after 25 replies, no one that I saw has mentioned heat.

Lynn said this in reply #5

Painting wind turbines white also helps reduce expansion and cracking of the outer shells that houses and protects the turbines' "gubbins" and fiberglass composite rotor blades.

I assumed he meant from heat...

Just sayin'

Right you are! Thanks, and my apologies to Lyn. Perhaps the "gubbins" threw me off. I have no idea what "gubbins" means.

Is that related to "gubrmint"?

I once worked for a company installing small domestic wind turbines, up to 15kw. They were painted a slightly off white (very slightly grey). The reason I was told at the time was this was found to be the colour least detected by the eye in most environmental conditions where turbines were likely to be placed.

But the amount of paint needed for these turbines was minuscule in comparison to the big turbines so the reason may be different for them.

About 6 years ago, Obama was in a TV ad, standing in front of a 40 mill windmill farm, his line was "this is America's energy future" the tall grass was waving in the wind but not one of the windmills was turning. Windmills and solar will never pay for themselves, they are politicians pay to play get rich hoax, no wind no energy, no sun no energy. the DOE denied all other working inventions funding like my electro-mag generator if they did not support wind or solar.

What electro mag generator?

Right! I've seen quite a few different generators, from hand-held to multiple MegaWatt sizes, and every single one of them was electromagnetic.