...wind turbines got bigger and stronger than ever anyway. The next generation are even larger and designed to withstand an Arctic battering.
The granddaddy of them all is a machine with rotors that cut a 164 meter (538 foot) swath made by a Vestas Wind Systems venture with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. A single blade is 80 meters, about the entire wingspan of an Airbus A380 jumbo jet.
...As they got bigger, the units became more efficient, boosting global installations 23 percent last year to a record 63.5 gigawatts, which at full tilt would be about as much as what flows from 63 nuclear reactors. ...
...The average turbine installed in Europe was 4.1 megawatts last year, 28 percent larger than in 2010, according to the London-based researcher, which expects 6.8 megawatts to be the norm by 2020. Harries said Siemens has hinted it’s working on a 10 megawatt turbine....
...The blades rotate to face the wind and limit downtime. During gales of 12 meters per second (27 miles per hour or 43/kph), motors restrict the turbine from spinning too fast. When it gets more violent, the turbine can switch off.
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