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NEW WIND TURBINE TECHNOLOGY
WIND TURBINE NEW
TECHNOLOGIES: STEALTH Wind turbine technology continues to develop at a bewildering pace to meet ever changing demands and constraints
Renewable targets, changing subsidies and lighter, stronger materials drive larger, quieter, more efficient designs; floating technologies promise to deliver offshore windfarms in previously inaccessible waters; improved gearbox technology and diagnostics improve efficiency and increases availability.
STEALTH
One new turbine technology is becoming increasingly important in the battle to allow wind turbines and radars to co-exist: Stealth. Signal reflections from the towers and moving turbine blades are indistinguishable from the objects the radars are intended to detect.
On airport Air Traffic Control (ATC) radars, wind turbines can have the appearance of aircraft and can cause difficulties for radar controllers; turbines appear as rainfall on weather radars and can decrease the accuracy and reliability of rain levels and flood-
risks. Stealth reduces or eliminates these unwanted reflections.
WHAT IS STEALTH? Stealth refers to the range of methods and technologies developed for defence applications. Techniques include shaping and radar absorbing materials (RAM). Tower and nacelle shapes can be changed to deflect radar signals away from the radar. Blade shapes are aerodynamically optimised and the shape cannot be changed; the additional weight of paints or rubber coatings is often unacceptable.
However, high stealth performance can be achieved by embedding material layers into the blade structure, with minimal weight increase and no shape change. Structural solutions require no maintenance and do not degrade with time.
STEALTH WIND TURBINE (SWT) TECHNOLOGY
QinetiQ used its patented Stealth WEBSITE BROCHURE ARTICLE
www.windenergynetwork.co.uk 67
Wind Turbine (SWT) technology in the turbines designed for the EDF EN windfarm, Project Ensemble Catalan, near Perpignan, in the south of France. Operational since 2016, the 96MW windfarm is the largest in France and uses Stealth to mitigate the impact on a nearby weather radar.
WHY USE STEALTH? Stealth enhances most radar solutions, which often do not provide a full mitigation. Repowering a windfarm using Stealth turbines means smaller turbines can be replaced with new more efficient machines, without increasing the radar interference problem.
QinetiQ
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