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[–] Grospoliner ago  (edited ago)

I would expect it to be more of a economic factor than anything else. With a single blade, they can counter weight it with cheaper materials than multiple blades. From what I've read though, multi-bladed turbines have increased efficiency, though it becomes marginal after two. For the energy aspect, a single blade will be less efficient than a two or three blade system from the physics of it.

The inertia aspect of it is for the braking system, which with lower inertia, it is easier to start and stop which is better for maintenance and reduced cost.

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[–] thrus ago 

If they are doing the design based on the need for maintenance over efficient power generation I'm not sure I want that product. How often do most wind turbines need maintenance?

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[–] Grospoliner ago 

Too bad.

It's a balance between engineering economy and performance. You might be able to design and ship a product which never breaks and meets performance, but the production cost may be astronomical and any return on the product will be non-existent. Either way, when the cost exceeds the benefits of the product, it isn't viable.

In reality though all mechanical parts will wear down over time simply because that's how mechanical interaction works. Maintenance, preventative or reactive, will still be needed for any machine.

Breakdown from 2010 on turbines says there is an average of 6 incidents for every ten machine-years of use. That results in about 30-40% of the operating cost of the turbine (6 to 10 USD or so per megawatt-hour).

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[–] ZYX321 ago  (edited ago)

The tower is a huge part of the expense (relative to the cost of a braking system or the blades themselves)... I can't imagine putting something that provides less power output up on the tower would be attractive. A balanced single blade system just couldn't have appreciably less intertia. Braking (as far "I need to stop NOW or SOON"), you don't generally care about braking from a "deceleration" standpoint, you care about braking to prevent acceleration into dangerous speeds, right? You're not taking a heavy intertial mass and trying to slow it down, you're just keeping it from speeding up in heavy winds, in which case the intertia is a help.

IANAP, but... these are "common sense" things in my own head which I might be wrong about... as with most common sense.

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[–] Grospoliner 1 point -1 points (+0|-1) ago 

Individual blades can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and the surface area each turbine is optimized for faces diminishing returns on power generation efficiency. This system is probably just built for a specific power range and cost, and it didn't make sense to add onto that cost by adding a second blade.

From classical mechanics, inertia helps prevent change in acceleration in either magnitude, increasing or decreasing, so it can be both detrimental and beneficial. It's certainly not the only reason they designed the tower like this (and in all honestly probably isn't the main one), but it will be a factor in it given how angular momentum and acceleration behave.