The aviation industry and advocates of wind energy — sometimes at odds because of the unintended interactions of spinning wind turbine blades and aviation radar — are seeking ways to allow the two technologies to coexist.
Wind farms, which can consist of hundreds of wind turbines, are expected to generate 200 gigawatts (GW) of power worldwide in 2010; that amount is expected to increase to 1,000 GW by 2020 — equivalent to about 12 percent of global power demand, according to data from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).1
Wind turbines convert the wind’s energy into either mechanical energy — most often for pumping water in rural areas — or electrical energy, which can be used locally or, on a broader scale, sold to electric utilities (see “How Wind Turbines Work,” below).
In addition to generating energy, however, wind turbines generate interference with ground-based aviation and weath…
