How much wind would a wind turbine make if you flipped its generator to be a motor?
2026-04-30 07:46 UTC
Replies (8)
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@ruuster13@lemmy.zip 2026-04-30 08:08
How much wind would a wind turbine make if a wind turbine could make wind?
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@Kirp123@lemmy.world 2026-04-30 08:29
Not very much actually. Because of the way windmills are designed it would be very hard to spin the blades by applying power to the generator, and even if you overcame that obstacle somehow the design of the blades would make it so it wouldn't really push that much air. Windmills gather the torque from the giant blades and pass it to a strong shaft that is connected to a gearbox which converts the torque into high rotational speed. That rotational speed is then transferred from the gearbox to the generator through a smaller shaft that is designed for high speed rotation. If you try to reverse the rotation you would need to put in enough torque through that smaller shaft to overcome the inertia of the blades, since the shaft is not designed for higher torques it would most likely snap. The blades themselves are airfoils designed to specifically generate the highest lift when wind is applied from a specific direction. Similar to how plane wings are designed to generate lift when air moves over them from a specific direction. That also means that if you make them move in reverse they would not generate that much lift so they wouldn't actually push the air around. It would be like trying to take off with a plane by accelerating it backwards.
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@blimthepixie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-04-30 10:14
Not much at all, it's much more efficient to create sunlight by plugging PV cells into an outlet
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@Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 2026-04-30 08:26
42
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@rivvvver@lemmy.today 2026-04-30 08:07
i think that depends on how much power u apply. it could also be possible that it cannot start from stand-still, because thats always a difficulty with electric motors in that they need that initial push somehow. i think while generators can technically be turned into motors, they still make a shit motor, bc theyre just not designed for that purpose.
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@HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works 2026-04-30 08:01
Isnt the fun thing about electric motors that you can run them in reverse to generate power?
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@mhzawadi@lemmy.horwood.cloud 2026-04-30 08:24
not much at all as the blades point the wrong way for forward wind, you might get some behind it
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@Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 2026-04-30 08:35
You have not understood the situation