
The highest increase in annual yield a wind turbine can obtain is by increasing the rotor diameter. This is because the increase in wind power follows a mathematical ‘power of 2 law’ based on the diameter. For existing blade lengths and for the turbines that have already been running for a while, improvement is also possible by the use of flow changers. The amount of improvement is not to be underestimated and can bring a lot – at least up to 2.5% annual yield.
By Edo Kuipers, We4Ce, the Netherlands