In 2010, Caltech researcher John Dabiri looked at schooling fish and saw a solution to renewable energy’s biggest spatial problem. Traditional wind farms require massive distances between giant propellers to avoid disruptive air turbulence. This wide spacing severely limits how much electricity a single plot of land can generate.
By placing compact, vertical-axis turbines close together in counter-rotating pairs, Dabiri mirrored the fluid dynamics of fish swimming in formation. Instead of fighting wake turbulence, adjacent turbines absorbed the swirling air currents created by their neighbors to generate additional power.
