Drone Videos of Wind Turbines

In this video, Sussexbyair gives us an aerial view of the Rampion Wind Farm off the southeastern coast of England, the world's first major offshore windpower operation.  This is a major feat of engineering, allowing the windpower industry to overcome the land transportation constraints which limit the size of onshore turbines. These giant windmills each have a 3.5MW of capacity, capturing the massive energy generation potential of the English Channel and its famously strong winds. 

Blessed with strong, steady winds coming off the North Sea, Scotland has already at times hit the once-unthinkable target (for any major region) of generating 100% of its electricity needs from windpower.  In this drone video by Hightning McQueen, you'll get an aerial view of one of Scotland's largest wind farms - the Crystal Rig Wind Farm in the Scottish Borders region.  Commissioned in 2004 and the second-largest in the UK as of 2019, it currently has 85 turbines and a rated capacity of a bit over 200MW.

With its windwept plains, Denmark is the poster-child for the world's windpower industry: in recent years, it's climbed above the 40% mark in terms of the amount of its electrical power generation created by the wind.  The home to the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer (Vestas) has now taken the lead in deploying even larger turbines in offshore windfarms.  In this drone video by Tech Drone Media, you'll get an aerial view of the massive 3.5MW turbines at the Advedøre Holme facility south of Copenhagan.  

The Australian island state of Tasmania lies within the band of latitude known as the Roaring Forties, where a atmospheric and geographical factors conspire to produce some of the world's steadiest air currents.  The resulting wind patterns helped propel sailing ships to and from  Australia, and more recently have been harnessed to provide windpower.  In this video, contributor FergTas gives us a drone's eye view of the Musselroe Wind Farm in Cape Portland in northeast Tasmania.

Contributor and drone piloy Raf_Neo was able to put together this awesome aerial look at a wind farm on the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus, his home country.  Given its high dependence on imported energy sources, Cyprus has been keen to develop its substantial windpower potential.  Taken with a DJI Mavic Pro drone, the video does a great job of showing a modern wind farm in operation, and also provides some nice views of the Cyprus countryside.

The western USA state of Wyoming has always been known for its abundant natural resources.  It was the country's largest oil producing state in the 1920's, and its Powder River Basin provides about 40% of America's coal.  Recently, Wyoming has become a top wind power producer, and giant windmills now punctuate its landscape.  Here, John Stinnett uses a drone to create a beautiful look at a wind farm in western Wyoming, the spinning turbines capturing another state resource.  

It's hard to appreciate the size of today's giant wind turbines.  These modern windmills stand over 100 m tall (300 ft.), allowing enormous blades to harvest energy from the moving air.  In this video, Endless Aerial uses a drone to provide a marvelous close up look at a modern wind turbine farm in the Mojave desert in Southern California.  The mountain pass here, near Palm Springs, is one of the country's best windpower resources. 

Northern Ireland has some of the best wind resources of anywhere in the world.  In mid-2019, a report from the UK government indicated that the territory generated nearly two-fifths of its electricity from wind turbines.  That's roughly twice the percentage for the UK as a whole, which is itself far above the European average. In this drone video by Martin McKenna, you'll get an aerial view of one of Northern Ireland's 82 windpower installations (as of mid-2019): the wind farm of Satragh, in County Londonderry.  

The vast but loosely defined area known as West Texas has only one city (El Paso) and that is at its extreme western end.  Apart from that, the most recognizable landmarks of this region are the railroads that cross it and the giant wind turbines built to capture the strong winds which sweep it.  Tampa Randy created this amazing drone video, capturing a stretch of the BNSF railway line and a backdrop of gigantic windmills.  Texas has one of the world's largest fleets of wind turbines.

With India's electricity supply heavily dependent on polluting coal-fired power plants, the country has been growing its windpower generating base.  While there are numerous constraints related to finding available land in suitable wind zones, gigantic turbines have been popping up throughout the nation; the country was #4 in installed capacity in 2016.  Brand Icon Studios used a drone to film one of these installations, the Pawan Chaki Wind Farm.  It's in the state of Himachal Pradesh in the country's northern region.  

Centuries after the days of Don Quixote tilting at windmills in La Mancha, Spain became one of the world's important markets for the modern form of wind power.  In this video, contributor and drone pilot gives us a bird's eye view of a wind turbine operation in southern Spain. The  Sierra de Arcas Wind Farm is located near Villanueva de Algaidas in the Malaga province of Andalusia.  Spain's has some of the world's best wind resources, and the country was #5 in installed capacity in 2016.

The North European Plain represents one of the world's top windpower resources.  It's no surprise then that the world's largest wind turbine company is Danish, and that Germany had the third largest windpower fleet by installed capacity as of 2017.  In this video, contributor Skydronauts used a DJI Mavic Pro drone to film some of the GE turbines at the Alsleben Wind Project.  The project, located in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, is one of the country's largest installations.

Canada's western prairies are blessed with considerable windpower potential.  Canada was the #6 country worldwide in installed windpower capacity in 2017, with the largest concentrations of its turbines in the provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.   In this video, Aero Retina Optics provides us with a bird's eye view of a wind farm operation in southern Alberta, where the winds through the mountains of the west sweep over the prairies of the eastern part of the province.

Renewable energy is very big in South America, and it's not just hydropower.  The flatter parts of the eastern side of the continent offer some of the world's best windpower resources.   Windpower accounted for about a sixth of Uruguay's electricity generation in 2016, up from virtually zero just a few years earlies.   In this drone video by TopQuad, you'll get an aerial view of one of the country's windfarms.  Located in its Florida province, it's one of dozens of such installations across the country.

Contributor AirWorks used a drone to create this fascinating aerial view of a highly innovative renewable energy complex in northern Israel.  It's located in the Mountains of Gelboe, a range which runs through a portion of the country's Northern District.  Giant wind power turbines are used to generate electricity to pump water upwards into a reservoir, effectively storing the energy harvested from the wind for later use.  It's one of the larger installations of its type in the world.  

Turkey is one of the top dozen countries in the world for windpower generation capacity.  As of the end of 2017, the country had about 6.5GW of installed capacity, which generated about 7% of its electricity needs.  Most of the country's nearly 200 wind farms are concentrated in the western part of the country, in the Aegean and Marmara region.  In this drone video by top contributor Omer Gokcen, you'll get a bird's eye view of some spinning turbines near the city of Bandırma, by the Sea of Marmara.

Somewhere in the Indian Ocean island nation of the Seychelles there stands a trio of wind mills.  They spin and spin, surrounded by the gloriously blue waters of the Indian Ocean.  Contributor Magnus Bo Hansen flew a DJI Phantom 3 Professional drone over this scene.  He created what may be the most beautiful aerial views of modern wind turbines ever created.  The Seychelles has established a target of generating 15% of its electricity through windpower by 2030.

If you want to get an appreciation for the size of a modern wind turbine, have a look at this amazing video from GizaDog Neo.  He flew his drone over a massive wind turbine in Rhode Island (in the USA's New England) and filmed a man sunbathing on the roof of the tower.  The man appears tiny even in comparison to what is one of the smaller part of the structure.  No doubt there is a story here, and it goes without saying that no part of this should be tried at home!