DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) has developed a wind turbine blade design that would allow turbines to be installed closer to one another, due to a faster dissipating wake. The idea originated during the National Rotor Testbed project, which sought to design new wind turbine blades with a focus on wake research at the DOE/SNL Scaled Wind Farm Technology facility in Texas.

The patented innovation changes how much the air slows down as it passes through the wind turbine rotor. The result of this blade design is a wake that disappears more quickly, which allows wind turbines to be spaced closer together without sacrificing efficiency—lowering costs by decreasing the amount of electrical lines and roads needed to connect them.

Read more on the Sandia website.