Iowa State researchers seek solution for icy wind turbine blades

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Iowa State researchers seek solution for icy wind turbine blades

WRITTEN BY
Karen Uhlenhuth
October 30, 2019

A state economic development grant is helping to fund an effort to find a cheaper and more effective ice repellent.

It’s a problem that makes rooftop ice dams seem minuscule by comparison: how to prevent ice buildup on massive wind turbine blades.

Researchers at Iowa State University are trying to develop a cost-effective antidote with the help of a $303,000 state economic development grant.

The stakes are real for the wind energy industry in Iowa and other cold weather states. Energy production can fall by as much as 50% when blades are icy, and operators sometimes turn turbines off during icy weather to prevent damage to the machines, according to Hui Hu, a professor of aerospace engineering at Iowa State who is leading the research effort there.

“Given our substantial wind resources … this has the potential to increase production, but to do it in an efficient and sustainable way,” said Brian Selinger, who directs the energy office for the Iowa Economic Development Authority.

{snip}

ABOUT KAREN UHLENHUTH

Karen spent most of her career reporting for the Kansas City Star, focusing at various times on local and regional news, and features. More recently, she was employed as a researcher and writer for a bioethics center at a children’s hospital in Kansas City. Karen covers Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

[Throck]

1. How is it done on the northern wind farms?

Electric heat trace on the blades? Only needed during icy conditions?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. There are several techniques.

Full disclosure: I am not a follower of wind turbine technology. I'm just reading along like everyone else.

I was sort of led into doing some research today after seeing one of Lauren Boeber's tweets:

You know how you unfreeze frozen windmills?

By sending up a helicopter that shoots out chemicals onto the blades.

You need fuel for the helicopter.

Keep that in mind when thinking how “green” windmills are.

Link to tweet

I thought she had to be crazy. Well, maybe so, but it turns out that this is one way of deicing the blades. This might be an outlier, as it turns out that there are several ways of making wind turbines functional in cold climates.

Note, too, that the blades are just part of a wind turbine. There is also a gearbox in the nacelle, as the speed of the turbine blades' rotation has to be matched to the frequency of the power grid. The gearbox lubricant has to be warmed up to keep it from taking on the viscosity of molasses.

We'll be reading much more about this in the coming days.

Take a look at that link to the Canadian site.

HTH. I'm learning too.

EDITORS' PICK | Feb 16, 2021,11:05pm EST | 14,119 views

Why Wind Turbines In Cold Climates Don’t Freeze: De-Icing And Carbon Fiber

Scott Carpenter | Senior Contributor
Energy
I write about energy and commodities, from renewable energy to coal.

The failure of roughly half of the wind turbines in Texas earlier this week isn’t the biggest cause of a power shortage crisis that has left one-third of Texans without power in historic freezing conditions.

{snip}

So it’s fair to ask: why don’t wind turbines fail all the time in colder climates, such as Canada, Sweden or the American Midwest?

The answer, in short, is that turbines in colder places are typically equipped with de-icing and other tools, such as built-in heating. In Texas, where the weather is almost never this cold, they usually are not.

{snip}

In Canada, where wind turbines can experience icing up to 20% of the time in winter months, special “cold weather packages” are installed to provide heating to turbine components such as the gearbox, yaw and pitch motors and battery, according to the Canadian government. This can allow them to operate in temperatures down to minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 30 Celsius).

To prevent icing on rotor blades — which cause the blades to catch air less efficiently and to generate less power — heating and water-resistant coatings are used.

{snip}

[Squinch]

3. Here's a solution: "Give the turbine guys in Sweden and Norway and Finland a call."

Now go get a beer.

[Throck]

4. How is it done on the northern wind farms?

Electric heat trace on the blades? Only needed during icy conditions?