Friday, March 12, 2010

Smart mover? An urban turbine



Here's a very large, very urban turbine on the side of the British M4 freeway, close to the town of Reading. It seems to stand in the grounds of a conventional power generating station or a factory. There are houses and farms very close by, within a few hundred feet. The blades were turning in a very mild ground-level breeze.

Here are details I found on Wikipedia:

"A wind generator at Junction 11 of the M4 motorway, at Greenpark industrial estate, near Reading, Berkshire, England. Construction finished in November 2005. The turbine supplies up to 1,500 local homes and businesses.

The turbine on top of the 85 m m (279 ft) tower is the German-made Enercon E-70. The three fibreglass blades are each 33m (108 ft) long, rotating at 6 to 21 rpm depending on wind speed. Maximum power output of 2.05 MW is reached at a wind speed of 14 m/s (31 mph) then remains constant with increasing wind speed. The hub is kept facing into wind.

At a pre-determined high wind speed the blades cease rotation."

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