1. No wind turbine can capture more than 59.3% of the kinetic energy in wind, regardless of its design. The “Betz limit” was first derived over 100 years ago.
2. In China, a building is constructed with embedded wind turbines to provide its own power.
3. Wind turbines can kill bats without impact, they die because their lungs explode from a drop in air pressure.
4. In 2011, an 89-year-old veteran developed a blade-less bird-friendly wind turbine.
5. Almost all modern aircraft are fitted with a small wind turbine that auto-deploys in the event of a dual engine failure. It powers basic hydraulics and electronics required for the flight controls.
6. The Bahrain World Trade Center is the 1st skyscraper in the world to integrate wind turbines into its design. Each turbine is 29m in diameter and their capacity is 675kw of wind power. That’s enough to provide lighting for about 300 homes, 258 hospitals, 17 industrial plants, and 33 car engines.
7. There are flying wind turbines that harness energy.
8. The largest urban wind turbine is in Cleveland, Ohio at the Lincoln Electric world headquarters. It measures 443 feet tall and is capable of producing 2.5-megawatts of electrical energy.
9. Germany has one of the most successful renewable energy sectors in the world, with more than 23,000 wind turbines and 1.4 million solar PV systems in use. The country aims to have renewable national electricity of 40 to 45% by 2025, 55 to 60% by 2035, and 80% by 2050.
10. Wind Turbine Syndrome can affect someone who has seen media coverage of a wind turbine without being near a turbine.
11. If 10% of all the global energy demand was to be provided by wind turbines, in the regions of land where farms are installed temperature would rise by 1 °C.
12. There’s a wind turbine so large you could fit two professional baseball fields inside the area it sweeps.
13. The Invelox wind turbine can generate effective power from as little as 1mph of wind by funneling the wind towards a turbine on the ground.
14. 1700 Dutch households raised EUR 1.3 million in just thirteen hours to buy shares in a wind turbine, setting a new world record for crowdfunding.