Solar Panels on Wind Turbins | |||||||||||||||||
Why not simply coat the surface of wind turbins with photovoltaic cells? It seems to me the electrical infrastructure is already in place for the wind turbin and the blades have an enourmous surface area that could be populated with solar panels? It would be interesting to see just how much more output could be generated utilizing existing technology.
Mathias, Mar 01 2007
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There is plenty of free space in the world for solar panels. To compromise the efficiency of spining wind turbine blades with solar panels is not a sensible suggestion.
Sure there's plenty of free space for solar panels but how many free spaces already have generators, voltage regulators and capacitors alrealdy in place? Why build more, that's hardly sensible when you can avoid it? Wind turbines already have the infrastructure in place. As far as compromising the efficency of the turbine blade, that's a good point but could easily be addressed with designing blades with the solar cells imbedded in the surface.
If you are intent on using supplementary electrical equipment there are other places than the blades which must be oriented in response to the wind, not the sun.
The gain wouldn't be practical, and even might interere with the efficiancy of the wind turbine. You might as well stick a half dozen panels at the base of each turbine, you will get the same net effect.
hi , my self abhinav. i m here in india. n i m a engg. student. i m working on the same project. if get some results on this, plz send me if i will get something i mailed u. my email id is abhi.kabhi007@gmail.com
Solar panels need to be orientated towards the sun. I don't know a whole deal about PV panels but I know to have good efficiency they need to face the sun within a few degrees of rotation.
So that poses your first problem because wind turbines are constantly rotating their heads to match the wind directions.
Secondly the blades are parallel to the ground, this means the panels would only "see" the sun during sunrise to sunset, IF the wind is even blowing in that direction.
I like Sand's idea to at least put panels at the base of the turbine. The generator--a large part of the expense--is already there; why not feed more energy into it?
its a great idea...the wings might not be a good place but the base pole of wind mill is certainly a good candidate for solar panels...