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by Nextgrid 1572 days ago
I wonder why they use satellite. Wind turbines are high up so it seems like a very good candidate for point-to-point line-of-sight microwave links.
4 comments

Wind turbine blades can interfere microwave links.

I worked a few years as a telecom engineer in France: wind turbine promoters have to consult telecom operators to prevent disrupting existant MW links with their projects. The usual rule was to observe a 500m clearance between MW line-of-sight paths (1st Fresnel zone) and future wind turbine installations.

Edit: you can read more about all this in this paper: https://castlerockmicrowave.com/wp-content/uploads/Wind-Farm...

Well yeah and they are hardwired to at least one physically wired network: the energy grid. Why they don't have decent cabled inter/intranet is beyond me.

I don't think satellite internet is that much cheaper but, I might be wrong. I am no network engineer. Anyone who CAN comment on that?

They’re often placed on the sides of hills so presumably that’s a problem. UHF/VHF (I can never recall which sorry) is used for the rural radio links in NZ so can probably handle such issues.

I suspect the real answer though is that satellite theoretically everywhere regardless of geography on the installation site, so you only have to build one type of unit rather than multiple variants. That probably makes life easier (cheaper) for everyone.

Obviously that’s assuming a country doesn’t decide to disrupt entire communication networks in a murder rampage into their neighbouring countries.

I wonder why the use 'radio' at all, since they need a cable anyway. Too cheap to have tossed a fiber along it?
I feel stupid for not even thinking about it but you're absolutely correct.
I've meanwhile read that they are networked very well, with fibre even, but only between each other when built in a park/farm. And often very remote, far from other inftastructure. The problem arises at the transfer/injection point from the utitility one level up. Not always, but sometimes, and in different ways. It can happen that there is no 3/4g at all there. It can happen that the other utility isn't networked(in a usable way). It can happen that the other utility doesn't want to network for whichever reasons, security, etc. And it can happen that you get 1Gb/s symmetrical there.

Apparently Enercon choose to offer its clients this solution as 'carefree package', to spare them the regulatory/bureaurocratic hassle of having to deal with this.

They didn't consult IT before deploying the project.