New Turbine Design Wins Sustainability Award
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 06.20.07
BSI, the British Standards Institute, gave first prize in its Sustainability Awards 2007 to Ben Storan for his "afforable personal wind turbine suited to the urban environment."
According to the BSI, The result is a unique design which uses vertical, rather than traditional horizontal, rotation. This feature gives a slower rotational speed, which allows the turbine to capture more energy from turbulent air flow, common to urban environments. It also means quieter operation.
Speaking of winning the award and £3,000 first prize, Ben says “I’m delighted to win such a prestigious award. Growing up in the windy west of Ireland I’ve always been acutely aware of the huge potential in harnessing such a free, clean and renewable source of energy which, along with a spinning clothes line, gave me the idea in the first place.”
As a result, it is able to generate more energy than domestic models currently on the market. Similarly sized existing personal wind turbines claim to generate 1kW at a wind speed of 12 m/s, but typically produce just 40% of what is claimed. Ben’s design should realistically produce 3 times that (1.2kW) of those currently on the market.
The clever vertical rotation design uses lightweight materials, which means Ben’s turbine is more stable than other personal turbines leading to better energy capture and making it is easier to install. ::BSI
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Cool! It even /looks/ like a BSI "kite-mark"!
But your report might have got the figures wrong: I've never heard of an urban turbine with a capacity factor of 40%, are you sure you don't mean "40% of the claimed capacity factor" not "40% of the maximum theoretical output"?
Sorry to be such a pedant but I wish Ben S. all the best and where can we buy one?...
Wind Turbines for Low Wind Areas.
Wind turbines for low wind areas must be designed differently than for areas of higher winds in order to be cost efficient. This design seems to be for low level winds of the type where many people live and seems to be what most of us need.
The ratio of blade area to generator size must be altered for areas rated poor or average (levels 1-3) on the government wind chart. Since most of us live in these areas, then what we need would be VAWT's (vertical axis wind turbines) having a large ratio between the surface area coming in contact with the wind and the amount of power that is expected to be produced at low wind speeds.
If devices of this type can be manufactured economically, then the resultant cost efficiency of residential kwh production should increase dramatically. The outcome would be the creation of a large market for this type of low wind speed but high energy productive wind turbine.
Use of this type of turbine should then open up residential use to windpower as it would make the system cost effective and reduce the payback time to within reason.
adrianakau2aol.com
If you would like more info about the turbine or would like to speak to Ben, then please contact the press office at BSI. Contact details are at www.bsigroup.com/news.
Thanks for the comments.
Candy;
the 40% figure actually relates to how inflated the claims of the horizontal-axis "windsave" turbine are related to actual test figures.
the capacity factor only really relates to wind speeds on location, which obviously gets better the more suburban you go.
adrianakau2aol.com;
yes i agree, the airfoil profiles have been designed to be cambered (http://club.cycom.co.uk/vertAxis.html) to be more effective. (naca 7670 profile for example)
as for the cost per kwh, a good wind location of 8m/s with a mass-produced cost of about £500 or $1000 could feasibly be about 3p or 6 cents per kwh.
this is close to the cost/kwh for a large scale turbine, without the installation, planning or maintainance woes, ideally a multitude of small vertical axis could replace a few large horizontal axis.
Is that a cat perched on top of the first diagram?
I'd like to know how many kWh this would generate annually in say 4m/s wind and at what cost. I'm not sure if this is an actual product or only a concept.
Thanks for the comments.
Candy;
the 40% figure actually relates to how inflated the claims of the horizontal-axis "windsave" turbine are related to actual test figures.
the capacity factor only really relates to wind speeds on location, which obviously gets better the more suburban you go.
adrianakau2aol.com;
yes i agree, the airfoil profiles have been designed to be cambered (http://club.cycom.co.uk/vertAxis.html) to be more effective. (naca 7670 profile for example)
as for the cost per kwh, a good wind location of 8m/s with a mass-produced cost of about £500 or $1000 could feasibly be about 3p or 6 cents per kwh.
this is close to the cost/kwh for a large scale turbine, without the installation, planning or maintainance woes, ideally a multitude of small vertical axis could replace a few large horizontal axis.
Ben,
Are there presently any companies interested in mass producng VAWT's of your design for the parameters you have described (8m/sec and £500 or $1000)?
I saw a similar "flower" design from China but at that time, did not understand about the need for low wind speed generators.
adrianakau2aol.com
In my opinion, noise is the most important factor for urban wind. The fact that this set up is more quiet is the thing that I think will decrease resistance the most.
I am curently refining the design and looking into potential partnerships, the noise aspect is certainly the most important aspect to look at.
more information on the "flower" turbine from china would be great!
I hope you all know the image is photoshopped. Did this guy actually made a prototype and made power or is it a concept on paper only?
I have a prototype (see BSI link) in the Royal College of Art exhibition, on in Hyde Park, London. I have to refine it a bit but I hope to get the stated outputs out within a few months.
Just stopping by to say well done! Would there be any possibility of combining several of these in conjunction with solar panels to charge a single battery that would power a house? I could see the combination of this technology with solar panels getting a lot of people mostly off the grid.
I'm very interested in this sort of technology. Probably will purchase a few along with solar panels once the price is right.
It may be me, but i think i remember seeing this design in a couple Sci-Fi movies a long time ago. I don't remember the name, and the device was never referenced directly, but it did appear, at least in the movie, to be used in some form for mechanical, or electrical power generation.
May have the additional benefit of reducing the pigeon population?
oops. I came here via Digg, replied, and only then realized this is an environmentalist site. As such, I'd just like to say I love pigeons, and see no benefit in slicing them from the air and... oh. never mind.. I'll get my coat..
This is rather interesting. From the design, I can't see how the aerodynamics of the wind works, in conjunction with the operation of the vertical wind turbine. It does not make sense from the law of Physics' point of view, but I have to read further.
It is definitely renowned that vertical wind turbine are already under modelling and development stage, awaiting for customers to buy them.
Are you looking for investors? How does one get in touch with you?
1.2 kW. Are you kidding me? It would take 1 MILLION of these wind turbines to equal the power output of ONE nuclear power plant...
I would love to buy one or build one, way cool
I was talking about this kind of technology with an work partner and I'll build one with cheaper materals found on daily trash. It's interesting because the desing thinked seems alike. It's not the same, but has similarities. May be I'll show some photos after the mills is working, and if suceed.
For city dwellers the first and best investment is energy conservation. Without great sacrifice to lifestyle or cost I've cut my electrical use 70 to 80%, down to less than 5KWh/day. Second, city dwellers don't have room to install tall towers for optimal wind capture and often have much greater wind flux in speed and direction.
A relatively quiet vertical access turbine seems quite appropriate for this function. A lot of us could make access affordable by kit installation, requiring self or friend with some carpentry, mechanical, and electric skills. Parts could come from multiple sources off the web if reliable and tested via drop ship saving inventory cost. Grass roots baby!
After a few people in any neighborhood can go off the grid or greatly reduce grid dependence at a reasonable payback cost the economies of scale can kick in with rising demand and localized supply; those same people who started at grass roots level could work as consultants, distributors, installers, etc, creating local economic sustainability and jobs.
So what are my options? Where is this design headed on the grass roots level?
Cheers from Portland, Oregon - TTom
I would love to buy one and would appreciate someone letting me know when and where it would be available for export to the USA.
Ben,
Have not seen any remarks in a while. How's development/production going? How can I get more info? Is your design going to be available for purchase in the near future? It looks very promising.
Well done.
How does your product hold up to low level wind turbulence? Are you in production yet? Would like to talk with you about large scale installation? Have ideas, need your product and assistance to determine the technical feasibility.
Thanks. .
I am currently doing a science pordjcet comparing virtical axes windmill design to horizontal three blade
Good work Ben S you have inspired me
gCaptain just did an exhaustive post on new wind farm technology for offshore fields:
The 11 Most Interesting Wind Turbine Designs.
Good Stuff!