Monday, 16 September 2024.
Today we will deal with the impact of super typhoon Yagi on wind farms in Southeast Asia, something that happened at the same time that Europe was making headlines in Brazil and the world with the purchase of Canadian amphibious planes to fight forest fires, besides aviation being alerted again about the increase significant increase in the speed of some atmospheric air currents.
Super Typhoon Yagi was the world's second most powerful tropical cyclone this year. In early September, its winds of more than 245km/h severely impacted Southeast Asia, including a Chinese wind farm. See the stunning photo below, article from the South China Morning Post.
In fact, given its unpredictable and catastrophic nature, this type of atmospheric phenomenon represents a regular threat to certain parts of the world, tending to deter wind farm installations.
On the other hand, the decarbonization of energy sources also puts pressure on countries, the vast majority of which have few alternatives.
China knows this and has already been developing typhoon-proof turbines, including significantly increasing their size, as we already reported in April 2023 “China: Mega Wind Turbines Are About to Get Even Bigger”. Among others, the article then commented on the Chinese company Mingyang Smart Energy increasing the size of its propeller blades from 67 to 140 meters in length.
Due to Super typhoon Yagi, the same company released a statement and images on LinkedIn of its largest floating wind turbine, OceanX, resisting the impact of winds of 62 m/s (223 km/h). The company's website states that the OceanX can resist up to 79.8 m/s (287 km/h).
According to an article in the South China Morning Post, that wind farm with turbines destroyed by the Yagi was the only one and because it was undergoing modernization, precisely to replace 32 small wind turbines with 16 larger and more efficient versions, resistant to typhoons.
Super Typhoon Yagi also damaged a Chinese space rocket launch site in Wenchang. The most favorable areas for launching rockets - such as this one in China, Cape Canaveral in United States or French Guiana for the European Union - would be low latitude areas, closer to the equator. In other words, the same position on the globe where tropical cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes form.
Click on the image below for the South China Morning Post article.
