Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith R
CB, as I understand it, the massive ones on wind farms don't tilt. The small-scale units serving a single farm or home, like the one featured in the aforementioned Green Team article, can/do. But as I noted before, other nations in the Caribbean hurricane corridor manage to have wind farms with the "massive turbines," so I suspect the DR could too.
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These massive turbines are indeed huge and build to withstand up to category 3 hurricanes. The turbines cut out at approx 50 miles/hour and stop spinning to protect against overspin/damage to gearbox. For inspection, maintenance & service, the turbine towers are hollow c/w steel steps to climb to the top for servicing them. I did see some serious hurricane damage to one of those huge wind turbines (the tower literaly buckled at the middle,
the blades destroyed and the foundation uprooted...
The turbine I installed at Cabrera has the fold-down feature to lower against hurricanes and to be able to service/maintain at ground level. It's very costly to get a crane on site just to get to the top of the tower where the nacelle is bolted on. Turbine owners felt that the fold-down feature was a plus to protect their investment against nature's fury.
Georgios