Surprising study shows how wind turbines can work better behind hills

Engineers go to great lengths to maximize the exposure of wind turbines, placing blades atop tall towers on the crests of hills or miles off shore over the wild, unprotected ocean. A new study has thrown up an interesting curve ball that could open up new avenues for the generation of renewable energy, demonstrating how turbines nestled behind hills could actually produce higher amounts of energy than those out in the open.

The research was carried out at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, and sought to explore how, in some circumstances, wind turbines could actually benefit from being placed behind hills. The scientists did this through an aerodynamic modeling technique called large eddy simulation, which allowed them to simulate the effects of a three-dimensional hill on the performance of downwind turbines.

The simulation was based on a 90-meter-tall (295-ft) turbine with 63-meter (207-ft) blades, being placed 756 meter (2,500 ft) behind a 90-meter-tall (300-ft) tall hill. Counterintuitively, the team found that under some conditions this particular arrangement actually increased the power production of the turbine by around 24 percent.

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