Wind power is one of the fast-growing renewable energy sources in the world. Wind turbines generate electricity by extracting kinetic energy from the air around them.
These wind farms are mushrooming worldwide but due to space constraints, these are sometimes built very close to one another.
But, according to a new study, too many wind turbines at a place are likely to reduce wind speeds. Turbines in a densely packed farm may weaken the breeze, in other words…slow down the air.
A team of researchers from Germany’s coastal researcher center, the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, has found that upwind turbines in a densely packed farm may significantly weaken the wind speeds, before it reaches the wind turbines built downstream.
They observed that it can reduce the output of neighboring wind farms or turbines built downstream by 20 to 25%. Normally, these patterns can extend 35-40 km from the wind farm, and can even go up to 100 km in certain wind conditions.
Researchers have mainly studied the extent to which wind farms influence each other in their current work. Soon, they plan to investigate the influence of reduced wind speeds have on the marine ecosystem.
