Yeah all the beginners or not-even-quite-beginner-yet internet beard-strokers always say that. Always have. Most small-wind systems are on guyed towers, like that “no-tower” camping turbine. Most of these guyed towers can be tilted up and down, using a truck and/or winch of some type. It is usually a pretty significant operation to tilt a tower up or down, since the winch must be operated with care, then the guy wire must be connected with hardware once tilted up. I guess this could all be automated, but the problem then becomes tilting it up and down in a strong wind which nobody wants to do, and also which guy wire to reel in or out would depend on the wind direction in a strong wind. The next problem with the idea of taking a system down when winds get too strong is your most productive times are during strong winds. Such a system would be constantly adjusting with every gust. You want your turbine to keep running in strong winds to make the power, and have it automatically reduce wind response during gusts and surges.
“Oh look the wind is too strong, let’s reel 'er in! – No wait, it’s dying down, let 'er back out! Hold it - another gust - reel 'er back in! - no wait a minute, it’s slowing down again, reel it back out…”
In actuality, nobody wants to reel a turbine up or down when it’s even moderately windy. Preferably it is done in the early morning on a 100% calm day. This “just take down the turbine when it gets too windy” theme is a very repetitive on-paper response from people who have never run an actual system. Same thing the guys running the last forum used to say. But it’s hard to reel in a kite just when it gets too windy to even fly it. The thing about wind energy is, what sounds great on paper is often impractical in real life. Not saying what you suggest is impossible, but it is probably not the simple slam-dunk one would imagine from just musing about it in general terms. As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details”. If you had what you thought was a good way to do this, then you;d have to build it and try it, and stuff would go wrong and you’d have to fix it. Be prepared for years of adjustments, with many burned-out generators, many structural failures, possible exploding turbines etc. Mother nature is not kind to wind energy systems of any type.
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