Why Wind Turbines In Cold Climates Don't Freeze: De-Icing And Carbon Fiber

[Nevilledog]

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Yashar Ali 🐘
@yashar
So why don't wind turbines in places like Alaska and Canada freeze up like they did in Texas?

Turbines in those places have cold weather packages that warm the key components of the wind turbines so they can keep working.

Texas doesn't have those.

Why Wind Turbines In Cold Climates Don’t Freeze: De-Icing And Carbon Fiber
Turbines in colder climates are typically equipped with de-icing and other tools, such as built-in heating. In Texas, it's not usually necessary.
forbes.com
10:08 AM · Feb 17, 2021

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcarpenter/2021/02/16/why-wind-turbines-in-cold-climates-dont-freeze-de-icing-and-carbon-fiber/?sh=77cbdee61f59

The failure of roughly half of the wind turbines in Texas earlier this week isn’t the biggest cause of a power shortage crisis that has left one-third of Texans without power in historic freezing conditions.

Frozen infrastructure at gas and coal power stations, such as pipelines, are the main culprit. Of the total amount of power that suffered outages, wind accounted for only some 13%, a far smaller share than accounted for by coal, gas and nuclear plants.

Still, wind power is a major resource in Texas: it supplied 23% of the state’s electricity in 2020, second only to the 40% share by natural gas, and had been producing a larger share than normal before the widespread outages. Wind has also attracted an outsize share of blame for the Texas fiasco, including a Wall Street Journal editorial that attacked its susceptibility to the freezing weather as another sign of its unreliability.

So it’s fair to ask: why don’t wind turbines fail all the time in colder climates, such as Canada, Sweden or the American Midwest?

The answer, in short, is that turbines in colder places are typically equipped with de-icing and other tools, such as built-in heating. In Texas, where the weather is almost never this cold, they usually are not.

*snip*

[TwilightZone]

1. As noted, Texas doesn't have them because this is a 30-year event.

In some cases, longer than that. Hasn't been this much snow in much of the state since 1949 and it hasn't been this cold for this long in much of the state since anywhere from the late 1980s to 1895. Combine the two and you get the current problem.

That doesn't mean they shouldn't be prepared for it or it's a valid excuse. It was likely just an easy place to cut costs.

[Squinch]

2. But why DOESN'T Texas have the cold weather package? Yes, this weather is very unusual,

but it isn't the first time Texas has experienced freezing temperatures.

WTH?

[TwilightZone]

5. It's not just the freezing temps.

Two days of freezing rain, then a 30-year snow event, combined with the lowest extended temps in generations.

As I said in my response above, it's not an excuse, but this is a generational event.

Well, it used to be. With climate change, all bets are off.

[RicROC]

3. no savings?

I'll bet Texas paid the same amount for their windmills with no de-icers that the northern climate communities paid
with de-icers. 'Someone' got paid extra while providing stripped down equipment. That's rogue capitalism.

Texas didn't save any money in the long run.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Understand The Texas Wind Farms

ordered their Towers without cold weather packages in a effort to save money.