Payback Time
There is an interesting letter in the May edition of Homebuilding & Renovating from Jonathan Belsey, taking me to task for an article I wrote about solar panels, which appeared in the March edition.
He writes: Although the article gave a nice summary of the available technologies, my heart sank when I saw that, as usual, the author (that’s me he’s talking about) was going to focus on return on investment as the major issue of the article. Yes, even with government grants, solar water heating and power generation are expensive and it will take you many years to recoup the money that you have spent. Why is it, though, that only alternative technologies come in for this treatment from the selfbuild press? Why doesn’t your buyers guide on showers in the same issue of Homebuilding & Renovating tell me how long it would take me to earn my money back? Well, of course, for the simple reason that I will never recoup my investment on a new shower. The same can be said of most other items we build into our houses.
It’s not the first time I have heard this criticism levied. And, in truth, I have a certain amount of sympathy with it. But ultimately, it really doesn’t stack up as an argument, because everything you fit into a house serves some purpose. A shower, for instance, is designed to get you clean: there might be cheaper ways of getting yourself clean — a bowl of water, for instance — but they aren’t as good and most people would choose a shower every time. Same with doors, lights, floor covers, kitchen units and stairs: they are all there because they serve some useful purpose.
But what is the point of a solar panel if not to produce hot water or electricity? Solar hot water panels should be looked at together with boilers. When you choose a boiler, you look for something that is reasonably priced and reasonably efficient at what it does. Looks and size may come into it, just, but the choice is largely down to cost effectiveness, with a hopeful look at comparitive environmental credentials as well. Why should you judge solar hot water panels any differently? They are a supplemental heating source, not a piece of environmental sculpture. If you are rich enough to be able to ignore the commercial realities of fitting solar panels, all well and good, but the great majority of selfbuilders aren’t and they have to weigh up the costs very carefully.
So, in my book, payback time remains a critical tool with which to judge all the renewable technologies. Without such an analysis, we have no way of judging which technologies represent good value.
Labels: Renewables
posted by Mark Brinkley @ 5:12 PM
Kuidas saab elektrit tasuta ? https://elektritsaabtasuta.blogspot.com/2016/11/kuidas-saab-elektrit-tasuta.html Isegi lapsed meisterdavad endile elektrituulikuid ja päikesepaneele sest peale tasuvusaega annavad nood elektrit ja kütet tasuta jpms: http://elektritsaabtasuta.blogspot.ie/2012/06/polve-peal-meisterdatud-elektrituulikud.html
Sunday, November 29, 2009
http://cgi.ebay.com/Kaneka-60-60W-Thinfilm-Solar-Panel-K60-or-GSA-60-New!_W0QQitemZ260512919422QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20091126?IMSfp=TL091126205002r1182
Kaneka 60 60W Thinfilm Solar Panel K60 or GSA-60 New!
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Time left: 2 days 20 hours (Dec 02, 200909:05:40 PST)
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Ehita ise päikesepaneel http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/Do-it-yourself-Solar-Panels---Converting-Solar-Energy-To-Electricity-At-Home/848953
Do-it-yourself solar panels produce electricity when a phenomenon known as photovoltaic effect takes place. Whenever photons hit the surface of a specially doped semiconductor, a small potential difference occurs across the electrodes. When several of such semiconductors are put together, they can generate a substantial amount of electricity that can be put to use.
As you may have realized by now, the (semiconductor) material used is largely responsible for the efficiency of energy conversion -- from sunlight to electricity. As scientists discover better semiconductors and better production techniques, photovoltaic cells become cheaper to produce. And as the demand for solar panels increase, economies of scale drives the cost of solar cells to the price we know today.
Recently, many hobbyists are getting interested in building for themselves homemade solar panels. This further reduces the cost of introducing a solar power generator into their house. In fact, most of them are able to gather materials from used and broken solar panels to construct fully working (restored) panels at a tenth of the original cost.
However, before you commit to a do-it-yourself solar panel project, you need to consider what you'll be using it for. Beginners often start with smaller panels that they use to power their garage lights or garden sprinklers. Experienced enthusiasts often attempt to substitute grid power using solar panels. This can be done by using several pieces of homemade solar panels installed on rooftops.
If your aspiration is to build a grid-tied or off-grid system for your home, you'll need to determine the size of your solar energy system needed. Then you'll be able to determine the type and quantity of bat
As you may have realized by now, the (semiconductor) material used is largely responsible for the efficiency of energy conversion -- from sunlight to electricity. As scientists discover better semiconductors and better production techniques, photovoltaic cells become cheaper to produce. And as the demand for solar panels increase, economies of scale drives the cost of solar cells to the price we know today.
Recently, many hobbyists are getting interested in building for themselves homemade solar panels. This further reduces the cost of introducing a solar power generator into their house. In fact, most of them are able to gather materials from used and broken solar panels to construct fully working (restored) panels at a tenth of the original cost.
However, before you commit to a do-it-yourself solar panel project, you need to consider what you'll be using it for. Beginners often start with smaller panels that they use to power their garage lights or garden sprinklers. Experienced enthusiasts often attempt to substitute grid power using solar panels. This can be done by using several pieces of homemade solar panels installed on rooftops.
If your aspiration is to build a grid-tied or off-grid system for your home, you'll need to determine the size of your solar energy system needed. Then you'll be able to determine the type and quantity of bat
Röövlid Elfaelektroonikas http://www.elfaelektroonika.ee/artnr/24-540-04/paikesepaneeliga-akulaadija-
See päikesepaneel maksab Dublinis c.a 11 eurot aga Elfaelektroonikas 358 krooni...
Päikesepaneeliga akulaadija (12v/1.5w)
Vaata suuremat pilti
Päikesepaneeliga akulaadija (12v/1.5w)
Vaata teisi tooteid tootjalt: Velleman
12V / 1,5 W päikesepaneeliga aku tilklaadija. Sobib kasutamiseks 12 Vdc akudega. Sisseehitatud kaitse vastuvoolu vastu. Vaata detailsemat tootekirjeldust
Päikesepaneeliga akulaadija (12v/1.5w)
Vaata suuremat pilti
Päikesepaneeliga akulaadija (12v/1.5w)
Vaata teisi tooteid tootjalt: Velleman
12V / 1,5 W päikesepaneeliga aku tilklaadija. Sobib kasutamiseks 12 Vdc akudega. Sisseehitatud kaitse vastuvoolu vastu. Vaata detailsemat tootekirjeldust
a small turbine should pay off, although it might take five to 10 years — or more. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112298310
Big Dreams For Small Wind Turbines
by Melissa Block
August 27, 2009
Listen to the Story
All Things Considered
[8 min 55 sec]
* Add to Playlist
* Download
* Transcript
Small Wind Turbines
text sizeAAA
August 27, 2009
When most people think about wind power, a vast field of gigantic turbines spinning on a ridgeline might come to mind. Well, that's big wind.
But another part of the wind power industry is thinking small — as in turbines that are the right size to power a single home or business. And one of the hottest ideas blowing around is the concept of roof-top turbines that generate energy right at the point of use.
One Essential Ingredient
Reno, Nev.-based Mariah Power makes a turbine called the Windspire. And one of these skinny, 30-foot-tall turbines can be found in the heart of Washington D.C., at the foot of Capitol Hill. It's in front of the United States Botanic Garden — and the gardens' conservation horticulturist Ray Mims came up with the idea to put it there for an exhibit on sustainability.
"People think it's a kinetic sculpture," Mims says. "[It] doesn't look like a typical wind turbine or windmill."
There are actually two turbines at the botanical garden — the Windspire and a Skystream, made by Flagstaff, Ariz.-based Southwest Windpower. The Skystream looks like a big fan on top of a very long pole.
Framed on a recent morning by a cobalt blue August sky and the Capitol dome, the turbines are striking. But the turbines weren't turning at all.
And that's one hitch — a minimum wind speed of 12 mph is an essential ingredient for getting these creations to do their work. A problem with the turbines' location at the botanical garden is that they are at the bottom of a hill — not the windiest spot.
Mims says the gardens' turbines nevertheless turn about 75 percent of the time. But he says they're only offsetting a tiny portion of the facility's total energy use — less than 1 percent.
As Common As A Light Pole
So, if putting turbines on the ground at the bottom of a hill is less than ideal, what about putting them up higher? Say, on top of a building?
That's the urban small-wind vision of Mariah Power's CEO Mike Hess.
Web Resources
Small Wind Guide From The Department Of Energy
'Catching The Wind' Exhibit At The Boston Museum Of Science
United States Botanic Garden
Mariah Power
Southwest Windpower
Proven Energy
Article: 'The Folly Of Building-Integrated Wind'
"I want to make the product ubiquitous, so we see it all over — on top of skyscrapers, right on a lamppost driving the lights on the street," Hess says. "You can put them in any number of places, and they become like the light pole or the power pole."
Slowly, Hess' vision may be becoming a reality. His company is selling 20 roof-top turbines to Adobe, the software company in San Jose, Calif. And this month in Portland, Ore., a set of four Skystream turbines were installed on top of a new office tower.
Five kinds of turbines can now also be seen on the roof of Boston's Museum of Science.
"This project started with people like me standing on the roof of the museum and saying, 'Dang! It's windy up here, we ought to be able to get a lot of free power,' " says David Rabkin, Farinon Director for Current Science and Technology at the Museum of Science in Boston.
Rabkin says his team studied wind patterns for a year before they set up their rooftop "wind lab."
"We need to reduce our carbon footprint," he says. "So the initial goal was to take advantage of those gobs of wind that are coming right past us all the time and see if we could significantly reduce the amount of power that we pull off the grid and replace it with nice clean wind power."
Rabkin says this $300,000 project, including all the permits and custom engineering, is really just an experiment — paid for by donors. He's not expecting a lot of power.
"If we do well, we'll generate about enough electricity to power three suburban homes," Rabkin says.
And the amount of power used by three suburban homes is a very small fraction of the museum's overall energy use.
"A homeowner might do it on the ground, but a business with them mounted on top of their structure — if they consume energy like we consume energy — they're not going to make a big dent in it," Rabkin says.
Small Wind A 'Folly'?
Alex Wilson, who started a publishing and consulting company called BuildingGreen, has been a longtime proponent of "big" wind power.
"I'm a huge fan of wind power," Wilson says. "I have been for years, for decades."
But while he's an advocate of big wind, he says he's become disenchanted with small rooftop wind power. He's even written an article called "The Folly of Building-Integrated Wind."
Wilson says the air around buildings is too turbulent, and there is no steady stream to power the turbines. The noise and vibration from turbines can also be a problem in urban settings. And he has big questions about whether small turbines that generate only a few kilowatts are worthwhile.
"The Achilles heel of building integrated wind is economics," Wilson says. "There's a huge economy of scale with wind power ... it's hard to be cost effective with small turbines. And when we put them on top of buildings, the cost goes up and the performance goes down."
In Wilson's mind, solar power — for the time being — beats wind power in the urban small-scale setting.
A Maytag Guarantee
Mariah Power's Hess says he's sensitive to Wilson's concerns.
"Some of the over-promise and the over-commitment that was made early in the life of small wind has come back to hurt," Hess says.
But if people don't hold such high expectations, Hess believes they will be pleased with his product — or he guarantees their money back.
"If I can be the Maytag of wind turbines, I'm going to be a very happy camper going forward," he says.
His company is getting a lot of help, including $3.2 million in federal stimulus dollars. This money is being used to fund production and create jobs at a former auto parts plant in Manistee, Mich.
There are also federal and state incentives for small turbine buyers. So if consumers pay $8,000 to $15,000 for one of these smaller models, they might get a few thousand back.
The Payoff
But if that's the cost for putting one on the ground, making sure it won't blow off a roof in a hurricane costs a lot more.
There seems to be general agreement: If placed on the ground, in an area with good, steady wind, a small turbine should pay off, although it might take five to 10 years — or more.
As for turbines that dot city roofs like chimneys or TV antennas, Wilson says maybe he can still be convinced.
"There may be a system that comes along, the better mousetrap, that actually solves all the concerns," he says. "I'll be the first to get behind that and to be very excited about that."
But folly or no, the small wind industry is claiming big growth.
The American Wind Energy Association says more than 10,000 small turbines were sold in the U.S. last year. And they're projecting exponential growth in years to come.
by Melissa Block
August 27, 2009
Listen to the Story
All Things Considered
[8 min 55 sec]
* Add to Playlist
* Download
* Transcript
Small Wind Turbines
text sizeAAA
August 27, 2009
When most people think about wind power, a vast field of gigantic turbines spinning on a ridgeline might come to mind. Well, that's big wind.
But another part of the wind power industry is thinking small — as in turbines that are the right size to power a single home or business. And one of the hottest ideas blowing around is the concept of roof-top turbines that generate energy right at the point of use.
One Essential Ingredient
Reno, Nev.-based Mariah Power makes a turbine called the Windspire. And one of these skinny, 30-foot-tall turbines can be found in the heart of Washington D.C., at the foot of Capitol Hill. It's in front of the United States Botanic Garden — and the gardens' conservation horticulturist Ray Mims came up with the idea to put it there for an exhibit on sustainability.
"People think it's a kinetic sculpture," Mims says. "[It] doesn't look like a typical wind turbine or windmill."
There are actually two turbines at the botanical garden — the Windspire and a Skystream, made by Flagstaff, Ariz.-based Southwest Windpower. The Skystream looks like a big fan on top of a very long pole.
Framed on a recent morning by a cobalt blue August sky and the Capitol dome, the turbines are striking. But the turbines weren't turning at all.
And that's one hitch — a minimum wind speed of 12 mph is an essential ingredient for getting these creations to do their work. A problem with the turbines' location at the botanical garden is that they are at the bottom of a hill — not the windiest spot.
Mims says the gardens' turbines nevertheless turn about 75 percent of the time. But he says they're only offsetting a tiny portion of the facility's total energy use — less than 1 percent.
As Common As A Light Pole
So, if putting turbines on the ground at the bottom of a hill is less than ideal, what about putting them up higher? Say, on top of a building?
That's the urban small-wind vision of Mariah Power's CEO Mike Hess.
Web Resources
Small Wind Guide From The Department Of Energy
'Catching The Wind' Exhibit At The Boston Museum Of Science
United States Botanic Garden
Mariah Power
Southwest Windpower
Proven Energy
Article: 'The Folly Of Building-Integrated Wind'
"I want to make the product ubiquitous, so we see it all over — on top of skyscrapers, right on a lamppost driving the lights on the street," Hess says. "You can put them in any number of places, and they become like the light pole or the power pole."
Slowly, Hess' vision may be becoming a reality. His company is selling 20 roof-top turbines to Adobe, the software company in San Jose, Calif. And this month in Portland, Ore., a set of four Skystream turbines were installed on top of a new office tower.
Five kinds of turbines can now also be seen on the roof of Boston's Museum of Science.
"This project started with people like me standing on the roof of the museum and saying, 'Dang! It's windy up here, we ought to be able to get a lot of free power,' " says David Rabkin, Farinon Director for Current Science and Technology at the Museum of Science in Boston.
Rabkin says his team studied wind patterns for a year before they set up their rooftop "wind lab."
"We need to reduce our carbon footprint," he says. "So the initial goal was to take advantage of those gobs of wind that are coming right past us all the time and see if we could significantly reduce the amount of power that we pull off the grid and replace it with nice clean wind power."
Rabkin says this $300,000 project, including all the permits and custom engineering, is really just an experiment — paid for by donors. He's not expecting a lot of power.
"If we do well, we'll generate about enough electricity to power three suburban homes," Rabkin says.
And the amount of power used by three suburban homes is a very small fraction of the museum's overall energy use.
"A homeowner might do it on the ground, but a business with them mounted on top of their structure — if they consume energy like we consume energy — they're not going to make a big dent in it," Rabkin says.
Small Wind A 'Folly'?
Alex Wilson, who started a publishing and consulting company called BuildingGreen, has been a longtime proponent of "big" wind power.
"I'm a huge fan of wind power," Wilson says. "I have been for years, for decades."
But while he's an advocate of big wind, he says he's become disenchanted with small rooftop wind power. He's even written an article called "The Folly of Building-Integrated Wind."
Wilson says the air around buildings is too turbulent, and there is no steady stream to power the turbines. The noise and vibration from turbines can also be a problem in urban settings. And he has big questions about whether small turbines that generate only a few kilowatts are worthwhile.
"The Achilles heel of building integrated wind is economics," Wilson says. "There's a huge economy of scale with wind power ... it's hard to be cost effective with small turbines. And when we put them on top of buildings, the cost goes up and the performance goes down."
In Wilson's mind, solar power — for the time being — beats wind power in the urban small-scale setting.
A Maytag Guarantee
Mariah Power's Hess says he's sensitive to Wilson's concerns.
"Some of the over-promise and the over-commitment that was made early in the life of small wind has come back to hurt," Hess says.
But if people don't hold such high expectations, Hess believes they will be pleased with his product — or he guarantees their money back.
"If I can be the Maytag of wind turbines, I'm going to be a very happy camper going forward," he says.
His company is getting a lot of help, including $3.2 million in federal stimulus dollars. This money is being used to fund production and create jobs at a former auto parts plant in Manistee, Mich.
There are also federal and state incentives for small turbine buyers. So if consumers pay $8,000 to $15,000 for one of these smaller models, they might get a few thousand back.
The Payoff
But if that's the cost for putting one on the ground, making sure it won't blow off a roof in a hurricane costs a lot more.
There seems to be general agreement: If placed on the ground, in an area with good, steady wind, a small turbine should pay off, although it might take five to 10 years — or more.
As for turbines that dot city roofs like chimneys or TV antennas, Wilson says maybe he can still be convinced.
"There may be a system that comes along, the better mousetrap, that actually solves all the concerns," he says. "I'll be the first to get behind that and to be very excited about that."
But folly or no, the small wind industry is claiming big growth.
The American Wind Energy Association says more than 10,000 small turbines were sold in the U.S. last year. And they're projecting exponential growth in years to come.
Fantastilised tuulikud http://www.abdolian.com/thoughts/?p=2806
Wind Turbine Design - The Most Amazing Windmills in the World | Wind Power
Posted in June 6th, 2009
by Farhad Abdolian in Economy, Environment, Science, Technology, World
Wind Turbine Design - The Most Amazing Windmills in the World | Wind Power
A journey through the evolution of the most spectacular wind turbines designs.
anara-tower-wind-turbine-3
Looking for an environmentally friendly energy source while looking gracious, aesthetic and beautiful? The answer is blowing in the wind! Wind turbines float in the air, some rotate horizontally, others vertically. Some are lighter-than air while others are majestically integrated into skyscraper buildings. The sheer assortment of wind turbine designs to be found around us in this world is simply breath taking. Wherever the wind is blowing, an amazing wind turbine design is not far away and standing proud for admiration while generating clean energy for us almost silently.
Below is a selection of pictures and descriptions of some of the most spectacular & truly ambitious wind turbine designs of this millennium…whose scope & promise could pave the way for much greater harnessing of wind energy. This collection of some of the world’s most amazing wind turbine designs together with high level descriptions (and accomplished with a beautiful wind poem) was compiled for the enjoyment of all you wind power enthusiasts in mind.
We are starting this picture series with a small selection of beautiful images of historical and traditional wind mill and wind turbine designs and will finish with the most spectacular high tech inventions of this century. An amazing journey through the evolution of the most spectacular wind turbine designs ever. Enjoy!
Wind Turbine 1888 by Charles Brush
charles_brush-wind-turbine
Charles F. Brush’s 60 foot, 80,000 pound turbine that supplied 12kW of power to 350 incandescent lights, 2 arc lights, and a number of motors at his home for 20 years. It today is believed to be the first automatically operating wind turbine for electricity generation and was built in the winter of 1887 - 1888 in his back yard. Its rotor was 17 meters in diameter. The large rectangular shape to the left of the rotor is the vane, used to move the blades into the wind. The dynamo turned 50 times for every revolution of the blades and charged a dozen batteries each with 34 cells. For scale, note gardener pushing lawnmower underneath and to right of the turbine.
“I hear the howl of the wind that brings
The long drear storm on its heavy wings”
William Cullen Bryant
Super-Windmills
super_windmills
Around 1940 in the US, it was announced that ‘Plans were being made to harness mankind’s oldest and cheapest source of power for industry by means of huge aero generators’.
Further, it went that ‘The next few years might see a great change in the landscape of our country. In certain strategic areas which promise a constant, strong wind such as in mountain passes, will grow strange structures resembling the Martian machines of H. G. Wells. But these will be instruments of construction, rather than destruction. These are tall steel towers to which supporting propeller fans are being assembled to convert wind energy into electrical power’.
Little did they know how far the pressure of moving away from generating power by means of burning fossil fuels will bring us in the new millennium?
In 1941, a full-scale futuristic looking wind turbine was built on a mountain top in Vermont and hooked up to the system of the Vermont Public Service Corporation as an auxiliary power source. Mounted on a 110 foot steel tower, its twin 56-foot blades were designed to develop 1,2Kw at a wind velocity of 30 mph. Under favourable conditions, it actually developed 1,4Kw. Although a practical success, structural and financial difficulties ended the experiment. This amazing futuristic design could even withhold any criticism from today’s contemporary wind turbine designers.
“Madame, bear in mind that princes govern all things–save the wind”
Victor Hugo
Classic ‘Dutch Style’ Wind Mills
dutch-wind-mills
The first fact people recall about The Netherlands as a country is of course its ‘Windmills’. Windmills have been built in The Netherlands for many centuries. In the beginning, the mills were developed for corn milling, land drainage, saw milling and for many other industrial purposes.
dutch-wind-mills-2
Dutch wind mills are actually in many ways quite primitive. Only using canvas sails and turned to the direction from where the wind was coming from by hand. Quite different to the automated mechanisms that can also be seen below which were developed for English windmills which included fantails and shuttered sails.
dutch-wind-mills-4
There are still a very pleasing number of functioning remaining windmills in the Netherlands and even a set of ‘Dutch Style’ Windmills in the US to be seen in the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, CA.
dutch-wind-mills-5
The number of operating mills in The Netherlands is currently about 1200 and rising, in that the Dutch only count complete workable mills, and in the past years, many extensive rebuilds have occurred to add to this number. Aren’t they just beautiful?
dutch-wind-mills-3
“A breeze came wandering from the sky, light as the whispers of a dream; He put the overhanging grasses by, and softly stooped to kiss the stream, The pretty stream, the flattered stream, The shy, yet un-reluctant stream of wind”
William Cullen Bryant
World’s Biggest Wind Turbine
enercon-e126-002
Currently the biggest and most powerful wind turbine in the world is the Enercon E-126 wind turbine (pictured above) generating 6Mw.
The Crown Estate of England certainly knows from which direction the wind blows and has decided to acquire the prototype of the world’s (yet to come) biggest wind turbine, The Clipper 7.5Mw (megawatt) MBE turbine, also known as the Britannia.
There is no current picture available for the Britannia 7.5Mw Clipper and the previous record was held as mentioned before by the Enercon E-126 wind turbine which is rated at 6 megawatt, but can produce around 7 in real world conditions.
While the Enercon is land-based, the Britannia will be located in deep waters near the UK. This makes sense because the marine interests of The Crown Estate include almost the entire UK territorial seabed out to 12 nautical miles, about 55% of the UK’s coastal foreshore, and rights to lease seabed for the generation of renewable energy on the continental shelf within the Renewable Energy Zone which extends out to approximately 200 nautical miles. A giant in the world of wind turbines, which is setting an example to all other large wind turbine manufacturers around the globe.
“The cyclonic wind
Used to be essence of life
Turned into a threat”
Jyoti Sunit Chaudhary
The MagLev – A Magnetically Levitated Wind Turbine
maglev_wind_turbine
The MadLev is a magnetically levitated wind turbine that can generate one Gigawatt of power (enough to power 750,000 homes) and delivers clean power for less than one cent per kilowatt hour using this wind turbine.
Magnetic levitation is a very efficient method of capturing wind energy. The blades of the turbine are suspended on a cushion of air, and the energy is directed to linear generators with minimal fiction losses. But the big advantage with maglev is that it reduces maintenance costs, and increases the lifespan of the generator. The manufacturer claims that it requires less land space than hundreds of conventional turbines. The MagLev wind turbine was invented by Ed Mazur, a researcher of variable renewable energy sources since 1981. There are already several MagLev wind turbines in operation in China.
“I sit by the window and watch the breeze
tingle the leaves on all the trees.
I sit by the window and hear the wind sing,
carrying spring, making air ring.
Wind! Wind! Blow me a song. Toss me a ship from the sea.
Fling me a willow tree tall and strong. Whirl the world closer to me”.
By Mimi Drodsky
The M.A.R.S.
mars-wind-turbine
The M.A.R.S. (Magenn Power Air Rotor System) is an interesting device that is capable of harnessing the power of the wind (pretty much like how a windmill works) to generate electricity, sending that power down a 330 meter tether rope for immediate consumption. Since the M.A.R.S. is filled with helium, it is capable of flying much higher than other wind turbines in order to gain access to higher wind speeds. The 4.0 kW unit will enter production this year, with another 7 more models in the pipeline which will be released within the next four years.
“The wind has lots of noises.
It sniffs, it puffs, it whines,
it rumbles like an ocean through junipers and pines,
it whispers in the windows, it howls, it sings, it hums -
it tells you VERY PLAINLY every time it comes”
Aileen Fisher
Helical Structured Wind Turbine
space-age-windmills
Helical structured wind turbines are the future of wind mill technology. These amazingly unique looking twists and turns will replace those long and boring blades which represent the conventional image of a windmill. These new and sleek looking windmills are designed much like the old ones when it comes to converting their circular motion in to mechanical work, but it is the structural design that makes them unique and special. In fact, they logically should function better than the traditional windmills as the helical structures seems to not just utilize the energy of the wind, but maximize it by containing the wind.
“The wind came out to play one day.
He swept the clouds out of his way.
He blew the leaves and away they flew.
The trees bent low and their branches did too!
The wind blew the great big ships at sea.
The wind blew the kite away from me.”
Anonymous
Phillipe Starck’s Home Windmill
starck-mill
Wind power going glam. Top designer Starcks’ ingenuity and eye for design has emerged into a unique and stylish home wind turbine like we have never seen before. These so called windmills are part of “Democratic Ecology”, a line that Starck has developed with an Italian Industrial group. “It’s part of what we love so much about his designs - the marriage of beauty, function and responsibility.” “Ecology is not just an urgency of the economy and protection of our world but also creativity and elegance” says Philippe Starck.
Made from the same transparent material also used in the very familiar Louis Ghost Chair, these clever contraptions are able to generate 20—60% of a home’s energy needs. In addition to looking like a piece of Gucci jewellery, they are relatively inexpensive.
“The wind is pushing against the trees,
He’ll take off your hat without asking you “please”,
He rattles the windows and puffs at a cloud,
Then scoots down the chimney and laughs aloud.”
Anonymous
The Loopwing
loop-wing
This is the “LoopWing”. Another futuristic and experimental looking wind turbine designed and manufactured in the East. It was unveiled in Japan’s Eco-Products 2006 Exhibition. The E1500 model turbine is a home windmill and sports a very unique wing design that operates with low vibration and at wind speeds as low as 1.6 m/sec. The efficiency specs on the turbine are vague — “43% power performance at optimum wind speeds”.
“A breeze came wandering from the sky, light as the whispers of a dream; He put the overhanging grasses by, and softly stooped to kiss the stream, The pretty stream, the flattered stream, The shy, yet unreluctant stream of wind”
William Cullen Bryant
Urban Turbines – “Quiet Revolution”
Urban Wind Turbines
Many people think wind turbines are ugly but what about these unique and colourful residential street wind turbines? Conventional turbines are best suited to wide open spaces where there’s plenty of wind. So this nifty vertical axis, helical design is a much better solution for urban settings.
The Queen of England seems to agree. XCO2, a UK company behind the unconventional design, has applied for planning permission to build one outside her London residence, Buckingham Palace.
The “Quiet Revolution” turbine has 5-metre-tall blades which can generate 10Kw-hours of energy from a mean annual wind speed of just 5.8 metres per second. Embedded LEDs in each S-shaped blade are used to create images as the turbine turns. It is rumoured that the ones to be installed at Buckingham Palace may be used to display a glowing union flag.
“Green strips of paper
Float past outstretched fingertips
The wind laughs aloud”
Giovanna Marasco
The V-LIM – A Rooftop Wind turbine
lim_face1
The V-LIM is a vibration free, silent, self indexing, high-bandwidth wind turbine suitable for rooftop mounting.
Rogue River Wind and Portland State University Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, have joined forces to optimize power generation from a high efficiency wind turbine suitable for rooftop mounting. Pictured here, this twelve foot, self indexing turbine can produce 3Kw at 15mph winds. The turbine is unaffected by air turbulence that can adversely affect most open bladed designs allowing rooftop mounting without tall towers. The turbine is silent, vibration free and can be screened to prevent harm to birds and other wildlife. The turbine can be used in both rural and urban locations with good wind resource. Due to its unusual design (looking more like a large motorbike wheel with white tyres rather than a wind turbine) it was without question that we had to include this amazing looking piece of engineering into this collection of the most amazing windmills of the world.
“I can’t change the direction of the wind,
but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”
Anonymous
Sky Serpent - An Array of Small Rotors
sky-serpent-wind-turbine1
Doug Selsam’s Sky Serpent uses an array of small rotors to catch more wind for less money. The key to increasing efficiency is to make sure each rotor catches its own fresh flow of wind and not just the wake from the one next to it, as previous multi-rotor turbines have done. That requires figuring out the optimal angle for the shaft in relation to the wind and the ideal spacing between the rotors. The payoff is machines that use one tenth the blade material of today’s mega-turbines yet produce the same wattage. A wonderful and controversial design of which the inventor says “This is a 1,000 year-old design” of the single-bladed turbine, “I knew if I could get more rotors, I could get more power.”
The ‘Jellyfish’ Micro Turbine
jellyfish
At a mere 36 inches tall, the Jellyfish plug-in wind appliance can generate about 40 kilowatt hours each month, that’s enough to light a home using high-efficiency bulbs.
The Jellyfish Wind Appliance consists of the following parts:
A vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT)
A solid-state controller
A variable-speed induction generator
In order to reduce the demand for costly transmission infrastructures, the Jellyfish can work in tandem with the existing power grid and can deliver power exactly where it is needed. Although micro-wind is nothing new, at $400 a pop, the Jellyfish’s price, design and simplicity makes this micro turbine product a fresh face in the market.
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
William Arthur Ward
The Highway Turbine
highway-wind-turbine
This is a very novel way of re-capturing some of the energy expended by vehicles moving at high speeds on our nations highways which is being proposed by an Arizona State University. Knowingly, air turbulence is generated by vehicles moving at speed particularly trucks and the proposal would involve mounting horizontal wind turbines above the roadway that would be driven by the moving air generated by the passing traffic. The electricity generated by spinning these turbines could be fed back into the grid. Analysis indicate that based on vehicle speeds of 70 mph each turbine could produce 9,600 kWh per year.
These wind turbines are of a quiet running type. In many built up areas there is enough constant traffic volume to maintain a steady airflow through much of the day. The big question that needs to be answered is whether the nature of the turbulent airflow could keep the turbines turning.
“I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things… I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind.”
Leo F. Buscaglia
Broadstar AeroCam
broadstar-wind-turbine
The Broadstar’s AeroCam turbine design is an absolute head-turner. The design is based on principles first established by the French aeronautical engineer Georges Jean Marie Darrieus (1888-1979), who invented a wind turbine capable of operating from any direction and under adverse weather conditions. Darrieus machines typically have a vertical axis, whereas the AeroCam design has a horizontal axis with multiple blades, giving it the appearance of a water wheel. The major innovation in the design, however, is the ability to automatically and interactively adjust the pitch or angle of attack of the aerodynamic blades as the turbine rotates, thereby optimizing its performance for much the same reasons a bird changes the shape of its wing in flight.
“If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.”
Latin Proverb quote
The ‘Nano Skin’ Spiral Twist Wind Turbine
nanoskin-wind-turbine
Agustin Otegu, the inventor of the ‘Nano Skin’ wind turbine thinks that the future of green buildings lies not in the giant wind turbines we’ve seen in so many other projects, nor in huge solar panels. Instead his new design proposal, called Nano-vent Skin, would incorporate tiny, biological self-repairing wind turbines into the outer layer of a building. As wind played over the building’s “skin,” the turbines would spin and create energy that would be fed into the building’s electrical grid. They would also absorb carbon dioxide.
Otegu says: “The outer skin of the structure absorbs sunlight through an organic photovoltaic skin and transfers it to the nano-fibers inside the nano-wires which then is sent to storage units at the end of each panel. Each turbine on the panel generates energy by chemical reactions on each end where it makes contact with the structure. Polarized organisms are responsible for this process on every turbine’s turn. The inner skin of each turbine works as a filter absorbing CO2 from the environment as wind passes through it.” Quite an amazing invention we think.
The ‘Helix’ Wind Turbine
helix-wind-turbine-2
A new breed of vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) from Helix Wind offers a promising design that may change the way we do wind at home. The Helix Wind Savonious 2.0 uses a unique rotor capable of capturing omni-directional winds to provide quieter, kinder small wind power for your urban home.
The Helix S322 is compact, elegant, sophisticated and versatile. It provides smooth power and torque delivery across a broad range of wind speeds and under the most difficult of physical environments. No furling or shutting down, simple to install, modular and scalable, the S322 is ideally designed for urban environments, low draw, off-grid applications and liquids pumping. This turbine is very captivating to the eye indeed.
“For what is it to die, but to stand in the sun and melt into the wind?”
Kahlil Gibran
The ‘Dutch Windmill Tree’
dutch-windmill-tree
Dutch company One Architecture, Ton Matton and NL Architects were commissioned by the Dutch government for a next generation windmill. The proposed mill is shaped like a tree and can hold up to 8 turbines and be as high as 120 meters! The Dutch government feels that tree shaped mills are less intrusive in the flat Dutch landscape than the mill-parks they use.
“If a man does not know what port he is steering for, no wind is favourable to him”
Seneca
The ‘Bahrain World Trade Centre’ Turbines
bahrain-wtc
The Atkins designed Bahrain World Trade Center (BWTC) made history when the three turbines which are allocated between the two adjourning towers were turned together for the first time.
The three 29m-diameter turbine blades on Bahrain’s iconic landmark are the first in the world to be integrated on such a scale into a commercial development and are forecast to provide the equivalent of 11-15% of the power for the two towers when fully operational. “Having all three turbines spinning simultaneously represents an historic achievement for this landmark project and Atkins is excited to have been a major player in turning the original idea into reality” says Simha LytheRao Senior Project Manager for Atkins in Bahrain.”
bahrain-wtc-wind-turbines
The BWTC design blends maritime aesthetics with the functionality of traditional wind-towers. The visually striking sail-shaped towers form a commanding silhouette on the skyline of Manama, and serve to channel the strong on-shore winds directly onto the three spinning blades.
“Our best built certainties are but sand-houses and subject to damage from any wind of doubt that blows”
Mark Twain
…and the absolute winner of our ‘Amazing Wind Turbine Designs’ collection is:
The Anara Tower - Dubai
anara-tower-wind-turbine-3
Here we have another skyscraper, this time in Dubai and in the shape of a giant wind turbine. Following a global design competition between three Atkins offices – Dubai, Hong Kong and London – Dubai based property developer Tameer holding has decided on the 600meter-plus skyscraper design to be build on the famous Sheik Zayed Road.
anara-tower-wind-turbine
Based on current world rankings the ‘Anara’ Tower will be amongst the world’s tallest structures. Besides the giant wind turbine which will be integrated in the building’s design at the top of the tower, the 2,15 feet (655m) tall structure includes a mixed use development with retail, offices, 300 luxury apartments and a 250-room luxury hotel.
The ‘Anara by Night’ -Illustration
anara-tower-wind-turbine-2
As one can see on the vertical renderings, it has a tremendous atrium and vertical gardens every 27 floors. It will also hold a panoramic restaurant in the glass capsule at the top of the building. The design of ‘Anara’ Tower is maximizing water and energy efficiency; and includes renewable sources of energy. In our opinion, The ‘Anara’ Wind Turbine Tower represents the future of what is to come in the world of energy sufficient buildings designs.
Construction is set to be started during next year and more images will surely follow on completion of the project. Watch this space
“It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.”
Jim Rohn
Posted in June 6th, 2009
by Farhad Abdolian in Economy, Environment, Science, Technology, World
Wind Turbine Design - The Most Amazing Windmills in the World | Wind Power
A journey through the evolution of the most spectacular wind turbines designs.
anara-tower-wind-turbine-3
Looking for an environmentally friendly energy source while looking gracious, aesthetic and beautiful? The answer is blowing in the wind! Wind turbines float in the air, some rotate horizontally, others vertically. Some are lighter-than air while others are majestically integrated into skyscraper buildings. The sheer assortment of wind turbine designs to be found around us in this world is simply breath taking. Wherever the wind is blowing, an amazing wind turbine design is not far away and standing proud for admiration while generating clean energy for us almost silently.
Below is a selection of pictures and descriptions of some of the most spectacular & truly ambitious wind turbine designs of this millennium…whose scope & promise could pave the way for much greater harnessing of wind energy. This collection of some of the world’s most amazing wind turbine designs together with high level descriptions (and accomplished with a beautiful wind poem) was compiled for the enjoyment of all you wind power enthusiasts in mind.
We are starting this picture series with a small selection of beautiful images of historical and traditional wind mill and wind turbine designs and will finish with the most spectacular high tech inventions of this century. An amazing journey through the evolution of the most spectacular wind turbine designs ever. Enjoy!
Wind Turbine 1888 by Charles Brush
charles_brush-wind-turbine
Charles F. Brush’s 60 foot, 80,000 pound turbine that supplied 12kW of power to 350 incandescent lights, 2 arc lights, and a number of motors at his home for 20 years. It today is believed to be the first automatically operating wind turbine for electricity generation and was built in the winter of 1887 - 1888 in his back yard. Its rotor was 17 meters in diameter. The large rectangular shape to the left of the rotor is the vane, used to move the blades into the wind. The dynamo turned 50 times for every revolution of the blades and charged a dozen batteries each with 34 cells. For scale, note gardener pushing lawnmower underneath and to right of the turbine.
“I hear the howl of the wind that brings
The long drear storm on its heavy wings”
William Cullen Bryant
Super-Windmills
super_windmills
Around 1940 in the US, it was announced that ‘Plans were being made to harness mankind’s oldest and cheapest source of power for industry by means of huge aero generators’.
Further, it went that ‘The next few years might see a great change in the landscape of our country. In certain strategic areas which promise a constant, strong wind such as in mountain passes, will grow strange structures resembling the Martian machines of H. G. Wells. But these will be instruments of construction, rather than destruction. These are tall steel towers to which supporting propeller fans are being assembled to convert wind energy into electrical power’.
Little did they know how far the pressure of moving away from generating power by means of burning fossil fuels will bring us in the new millennium?
In 1941, a full-scale futuristic looking wind turbine was built on a mountain top in Vermont and hooked up to the system of the Vermont Public Service Corporation as an auxiliary power source. Mounted on a 110 foot steel tower, its twin 56-foot blades were designed to develop 1,2Kw at a wind velocity of 30 mph. Under favourable conditions, it actually developed 1,4Kw. Although a practical success, structural and financial difficulties ended the experiment. This amazing futuristic design could even withhold any criticism from today’s contemporary wind turbine designers.
“Madame, bear in mind that princes govern all things–save the wind”
Victor Hugo
Classic ‘Dutch Style’ Wind Mills
dutch-wind-mills
The first fact people recall about The Netherlands as a country is of course its ‘Windmills’. Windmills have been built in The Netherlands for many centuries. In the beginning, the mills were developed for corn milling, land drainage, saw milling and for many other industrial purposes.
dutch-wind-mills-2
Dutch wind mills are actually in many ways quite primitive. Only using canvas sails and turned to the direction from where the wind was coming from by hand. Quite different to the automated mechanisms that can also be seen below which were developed for English windmills which included fantails and shuttered sails.
dutch-wind-mills-4
There are still a very pleasing number of functioning remaining windmills in the Netherlands and even a set of ‘Dutch Style’ Windmills in the US to be seen in the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, CA.
dutch-wind-mills-5
The number of operating mills in The Netherlands is currently about 1200 and rising, in that the Dutch only count complete workable mills, and in the past years, many extensive rebuilds have occurred to add to this number. Aren’t they just beautiful?
dutch-wind-mills-3
“A breeze came wandering from the sky, light as the whispers of a dream; He put the overhanging grasses by, and softly stooped to kiss the stream, The pretty stream, the flattered stream, The shy, yet un-reluctant stream of wind”
William Cullen Bryant
World’s Biggest Wind Turbine
enercon-e126-002
Currently the biggest and most powerful wind turbine in the world is the Enercon E-126 wind turbine (pictured above) generating 6Mw.
The Crown Estate of England certainly knows from which direction the wind blows and has decided to acquire the prototype of the world’s (yet to come) biggest wind turbine, The Clipper 7.5Mw (megawatt) MBE turbine, also known as the Britannia.
There is no current picture available for the Britannia 7.5Mw Clipper and the previous record was held as mentioned before by the Enercon E-126 wind turbine which is rated at 6 megawatt, but can produce around 7 in real world conditions.
While the Enercon is land-based, the Britannia will be located in deep waters near the UK. This makes sense because the marine interests of The Crown Estate include almost the entire UK territorial seabed out to 12 nautical miles, about 55% of the UK’s coastal foreshore, and rights to lease seabed for the generation of renewable energy on the continental shelf within the Renewable Energy Zone which extends out to approximately 200 nautical miles. A giant in the world of wind turbines, which is setting an example to all other large wind turbine manufacturers around the globe.
“The cyclonic wind
Used to be essence of life
Turned into a threat”
Jyoti Sunit Chaudhary
The MagLev – A Magnetically Levitated Wind Turbine
maglev_wind_turbine
The MadLev is a magnetically levitated wind turbine that can generate one Gigawatt of power (enough to power 750,000 homes) and delivers clean power for less than one cent per kilowatt hour using this wind turbine.
Magnetic levitation is a very efficient method of capturing wind energy. The blades of the turbine are suspended on a cushion of air, and the energy is directed to linear generators with minimal fiction losses. But the big advantage with maglev is that it reduces maintenance costs, and increases the lifespan of the generator. The manufacturer claims that it requires less land space than hundreds of conventional turbines. The MagLev wind turbine was invented by Ed Mazur, a researcher of variable renewable energy sources since 1981. There are already several MagLev wind turbines in operation in China.
“I sit by the window and watch the breeze
tingle the leaves on all the trees.
I sit by the window and hear the wind sing,
carrying spring, making air ring.
Wind! Wind! Blow me a song. Toss me a ship from the sea.
Fling me a willow tree tall and strong. Whirl the world closer to me”.
By Mimi Drodsky
The M.A.R.S.
mars-wind-turbine
The M.A.R.S. (Magenn Power Air Rotor System) is an interesting device that is capable of harnessing the power of the wind (pretty much like how a windmill works) to generate electricity, sending that power down a 330 meter tether rope for immediate consumption. Since the M.A.R.S. is filled with helium, it is capable of flying much higher than other wind turbines in order to gain access to higher wind speeds. The 4.0 kW unit will enter production this year, with another 7 more models in the pipeline which will be released within the next four years.
“The wind has lots of noises.
It sniffs, it puffs, it whines,
it rumbles like an ocean through junipers and pines,
it whispers in the windows, it howls, it sings, it hums -
it tells you VERY PLAINLY every time it comes”
Aileen Fisher
Helical Structured Wind Turbine
space-age-windmills
Helical structured wind turbines are the future of wind mill technology. These amazingly unique looking twists and turns will replace those long and boring blades which represent the conventional image of a windmill. These new and sleek looking windmills are designed much like the old ones when it comes to converting their circular motion in to mechanical work, but it is the structural design that makes them unique and special. In fact, they logically should function better than the traditional windmills as the helical structures seems to not just utilize the energy of the wind, but maximize it by containing the wind.
“The wind came out to play one day.
He swept the clouds out of his way.
He blew the leaves and away they flew.
The trees bent low and their branches did too!
The wind blew the great big ships at sea.
The wind blew the kite away from me.”
Anonymous
Phillipe Starck’s Home Windmill
starck-mill
Wind power going glam. Top designer Starcks’ ingenuity and eye for design has emerged into a unique and stylish home wind turbine like we have never seen before. These so called windmills are part of “Democratic Ecology”, a line that Starck has developed with an Italian Industrial group. “It’s part of what we love so much about his designs - the marriage of beauty, function and responsibility.” “Ecology is not just an urgency of the economy and protection of our world but also creativity and elegance” says Philippe Starck.
Made from the same transparent material also used in the very familiar Louis Ghost Chair, these clever contraptions are able to generate 20—60% of a home’s energy needs. In addition to looking like a piece of Gucci jewellery, they are relatively inexpensive.
“The wind is pushing against the trees,
He’ll take off your hat without asking you “please”,
He rattles the windows and puffs at a cloud,
Then scoots down the chimney and laughs aloud.”
Anonymous
The Loopwing
loop-wing
This is the “LoopWing”. Another futuristic and experimental looking wind turbine designed and manufactured in the East. It was unveiled in Japan’s Eco-Products 2006 Exhibition. The E1500 model turbine is a home windmill and sports a very unique wing design that operates with low vibration and at wind speeds as low as 1.6 m/sec. The efficiency specs on the turbine are vague — “43% power performance at optimum wind speeds”.
“A breeze came wandering from the sky, light as the whispers of a dream; He put the overhanging grasses by, and softly stooped to kiss the stream, The pretty stream, the flattered stream, The shy, yet unreluctant stream of wind”
William Cullen Bryant
Urban Turbines – “Quiet Revolution”
Urban Wind Turbines
Many people think wind turbines are ugly but what about these unique and colourful residential street wind turbines? Conventional turbines are best suited to wide open spaces where there’s plenty of wind. So this nifty vertical axis, helical design is a much better solution for urban settings.
The Queen of England seems to agree. XCO2, a UK company behind the unconventional design, has applied for planning permission to build one outside her London residence, Buckingham Palace.
The “Quiet Revolution” turbine has 5-metre-tall blades which can generate 10Kw-hours of energy from a mean annual wind speed of just 5.8 metres per second. Embedded LEDs in each S-shaped blade are used to create images as the turbine turns. It is rumoured that the ones to be installed at Buckingham Palace may be used to display a glowing union flag.
“Green strips of paper
Float past outstretched fingertips
The wind laughs aloud”
Giovanna Marasco
The V-LIM – A Rooftop Wind turbine
lim_face1
The V-LIM is a vibration free, silent, self indexing, high-bandwidth wind turbine suitable for rooftop mounting.
Rogue River Wind and Portland State University Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, have joined forces to optimize power generation from a high efficiency wind turbine suitable for rooftop mounting. Pictured here, this twelve foot, self indexing turbine can produce 3Kw at 15mph winds. The turbine is unaffected by air turbulence that can adversely affect most open bladed designs allowing rooftop mounting without tall towers. The turbine is silent, vibration free and can be screened to prevent harm to birds and other wildlife. The turbine can be used in both rural and urban locations with good wind resource. Due to its unusual design (looking more like a large motorbike wheel with white tyres rather than a wind turbine) it was without question that we had to include this amazing looking piece of engineering into this collection of the most amazing windmills of the world.
“I can’t change the direction of the wind,
but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”
Anonymous
Sky Serpent - An Array of Small Rotors
sky-serpent-wind-turbine1
Doug Selsam’s Sky Serpent uses an array of small rotors to catch more wind for less money. The key to increasing efficiency is to make sure each rotor catches its own fresh flow of wind and not just the wake from the one next to it, as previous multi-rotor turbines have done. That requires figuring out the optimal angle for the shaft in relation to the wind and the ideal spacing between the rotors. The payoff is machines that use one tenth the blade material of today’s mega-turbines yet produce the same wattage. A wonderful and controversial design of which the inventor says “This is a 1,000 year-old design” of the single-bladed turbine, “I knew if I could get more rotors, I could get more power.”
The ‘Jellyfish’ Micro Turbine
jellyfish
At a mere 36 inches tall, the Jellyfish plug-in wind appliance can generate about 40 kilowatt hours each month, that’s enough to light a home using high-efficiency bulbs.
The Jellyfish Wind Appliance consists of the following parts:
A vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT)
A solid-state controller
A variable-speed induction generator
In order to reduce the demand for costly transmission infrastructures, the Jellyfish can work in tandem with the existing power grid and can deliver power exactly where it is needed. Although micro-wind is nothing new, at $400 a pop, the Jellyfish’s price, design and simplicity makes this micro turbine product a fresh face in the market.
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
William Arthur Ward
The Highway Turbine
highway-wind-turbine
This is a very novel way of re-capturing some of the energy expended by vehicles moving at high speeds on our nations highways which is being proposed by an Arizona State University. Knowingly, air turbulence is generated by vehicles moving at speed particularly trucks and the proposal would involve mounting horizontal wind turbines above the roadway that would be driven by the moving air generated by the passing traffic. The electricity generated by spinning these turbines could be fed back into the grid. Analysis indicate that based on vehicle speeds of 70 mph each turbine could produce 9,600 kWh per year.
These wind turbines are of a quiet running type. In many built up areas there is enough constant traffic volume to maintain a steady airflow through much of the day. The big question that needs to be answered is whether the nature of the turbulent airflow could keep the turbines turning.
“I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things… I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind.”
Leo F. Buscaglia
Broadstar AeroCam
broadstar-wind-turbine
The Broadstar’s AeroCam turbine design is an absolute head-turner. The design is based on principles first established by the French aeronautical engineer Georges Jean Marie Darrieus (1888-1979), who invented a wind turbine capable of operating from any direction and under adverse weather conditions. Darrieus machines typically have a vertical axis, whereas the AeroCam design has a horizontal axis with multiple blades, giving it the appearance of a water wheel. The major innovation in the design, however, is the ability to automatically and interactively adjust the pitch or angle of attack of the aerodynamic blades as the turbine rotates, thereby optimizing its performance for much the same reasons a bird changes the shape of its wing in flight.
“If the wind will not serve, take to the oars.”
Latin Proverb quote
The ‘Nano Skin’ Spiral Twist Wind Turbine
nanoskin-wind-turbine
Agustin Otegu, the inventor of the ‘Nano Skin’ wind turbine thinks that the future of green buildings lies not in the giant wind turbines we’ve seen in so many other projects, nor in huge solar panels. Instead his new design proposal, called Nano-vent Skin, would incorporate tiny, biological self-repairing wind turbines into the outer layer of a building. As wind played over the building’s “skin,” the turbines would spin and create energy that would be fed into the building’s electrical grid. They would also absorb carbon dioxide.
Otegu says: “The outer skin of the structure absorbs sunlight through an organic photovoltaic skin and transfers it to the nano-fibers inside the nano-wires which then is sent to storage units at the end of each panel. Each turbine on the panel generates energy by chemical reactions on each end where it makes contact with the structure. Polarized organisms are responsible for this process on every turbine’s turn. The inner skin of each turbine works as a filter absorbing CO2 from the environment as wind passes through it.” Quite an amazing invention we think.
The ‘Helix’ Wind Turbine
helix-wind-turbine-2
A new breed of vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) from Helix Wind offers a promising design that may change the way we do wind at home. The Helix Wind Savonious 2.0 uses a unique rotor capable of capturing omni-directional winds to provide quieter, kinder small wind power for your urban home.
The Helix S322 is compact, elegant, sophisticated and versatile. It provides smooth power and torque delivery across a broad range of wind speeds and under the most difficult of physical environments. No furling or shutting down, simple to install, modular and scalable, the S322 is ideally designed for urban environments, low draw, off-grid applications and liquids pumping. This turbine is very captivating to the eye indeed.
“For what is it to die, but to stand in the sun and melt into the wind?”
Kahlil Gibran
The ‘Dutch Windmill Tree’
dutch-windmill-tree
Dutch company One Architecture, Ton Matton and NL Architects were commissioned by the Dutch government for a next generation windmill. The proposed mill is shaped like a tree and can hold up to 8 turbines and be as high as 120 meters! The Dutch government feels that tree shaped mills are less intrusive in the flat Dutch landscape than the mill-parks they use.
“If a man does not know what port he is steering for, no wind is favourable to him”
Seneca
The ‘Bahrain World Trade Centre’ Turbines
bahrain-wtc
The Atkins designed Bahrain World Trade Center (BWTC) made history when the three turbines which are allocated between the two adjourning towers were turned together for the first time.
The three 29m-diameter turbine blades on Bahrain’s iconic landmark are the first in the world to be integrated on such a scale into a commercial development and are forecast to provide the equivalent of 11-15% of the power for the two towers when fully operational. “Having all three turbines spinning simultaneously represents an historic achievement for this landmark project and Atkins is excited to have been a major player in turning the original idea into reality” says Simha LytheRao Senior Project Manager for Atkins in Bahrain.”
bahrain-wtc-wind-turbines
The BWTC design blends maritime aesthetics with the functionality of traditional wind-towers. The visually striking sail-shaped towers form a commanding silhouette on the skyline of Manama, and serve to channel the strong on-shore winds directly onto the three spinning blades.
“Our best built certainties are but sand-houses and subject to damage from any wind of doubt that blows”
Mark Twain
…and the absolute winner of our ‘Amazing Wind Turbine Designs’ collection is:
The Anara Tower - Dubai
anara-tower-wind-turbine-3
Here we have another skyscraper, this time in Dubai and in the shape of a giant wind turbine. Following a global design competition between three Atkins offices – Dubai, Hong Kong and London – Dubai based property developer Tameer holding has decided on the 600meter-plus skyscraper design to be build on the famous Sheik Zayed Road.
anara-tower-wind-turbine
Based on current world rankings the ‘Anara’ Tower will be amongst the world’s tallest structures. Besides the giant wind turbine which will be integrated in the building’s design at the top of the tower, the 2,15 feet (655m) tall structure includes a mixed use development with retail, offices, 300 luxury apartments and a 250-room luxury hotel.
The ‘Anara by Night’ -Illustration
anara-tower-wind-turbine-2
As one can see on the vertical renderings, it has a tremendous atrium and vertical gardens every 27 floors. It will also hold a panoramic restaurant in the glass capsule at the top of the building. The design of ‘Anara’ Tower is maximizing water and energy efficiency; and includes renewable sources of energy. In our opinion, The ‘Anara’ Wind Turbine Tower represents the future of what is to come in the world of energy sufficient buildings designs.
Construction is set to be started during next year and more images will surely follow on completion of the project. Watch this space
“It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.”
Jim Rohn
If it takes 10 years to pay off, you still have 15 years of free energy coming in,” http://firstwebxp.com/2009/10/vertical-axis-wind-turbines-roof-mou
Vertical Axis Wind Turbines: Roof Mounted Power Source.
October 26, 2009 :: Posted by - Emma :: Category - Wind Power
Vertical axis wind turbineThere’s a mighty wind blowing across North America and Jim Rowan is ready to harness it using his low-speed rooftop wind turbine technology. But before he can convert wind currents into currency, he’ll need to convince skeptics who argue that his technology is full of hot air.
Mr. Rowan became obsessed with wind energy in 1999 after watching a Discovery Channel program that said there was enough of it flowing over North American rooftops to power the entire continent.
“I thought, it’s a shame that no one’s taken advantage of that,” recalls the chief executive officer of Enviro Energies Holdings Inc. based in Grimsby, Ont.
Engineers had long concluded that vertical axis wind turbines, which are typically mounted on roofs and use a propeller-shaped “sail” to produce electricity, would never work. Or, even if they did work, they would never produce enough power to deliver a sound return on investment. That valuable rooftop wind resource, it seemed, would remain untapped instead of offsetting the energy usage of residential or commercial buildings.
But Mr. Rowan, a serial entrepreneur who founded hospitality telecommunications services provider Canopco, wouldn’t take no for an answer.
The former Canadian military computer and radar technician spent two years poring over a 2,000-page U.S. study that highlighted the reasons roof-mounted vertical axis wind turbines were inefficient sources of power.
Undeterred by the naysayers, Mr. Rowan boiled down the 2,000 pages into 11 reasons why they were a green energy dud. Then he looked for solutions to each challenge.
“I met with my friends and said, ‘This is what we need to overcome,’ ” he recalls.
He and several partners founded Enviro Energies in 2007 to tackle the problem head on using about $5-million of their own money, including a few small investments from family and friends.
That seed money and the company’s experiments produced key innovations such as an improved sail and generator system designed to function in low wind conditions by harnessing the turbulent air that typically flows over rooftops.
The roof-mounted sail rotates in the wind, spins a turbine and generates electricity that could be used to power an entire building. Power also could be transmitted back into the provincial/regional grid in exchange for credits to offset the building’s consumption.
“[Ours] is completely different than any other wind turbine that’s ever been built before,” he says of the firm’s low-speed magnetic vertical axis wind turbines, which range in price from $10,000 for a small 2.5-kilowatt model to nearly $50,000 for the largest 10-kilowatt unit.
“We have a low-rotational-speed wind turbine. That’s a big deal. Most people don’t realize how big a deal it is.”
Customers have so far agreed. Mr. Rowan predicts Enviro Energies will close the year with sales of about $3-million, and he estimates revenue will reach $12-million to $15-million next year as sales to markets such as the United States, Sweden, Italy and Vietnam grow.
Enviro Energies is also actively licensing manufacturing rights to partners around the world to localize production and minimize shipping costs of the sizable turbines – the 10 kilowatt model, for example, spans eight metres in diameter.
Mr. Rowan also recently secured a $6-million investment to fund development of a one-megawatt wind turbine (with an estimated sticker price of $2-million) from a group in India, and says a licensing agreement with a firm in Vietnam is imminent.
Interest from deep-pocketed investors aside, the burning question is whether the turbines are worth the investment for eco- and budget-conscious business owners and consumers. Mr. Rowan says that each turbine, which has a shelf life of about 25 years, will generate enough electricity in four to 10 years (depending on the turbine’s size, location and availability of wind) to justify its cost.
“If it takes 10 years to pay off, you still have 15 years of free energy coming in,” he says. In theory, a 50-kilowatt vertical-axis wind turbine – which Enviro Energies is currently developing – could power a five-storey office building, Mr. Rowan says.
But skeptics argue that these performance claims are questionable because no standardized tests exist that could confirm the firm’s power output estimates.
“Will [these turbines] produce a lot of electricity? I would say no,” says Paul Gipe, a Bakersfield, Calif.-based renewable-energy industry analyst and author of the book Wind Energy Basics. Mr. Gipe points to a 2009 report by Britain’s Energy Savings Trust, which monitored 38 building-mounted wind turbines for a year and found that they “exhibited generally poor output” due to inadequate wind speeds.
It boils down to a problem of physics that has consistently plagued small wind turbines, adds Tim Weis, a Gatineau, Que.-based engineer and director of renewable energy and efficiency policy for the Pembina Institute, a renewable energy advocacy group.
“If you try to put something on a rooftop or on top of a house, you get into areas where there are low winds and the physics dictate there’s only so much energy there,” he says.
In Mr. Weis’s view, horizontal-axis wind turbines, which rely on long, slender blades mounted on tall towers to generate electricity, are a far more efficient means of producing renewable energy. He also points out that in jurisdictions such as Ontario where energy is relatively cheap, and where the feed-in tariff program pays more than five times the amount for solar power than wind energy delivered onto the provincial power grid, the former is a far more cost-effective investment.
These are criticisms that Mr. Rowan has heard time and again, and he says that delays in getting his turbines to market are partly due to time spent responding to each. He counters that Enviro Energies’s technology is designed precisely for low-wind, high-turbulence rooftops and feels that successful third-party testing by Livonia, Mich.-based Roush Enterprises, as well as significant foreign investment, is proof that it works.
“Take our wind turbine and put it in straight-line wind conditions and the other turbines will outperform it. But we’ll outperform them in turbulent wind conditions every time.”
The man who once gleaned inspiration from a documentary program boldly proclaims that it could one day eliminate power bills for businesses up to the size of small manufacturers:
“We’re not there yet,” he says, “but give me another year and I’ll have a solution operational that will do that.”
CHRIS ATCHISON
Special to The Globe and Mail Published on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009 12:00AM EDT Last updated on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009 2:32AM EDT
October 26, 2009 :: Posted by - Emma :: Category - Wind Power
Vertical axis wind turbineThere’s a mighty wind blowing across North America and Jim Rowan is ready to harness it using his low-speed rooftop wind turbine technology. But before he can convert wind currents into currency, he’ll need to convince skeptics who argue that his technology is full of hot air.
Mr. Rowan became obsessed with wind energy in 1999 after watching a Discovery Channel program that said there was enough of it flowing over North American rooftops to power the entire continent.
“I thought, it’s a shame that no one’s taken advantage of that,” recalls the chief executive officer of Enviro Energies Holdings Inc. based in Grimsby, Ont.
Engineers had long concluded that vertical axis wind turbines, which are typically mounted on roofs and use a propeller-shaped “sail” to produce electricity, would never work. Or, even if they did work, they would never produce enough power to deliver a sound return on investment. That valuable rooftop wind resource, it seemed, would remain untapped instead of offsetting the energy usage of residential or commercial buildings.
But Mr. Rowan, a serial entrepreneur who founded hospitality telecommunications services provider Canopco, wouldn’t take no for an answer.
The former Canadian military computer and radar technician spent two years poring over a 2,000-page U.S. study that highlighted the reasons roof-mounted vertical axis wind turbines were inefficient sources of power.
Undeterred by the naysayers, Mr. Rowan boiled down the 2,000 pages into 11 reasons why they were a green energy dud. Then he looked for solutions to each challenge.
“I met with my friends and said, ‘This is what we need to overcome,’ ” he recalls.
He and several partners founded Enviro Energies in 2007 to tackle the problem head on using about $5-million of their own money, including a few small investments from family and friends.
That seed money and the company’s experiments produced key innovations such as an improved sail and generator system designed to function in low wind conditions by harnessing the turbulent air that typically flows over rooftops.
The roof-mounted sail rotates in the wind, spins a turbine and generates electricity that could be used to power an entire building. Power also could be transmitted back into the provincial/regional grid in exchange for credits to offset the building’s consumption.
“[Ours] is completely different than any other wind turbine that’s ever been built before,” he says of the firm’s low-speed magnetic vertical axis wind turbines, which range in price from $10,000 for a small 2.5-kilowatt model to nearly $50,000 for the largest 10-kilowatt unit.
“We have a low-rotational-speed wind turbine. That’s a big deal. Most people don’t realize how big a deal it is.”
Customers have so far agreed. Mr. Rowan predicts Enviro Energies will close the year with sales of about $3-million, and he estimates revenue will reach $12-million to $15-million next year as sales to markets such as the United States, Sweden, Italy and Vietnam grow.
Enviro Energies is also actively licensing manufacturing rights to partners around the world to localize production and minimize shipping costs of the sizable turbines – the 10 kilowatt model, for example, spans eight metres in diameter.
Mr. Rowan also recently secured a $6-million investment to fund development of a one-megawatt wind turbine (with an estimated sticker price of $2-million) from a group in India, and says a licensing agreement with a firm in Vietnam is imminent.
Interest from deep-pocketed investors aside, the burning question is whether the turbines are worth the investment for eco- and budget-conscious business owners and consumers. Mr. Rowan says that each turbine, which has a shelf life of about 25 years, will generate enough electricity in four to 10 years (depending on the turbine’s size, location and availability of wind) to justify its cost.
“If it takes 10 years to pay off, you still have 15 years of free energy coming in,” he says. In theory, a 50-kilowatt vertical-axis wind turbine – which Enviro Energies is currently developing – could power a five-storey office building, Mr. Rowan says.
But skeptics argue that these performance claims are questionable because no standardized tests exist that could confirm the firm’s power output estimates.
“Will [these turbines] produce a lot of electricity? I would say no,” says Paul Gipe, a Bakersfield, Calif.-based renewable-energy industry analyst and author of the book Wind Energy Basics. Mr. Gipe points to a 2009 report by Britain’s Energy Savings Trust, which monitored 38 building-mounted wind turbines for a year and found that they “exhibited generally poor output” due to inadequate wind speeds.
It boils down to a problem of physics that has consistently plagued small wind turbines, adds Tim Weis, a Gatineau, Que.-based engineer and director of renewable energy and efficiency policy for the Pembina Institute, a renewable energy advocacy group.
“If you try to put something on a rooftop or on top of a house, you get into areas where there are low winds and the physics dictate there’s only so much energy there,” he says.
In Mr. Weis’s view, horizontal-axis wind turbines, which rely on long, slender blades mounted on tall towers to generate electricity, are a far more efficient means of producing renewable energy. He also points out that in jurisdictions such as Ontario where energy is relatively cheap, and where the feed-in tariff program pays more than five times the amount for solar power than wind energy delivered onto the provincial power grid, the former is a far more cost-effective investment.
These are criticisms that Mr. Rowan has heard time and again, and he says that delays in getting his turbines to market are partly due to time spent responding to each. He counters that Enviro Energies’s technology is designed precisely for low-wind, high-turbulence rooftops and feels that successful third-party testing by Livonia, Mich.-based Roush Enterprises, as well as significant foreign investment, is proof that it works.
“Take our wind turbine and put it in straight-line wind conditions and the other turbines will outperform it. But we’ll outperform them in turbulent wind conditions every time.”
The man who once gleaned inspiration from a documentary program boldly proclaims that it could one day eliminate power bills for businesses up to the size of small manufacturers:
“We’re not there yet,” he says, “but give me another year and I’ll have a solution operational that will do that.”
CHRIS ATCHISON
Special to The Globe and Mail Published on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009 12:00AM EDT Last updated on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009 2:32AM EDT
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