Wind Farm Designer

Like weeds, wind farms appear to have popped up at random on rural stretches of highway in places like Iowa, Texas, and Kansas. In reality, however, they’re extremely well planned out, deliberately designed and purposefully placed by Wind Farm Designers.

The job of a Wind Farm Designer is to create the blueprints for wind farms, which requires making a series of calculated design decisions that maximize energy capture while minimizing costs and risks.

Employed by renewable energy consultancies and environmental engineering firms, as a Wind Farm Designer you choose the site, specifications, and layout for the wind turbines that make up wind farms. Part one, site selection, requires collecting and studying meteorological wind data to find a site where there is year-round non-turbulent wind, where there is proximity to energy demand and infrastructure, and where there is minimal visibility or noise with which to disturb the local community. Part two, specifications, requires selecting the right turbine type and manufacturer, as well as the proper number of turbines, based on budget constraints and energy requirements. Part three, layout, requires properly placing and spacing turbines based on supplier recommendations, wind patterns, and terrain.

Although it’s extremely complicated, your work is made much simpler by wind farm design software, which you use to analyze difference design scenarios in pursuit of the one that produces the most energy with the fewest noise emissions and the least visual impact.

So what if they resemble outcrops of giant alien pinwheels? Wind farms produce energy that’s clean, cheap, and reliable — and it’s your job to capture it!