Building a wind farm can seem as easy as finding a site with good wind, bringing the turbines there, mounting them, and connecting them to the power grid. Sew and sing.
However, when we analyze reality, the truth is that building a wind farm can be quite complicated depending on the location.
Blade Transport
In the first instance, it is necessary to transport the machines there, both towers, shovels and gondolas. This is often done by sea, so a relatively close freight port.
Next, it must be able to be transported by road, which requires huge trucks prepared for such a task and roads suitable to support those trucks both by space and weight.
At the location it is also necessary to do an important civil work, not so big if we are talking about a flat area but it can involve the movement of thousands of cubic meters of earth if we are talking about an area with significant unevenness.
All that without taking everything into account previous work; they have to be collected and analyzed wind data during a reasonable period of time (which can go up to several years), to know the production that the park will have.
Apart are the electrical studies that must be done before the installation of the park to avoid problems with the network and potential short circuits.
In this case, we are left only in the logistics part. In the following video he shows the real odyssey that transporting the blades of a wind turbine can sometimes be to its location. The solution adopted by this type of truck is curious, which carry the blade as if it were the rotor of a wind turbine. This peculiar transport system allows greater flexibility, as well as some really impressive images of the trucks going up the mountain.
The largest wind farms in the world
Below we name the 3 largest wind farms today, all 3 are located in the United States.
1. Alta Wind Energy Center:
El Alta Wind Energy Center (AWEC, Alta Wind Energy Center) located in Tehachapi, in California, United States, is currently the largest wind farm in the world, with an operating capacity of 1.020 MW. The onshore wind farm is operated by Terra-Gen Power engineers, who are currently immersed in a new expansion to increase the capacity of the wind farm to 1.550 MW.
2. Shepherds Flat Wind Farm:
It is located near Arlington, in eastern Oregon, in the United States, it is the second largest wind farm in the world with an installed capacity of 845 MW.
Developed by Caithness Energy engineers, the facility covers more than 77 km² between Gilliam and Morrow counties. The project, developed by the engineers of Caithness Energy in an area of more than 77 km² between Gilliam and Morrow counties, construction began in 2009 at an estimated cost of $ 2000 billion.
The park is made up of 338 GE2.5XL turbines, each with a nominal capacity of 2,5 MW.
3. Roscoe Wind Farm:
El Roscoe Wind Farm is near Abilene in Texas, United States, is currently the third largest wind farm in the world with an installed capacity of 781,5 MW, developed by E.ON Climate & Renewables (EC&R) engineers. Its construction was carried out in four phases between 2007 and 2009, covering an area of 400 km² of farmland.
Specifically, the first phase included the construction of 209 Mitsubishi turbines of 1 MW, in the second phase 55 Siemens turbines of 2,3 MW were installed, while the third and fourth phases were integrated 166 GE turbines of 1,5 MW and 197 turbines Mitsubishi of 1 MW respectively. Total, 627 3-blade wind turbines were installed at a distance of 274 meters, which began operating together at full capacity since October 2009.
Every detail must be analyzed and planned without leaving anything adrift. Planning and planning is success.