When accounting for weather extremes, the engineering is there, and improving, too. To operate in cold places like Canada, heating can be applied to some essential components of the turbines, such as the motor and gears.
"Cold climate weatherized wind turbines are not rocket science," explained Vijay Modi, a professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science. However, weatherizing turbines adds costs, perhaps less than 10 percent of the price of a new turbine, he said. And during freezing events, some wind energy is then diverted to warming the turbines.
The other interesting fact is that Texas' power generation from wind is actually quite minor, and it's key failure apparently was attributed to the natural gas generation side, yet for some unknown reason renewable energy was getting the blame. It's always best to pause and first check the facts properly.
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Why wind turbines thrive in Antarctica and places way colder than Texas#
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renewableenergy"An ingenious technology."