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. 

The construction of offshore wind turbines represents one of the most complex of modern civil and engineering challenges.  These gigantic windmills have generation capacity of 8 Gigawatts or more, nearly triple the potential output of even the largest land-based turbines.  With hub heights of over 500 ft. (150 m), building these behemoths requires very specialized equipment.  In this drone video by LYFTED MEDIA, you'll see an offshore turbine under construction off the coast of Virginia on the USA's Eastern Seaboard.  

Centuries after the days of Don Quixote tilting at windmills in La Mancha, Spain has became one of the world's important markets for the modern form of wind power.  In this video, contributor and drone pilot PJF Drone 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.

AirVuz contributor Gizmo Drones brings us this fantastic drone video of a wind farm in eastern Australia.  It's the Cullerin Range Wind Farm, and it's located on some comparatively high ground in the shire (essentially, county) of Upper Lachlan in New South Wales.  The area here is part of the Southern Tablelands, a generally flat region to the southwest of Sydney and across (ie, to the west of) the Great Dividing Range.  Opened in 2009, the wind farm has a rated capacity of about 30 MW.  

Top 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 the country's high dependence on imported energy sources, the government of Cyprus has been extremely 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 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 and pilot Skydronauts used a DJI Mavic Pro drone to film some of the GE turbines at the Alsleben Wind Project.  The project, located in the North German state of Saxony-Anhalt, is one of the country's largest installations.

Somewhere in the Indian Ocean island nation of the Seychelles, there stands a trio of modern wind mills.  They spin and spin, surrounded by the gloriously blue waters of the world's third-largest ocean.  Contributor and pilot 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.

The western USA state of Wyoming has always been known for its abundant natural resources.  Wyoming was the country's largest oil producing state in the 1920's, and its Powder River Basin currently 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.  

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.

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, contributor and pilot 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; the wind power installation you see here was one of the country's first wind farms.  

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, most of which are concentrated in the western part of the state.  

The Australian island state of Tasmania lies within the band of latitude known as the Roaring Forties, where a set of unusual 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.

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 and pilot 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.  

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.  

With its windswept plains, Denmark is the poster-child for the world's wind power 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 wind farms.  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 Copenhagen.  

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.

The Central American country of Costa Rica derives nearly all of its electricity needs from renewable energy sources - an astounding 99+%, according to the most recently available data.  While the majority of this was from its hydroelectric plants, the country has also substantially grown its wind turbine fleet.  In this drone video by AirVuz contributor jeank55, you'll get an aerial view of what has to be one of the world's most beautiful wind farms atop a ridge somewhere in the country's interior mountains. 

Check out this drone video of the largest wind turbine installation in the Midwestern USA state of Michigan, compliments of AirVuz content creator and pilot Mark Houston.  It's the Polaris Wind Park, and it's located in Gratiot County near the geographic center of the state.  Operated by utility giant DTE Energy (formerly known as Detroit Edison), the Polaris facility includes 68 turbines  capable of generating up to 168 megawatts of power.  Opened in 2020, Polaris is the 15th windpower installation operated by DTE.

The United Kingdom had just under 20k MW of installed windpower capacity at the end of 2017, placing it sixth amongst the countries of the world in installed capacity.  Not surprisingly, some of the country's best resources are in the Scottish Highlands, where strong steady winds make for one of the world's best windpower resources.  In this video, contributor Highlandroner aerially filmed the Moy Wind Farm.  It's located near Inverness, the "capital city" of the Scottish Highlands. 

Contributor Ahlyzik created this beautiful drone video of the San Gorgonio Pass wind farm in the desert of southern California.  It's prominently visible on the highway which runs past Palm Spring.  The wind farm was the filming location for a helicopter chase scene in Mission: Impossible 3 (2003).