Windmill Blade rotation

chillin_penguin

Bit of a strange question I guess,

I'm currently doing my final year college project on windmill design. While doing some research I keep coming across a so called "fun fact" that all windmills in Ireland only rotate clockwise while windmills everywhere else rotate counter clockwise.

Is there any truth in this and if so is there any reason why Irish windmills are different to the rest of the world.

Any insight would be very much appreciated.

Electric Ireland: David

Hi chillin_penguin,

That's a strange one alright!

I hadn't heard that myself, but I did a little investigation myself and can see what you mean. I don't know whether Ireland has pretensions to being the 'Venus' in the field of Wind Energy, but I would suggest you post this question in the Construction and Planning > Renewable Energies forum. We wouldn't be in a position to provide the kind of information you are looking for unfortunately , but I would imagine the users in the aforementioned forum would be more than happy to point the way (and perhaps provide the proof) to settle this fun fact once and for all!

You might find the following resources of some use (if you haven't come across them already):

- The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland

- The Irish Wind Energy Association

- The International Renewable Energy Agency

I'd be interested to see if you get a conclusive answer to this query; perhaps you could pop back and let us know?

Hope this helps anyway,

Thanks,

David.

chillin_penguin

Cheers for getting back to me, I knew it was a long shot.

Still no proper answer but will keep you in the loop, Driving a few people mad!!

So far, from many youtube clips around the world (why i didnt think of this first) it is untrue as windmills from the states and Germany do rotate clockwise.

However it answered one and resulted in another as I cant find any windmill that is is rotating CCW.:P

toxof

If you look on youtube you will see wind turbines in Germany, spain and USA turning both Clockwise and anti-Clockwise.

Its has nothing to do with what country they are in. Its just the manufactures specifications.

ted1

it depends on what way the blades are angled.
With out being harsh i suggest studying much harder as this would be basic knowledge.

chillin_penguin

ted1 wrote: »

it depends on what way the blades are angled.
With out being harsh i suggest studying much harder as this would be basic knowledge.

My question was why it appeared preference given to CW. Not why do they rotate CW, so i suggest maybe you should read my question before giving me a useless answer.