This photo of a helicopter next to an icy windmill has been pasted and downloaded so many times that it has begun to affect its quality – noted one of the users of the website X (formerly Twitter). This time it's a politician PIS (formerly Sovereign Poland) Michał Woś used it to attack wind energy. And it hit the fence like a bullet.
Woś, former deputy minister of environment in the PiS government, shared a photo showing a helicopter de-icing a windmill. It does not mention where and when this took place, but suggests that de-icing the windmill – and burning fuel in the helicopter – negates the climate benefits of renewable energy.
“Defreezing windmill blades with a helicopter and water with diesel fuel. Because nothing saves the climate better than exhaust fumes at heights,” writes the politician. There are several problems with the photo, and summarizing them all – you can see that Woś's entry is manipulation. Let's break it down first.
Heated fan, heated cutlet
This isn't the first time this exact photo has been used to criticize wind energy. A few years ago, a description circulated on the Internet about using “chemicals” to defrost windmills – this is a falsehood with which they argued then specialized portals. They were also used when winter in Texas in 2021 caused problems with energy supply (for which was wrongly blamed “frozen windmills”).
The photo itself is over 10 years old. They were made in 2014 in Sweden, where Alpine Helicopter was conducting tests on de-icing a wind turbine by pouring warm water on the blades (as it was emphasized, it was only water – without chemicals). So the photo has nothing to do with the winter weather in Poland, as one might think when it makes subsequent rounds on the Internet in winter.
Windmills have defrosting systems
The tests – as you could read back in 2014 – concerned extreme conditions and unusual situations. First of all, freezing of windmills – especially in such an extreme way as in the photo – is not something that happens often (and certainly not with our increasingly warm winter). Secondly, windmills are prepared for this and have their own anti-freezing and ice removal systems. These may be special warm air blowers or direct electric heating of the blades.
Defrosting from a helicopter was tested on accident failure of such systems or to older windmills that are not equipped with them. Already 4 years ago, when the AFP portal dealt with the myths surrounding this photo, the company's spokeswoman PGE Małgorzata Babska said:
– In Poland, we practically do not encounter the problem of frozen turbine blades. This is due to the moderate climate in our country. Sporadic situations when ice appears on windmill blades do not require external intervention.
Defrosting turbines using a helicopter is not cheap (one Norwegian website writes that one operation cost as much as you would earn from two days of electricity production), so it is not something that they owners they would do it willingly. Sometimes it might be more cost-effective to turn off a given fan for a short time or wait for the ice to fall off on its own. Although the photo has been circulating on the Internet for over 10 years, it is difficult to find other photographs or evidence of the use of this method – rather an article verifying false theses about the same photo.
The fan helps avoid pollution
But even if it were used regularly, simple calculations show that even if helicopters were regularly used to defrost turbines (which – let us repeat – is not happening), it would still be better for the climate than the alternatives.
One hour flight of an average helicopter means emission about 500 kg of dioxide coal. According to the company, it took about an hour to de-ice one windmill, but let's assume it was twice as long and another hour to get there and back. We have 1.5 tons of CO2 per turbine, so on the one hand – a lot of emissions.
However, a working wind turbine allows us to avoid CO2 emissions from electricity production, e.g. from coal. During 24 hours of operation, an average 2-megawatt turbine produces so much electricity that it saves over 40 tons of CO2 compared to production from coal. Even assuming that it does not operate at full capacity 24 hours a day, additional emissions are compensated quickly.
To sum up: the photo of a PiS politician who wanted to attack wind energy hits like a bullet. It shows a method that is almost not used in reality, and even if it were, windmills would still be better for the climate than coal-fired power plants.
More and more energy from windmills
Wind energy is no longer a technical novelty, but a technology that operates successfully in many parts of the world (and in various climatic conditions).
In 2024, Poland achieved a record share of renewable energy in electricity production – informs the Forum Energii think tank. Renewables accounted for 29.6 percent, 2.3 percentage points more than a year earlier. The largest part of this were windmills, which accounted for 14.7 percent of total electricity production.