Hi Pierre: Until one has experienced the repeated disappointment and frustration of burning out multiple generators in sustained high winds, it’s hard to understand that it is a MAJOR challenge in wind energy. That’s why I often say, overspeed protection is not the main thing, it’s the ONLY thing.
Now of course to be onboard with this proper thinking, you’d have to have run systems that actually make a lot of power for long periods of time in sustained high winds. Since most big-talker wind wannabes have never built or run powerful wind systems for extended periods of time, this critical information is lost on them - completely ignored. They will never burn out a generator, so it is nothing but empty talk that can be ignored, in their minds.
The main thing is you need a certain amount of copper to carry a certain amount of power. Whether you target high currents at low voltage, or high voltage at low current levels, the total amount of copper required is the same for the same amount of power. If your wire is too thin, it will get too hot in even one spot, which raises the resistance of the wires in that spot, causing a “runaway train” effect that spreads and burns out at least part of the stator, which must then be stripped of wire and rewound, or just thrown away.
You needn’t bother telling wind newbies about this because they don’t care since deep down, they don’t plan on making much power for extended periods anyway. Deep down, they realize they are wasting their time, maybe having a bit of fun.
You also need a certain amount of steel to guide the magnetic fields, a steel rotor to hold the magnets, steel shaft and bearings, and a strong housing, and hopefully the configuration allows plenty of surface area and airflow to remove heat buildup. One could add a cooling system but that has weight and is complicated, expensive, and one more thing to go wrong.
Anyway, certainly steps can be taken to make turbines lighter, to a point, if desired, but there are limits to how much weight one can remove without reducing the power capability or heat dissipation capacity, let alone strength and longevity. As usual, the conversation here must be on an elementary school level, since most participants don’t even know the most basic facts of wind energy. 