I am not certain but I thought that the specially dsigned blades are
automatically "feathered" so that they cannot be overstressed. The
Turbine generators cannot then be overrun and actually stabilize at a
designed maximum speed. Maybe someone will shoot me down in flames
but common sense says there must be some sort of limiter for extreme
weather. When you see the wind generators stationary, it is not
ususally because there is no air flow passing but the station
controller has "Feathered" the blades to reach equalibrum and cannot
turn, even in high winds. (For servicing and repair). There is no
doubt a physical brake that can be applied when engineers are working.
~Allan~
--- In [email protected], David Sullivan
<david_vince_sulli...@...> wrote:
>
> Trevor writes:
> >I'm not a great fan (excuse the unintentional pun) of wind
> >energy - it only works when the wind blows (and if it blows
> >too strongly they have to close them down - which seems a
> >bit daft to me)
>
> I don't know how strong "too strong" is. I saw some big
> wind turbines on Crete that were merrily whizzing round
> at a great rate in a wind that was so strong it was
> difficult to stand up in (we'd walked up to the top
> of a mountain).
> BTW the locals don't mind them at all, so we were told.
>
> Dave
>
