'Wind theft': The mysterious effect plaguing wind farms

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250506-renewable-energys-trouble-with-wind-theft

19•JumpCrisscross•1d ago

Comments

glkindlmann•1d ago

The word "rights" surprisingly didn't come in that piece. By analogy to "water rights" [1], "wind rights" are a thing, both in the basic sense of permission to extract wind power from some chunk of land [2] and the messier sense of that article: conflicts between upstream and downstream users of the wind [3] (recent article and fascinating read)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riparian_water_rights

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_rights

[3] https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/wind-wakes-and-the-right-to-win...

JumpCrisscross•1d ago

Wind rights, as presently constructed, are more analogous to air rights than water rights. They convey the right to use a space versus resource.

p0w3n3d•1d ago

> Wind farms produce energy, and that energy is extracted from the air. And the extraction of energy from the air comes with a reduction of the wind speed," says Peter Baas, a research scientist

Sorry, but this is something that any 8th grade primary school student could say. It's the energy conservation principle.

hyghjiyhu•1d ago

As you say it obviously reduces the wind speed. But what is not obvious is whether the reduction is negligible or not, and what problems it could lead to. How much fields hamper each other. Whether it messes with bird ability to glide on updrafts, sailing, water aeration.

Fortunately it seems to be fine from these perspectives.

p0w3n3d•1d ago

If wind has kinetic energy - E, the amount that can be harvested is < E, and that was kinda obvious from the start. Turbines stop the wind, hence one country can stop wind blowing towards another country if they put many fields on the "track". And apparently it hasn't been taken into account when making those optimistic statements regarding zero emission energy. Also this IS ecology altering, and might have an effect in global weather, but not sure how much (wind mainly blows at high altitudes).

bamboozled•1d ago

People seem to love finding faults with wind farms, even if the contents of the article are purely factual, we need them ,we need to keep experimenting with them and developing better solutions.

We can't let wind turbines be like "nuclear"; the dirty word which could've saved our civilization.

chgs•1d ago

Wind has been common in the U.K. for decades, I remember driving past them as a kid in the 90s on holiday

It’s only recently that the right wing has become particularly against them

bamboozled•1d ago

That's my point, there is some sort of anti-wind religious crusade going on, and it's bullshit.

chgs•11h ago

There are people who spend money to make more pollution in their local neighbourhoods

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal

It’s unsurprising that nimbys don’t want wind in their back yard despite acknowledging the benefits.

GuB-42•1d ago

Here the victims of "wind theft" by wind farms are other wind farms. The point of this article is that by not accounting for the problem, the efficiency of wind power around the world may decrease and also discourage investors.

morkalork•1d ago

From TFA the wake can stretch 100km from a windfarm and reduce output of another by 10%. Interesting so it sounds like an optimization at country scale, how to place windfarms to maximize overall output when accounting for these effects.

collinmcnulty•1d ago

I would like to see this effect compared to other obstructions, like regular buildings. I understand that wind farms are built in areas that are mostly otherwise flat, so the effects matter, but I just don’t feel like my scale is calibrated. I would think an individual tall building would have more effect than an individual wind turbine, but what about a typical small town center vs a wind farm?

polishdude20•1d ago

This made me think of a cool sci Fi post apocalyptic idea. A colony that has its base in the middle of violent tornado or storm country but it has a huge array of wind machines that harvest the storm for energy. On the leeward side of the array, where the colony lives, the air is calm, robbed of its energy.

m-r-r•1d ago

This sounds a lot like the plot of The Horde of Counterwind by Alain Damasio

OutOfHere•1d ago

This has in the past been scientifically proposed as a legitimate way to cure the US of tornadoes while yielding significant energy in the process.

glumreaper•1d ago

Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth over wake losses. Let's get some figures:

* From their own study: the cumulative wake loss impact of four new wind farms in the Irish Sea on Orsted's existing estate is 3.28% [0] * "Wind turbines are found to lose 1.6±0.2% of their output per year." [1]

So, wake losses turn a brand new wind farm into a 2-year-old wind farm. Given the yuuuuuge lifespan of wind farms, it seems kinda trivial.

[0] https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/-catastrophic-wake-losses-...

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096014811...

amai•1d ago

That really is only a problem if the direction of the wind never changes. But if the direction of the wind turns around the farm stealing the wind and the farm being robbed of wind switch roles.

fensgrim•17h ago

Also, isn't it really stupid to treat the wind the same way we do with rivers or with electrical current (which is actually flowing the opposite way to electrons, so not like the river/wind at all)?

E.g. country A is saying that country B is stealing their incoming (upstream) wind, but there's currently a zone of negative pressure (based on the mountains/shore/passing by cyclone/whatever) on the country A's territory which actually allows for the pressure gradient to form through both countries A and B - so there's more energy potential available to tap into on country A's territory?

g42gregory•1d ago

If windfarms reduce overall wind speed around them and if there are enough of them built, wouldn't this measurably reduce the wind speed in the environment?

And if the wind speed of the environment is measurably reduced, wouldn't this affect the environment itself?

What are the negative effects of this on birds, climate, insect population, etc...? Do positive effects significantly outweigh negatives?

PaulKeeble•1d ago

The amount we can extract is tiny compared to the volume of energy put into the air every day by the sun. At a certain scale it could definitely become an issue and change the local environment and reduce wind speeds, we have seen that with some of the biggest solar farms where the air temperature is changed and the shade increases vegetation and wildlife so presumably wind speed reductions will have some effect. But compared to the CO2e it saves from being emitted its absolutely worth it currently.

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