Hurricane-resilient wind turbines: Research & Innovation

Wind technology literally is growing. Today’s offshore wind turbines can tower about 500′, their spinning blades churning out up to 8 MW each — roughly enough to power 4,000 U.S. homes.

But with greater size comes challenges. Off the East Coast, where turbines are in the United States, increasingly powerful Atlantic Ocean hurricanes pose risks to the structures and to the future of wind energy. To make those turbines more hurricane-resilient, a team of University of Colorado, Boulder researchers has taken a cue from nature and turned around turbines.

“We are very much bio-inspired by palm trees, which can survive these hurricane conditions,” said Lucy Pao, Palmer endowed chair in the department of electrical, computer and energy engineering.

Lucy Pao stands at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Flatirons campus with the 53.38-kW SUMR-D directly to her right. Image courtesy of K. Simpkins/University of Colorado, Boulder

Traditional upwind turbines face incoming wind. To avoid being blown into the tower, a blade must be sufficiently stiff. A lot of material is required to build these relatively thick, massive blades, which drives up their cost. Turbine blades on downwind rotors, however, face away from wind, so there’s less risk of a blade hitting the tower when wind picks up. This means that blades can be lighter and more flexible, which needs less material and therefore less money to make. These downwind blades also can bend instead of break in the face of strong winds, much like palm trees.