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Four in one: Vestas pilots a multi-rotor wind turbine

Danish turbine manufacturer Vestas is building a multi-rotor wind turbine – with one mast supporting four turbines – to test the feasibility of the concept.

The project, carried out in cooperation with the Technical University of Denmark, is intended to challenge the assumption that turbines have to grow in size to increase their energy output.

In America scientists are pushing that assumption to the limit by trying to build a gargantuan, bendy turbine blade that could power a 50-MW turbine.

But the Danish firm is keen to find another way. Going up now near Roskilde, Vestas’ demonstrator will be used to study load and control features in the coming years to assess the technical feasibility of the concept and its commercial viability.

"This process of continuous innovation and exploration is extremely important," said Vestas’ Innovation & Concepts senior vice president, Jorge Magalhaes.

"It provides us with essential knowledge that can help us bring down our products’ cost of energy and integrate key technologies to solve our customers’ challenges. Ultimately, the goal is to assess if we can build an even more cost-efficient turbine by challenging the scaling rules."

Image: An artist’s render of the multi-rotor wind turbine (Vestas)

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Comments

  1. It wont work

    To many node points fabricated. To much vibration. Stress failures throughout and that’s not even mentioning the wind blowing at various knots in different directions

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