The wind turbines find fish that eat smaller space

A solution has less impact on the area was discovered in California studying the swimming of schooling fish and flocks of birds.

Until now, manufacturers of wind turbines have focused on maximum efficiency of a single turbine. High stakes, big rotors, however, have resulted in increasingly large areas to be occupied. Where space is the problem does not exist, but in Europe there are large spaces only at sea but even there you do not like too see the plants from the coast.

So even the occupation of space, both horizontally and vertically, has become a cost to be considered a work of trial and now the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), multiply by ten the efficiency of wind turbines for the same space.

According to scientists it is better to prefer the large blades of horizontal-axis large stakes, small vertical axis wind turbines (about 10 meters high and 1.2 meters in diameter), distributed throughout the country, as they have been taught to do studies of swimming schools of fish and flocks of birds.

One of the findings made ​​watching the fish is that in this type of park the efficiency of each turbine will increase if the neighboring spins in the opposite direction. The ideal distance between a turbine and the other is about 5 meters while the horizontal systems it can take up to 1,500 meters away.

Ultimately you reach, with new turbines, made from 21 to 47 watts per square meter, compared to 2-3 parks with traditional vertical axis turbines.