Chinese Maglev Wind Turbines Enter Mass Production
by Alex Pasternack, Beijing, China on 11. 6.07
Construction has begun on the world's largest production base for magnetic levitation (maglev) wind power generators. According to Xinhua, the base will produce a series of small-scale maglev wind power generators with capacities ranging from 400 to 5,000 watts in the first half of 2008.
So, what the heck is a maglev generator? It improves efficiency by using magnets to reduce friction, meaning that turbines could turn with winds as low as 1.5 meters per second (m/s), and cut-in, or energy-producing, speeds of 3 m/s. The chief developer says this could cut the operational costs of wind farms by up to half, with an overall cost under 0.4 yuan ($US 5 cents) per killowatt hour. Earlier this year, an Arizona based company touted a large-scale maglev turbine, but such technology on that scale has yet to be proved.
For developing countries like China, the technology could be crucial to bringing wind power to places where it is currently un-utilized and perhaps too costly to build. For the developed world too, it could make wind power much cheaper, and wind turbines at home a more realistic option.
The company has also said it could even provide roadside lighting along highways by utilizing the airflow generated from passing vehicles (see this idea here).
If licensed to other companies (rather than illegally copied), the technology could help boost China's desperate-to-grow wind power manufacturing industry, which so far has relied on significant cooperation with foreign partners like GE, and has been somewhat stymied by the government's pricing schemes.
But wind is booming in China. It has the world's fifth greatest installed capacity, and is set to reach the government's first major wind goal -- 5 gigawatts by 2010 -- this year.
Though magnets have been used before in pumps and turbines to cut down on the friction of ball bearings, they have typically been electromagnets, which require additional power. The technology behind the generators has not been specified -- obvious concerns about intellectual property in China abound -- but the company has indicated the system relies on a permanent magnet system, which needs no external power, and without which compact DVD and disk drives would not exist.
Many have speculated they use something called Halbach arrays, which help to control the magnetic field. As Jeremy at Worldchanging noted last year, "any permanent magnet system would doubtless need lots of Neodymium ("rare earth") magnets, which may have questionable sustainability when mined in large amounts, but as it happens China is rich in that element." Indeed, China controls 90% of the world market for rare earth elements.
The company notes that the generator's efficiency is 20% better than "traditional" wind turbines. Worldchanging goes on to explain that
The inefficiency of a normal windmill's drive train (which includes the gears, shafts, and bearings, everything that moves except the motor and the turbine blades) is not so terribly big at moderate and high wind speeds. According to a paper by California Wind Energy Collaborative at UC Davis, the average wind turbine's drive train is 87-89% efficient from peak wind speeds down to less than half peak wind speed. However, below roughly a third of peak wind speed, things go rapidly downhill, and by about a quarter of peak wind speed, efficiencies are wallowing sadly in the 30-40% range. The Dutch windmill manufacturer Harakosan advertises a wind turbine that has 93 - 94% drive train efficiency all the way from peak wind speed down to a quarter of peak speed.
Either way, for China's growing wind power industry, the maglev is a huge step, and one made even bigger by the current rush to take advantage of China's potential wind power, estimated around 700-1,200 gigawatts. According to the recently released China Wind Power Report 2007, installed capacity in China could reach 50 GW by 2020, accounting for about 4 percent of total power generation.
Zhongke Hengyuan Energy Technology Co Ltd invested 400 million yuan in the construction and expects annual revenue of 1.6 billion yuan.
Clearly, this is only a start. But the technology sounds promising, and might make wind for the home even more attractive. And, with further investment -- and, ahem, better intellectual property protection -- we might see it develop, get scaled up, and transform the economics of wind power.
Links
Guangzhou Zhongke Hengyuan Perpetual Energy Technology Co Ltd
Global Wind Energy Council
China Renewable Energy Industries Association
SKF FAQ on magnetic levitation in turbines.
I'm excited to see if it lives up to its numbers.
Funny how Chinese companies are worried about intellectual property rights. They don't want anyone to copy their product and watch boot-legged DVD's without getting paid.
5centsper kilowatt? I think you mean kilowatt hour. If that were the case, I could power my home indefinitely for 10 cents. 5 cents/kwh is stil a little cheaper than what I pay to the electric company, it would be much easier to go off the grid if a town was willing to invest into such a system.
I was under the impression that all newer wing generators were floating magnet types utilizing brushless motors.
The article suggests that cut-in speeds of 3 m/s are now for the first time possible due to the maglev technology. This is incorrect. Cut in speeds of 3 m/s or even lower are fairly normal for direct drive windturbines. Look for example at www.enercon.de or www.directwind.nl.
*Huzzah!*
Greater efficiency at the lower end would certainly be good for those households which are already well-placed to install horizontal axis wind turbines. But most households in urban or suburban areas just don't get the good clean breezes that horizontal axis turbines thrive in. We need mag-lev vertical axis turbines please!
a cut-in windspeed of 3 m/s is not unique for these maglev windturbines. Most direct drive windturbines (these don'nt have a gearbox) achieve this value or even lower.
I thought the same thing when I read the bit about intellectual property. China freely flies in the face of all intellectual property laws, when it's coming from other countries. Bit of a non sequitur, there.
I thought the costs were already brought down to 3 cents per hour without the maglevs? Redundant technology?
It's odd that they would use a picture of a small standard horizontal wind turbine for this story. Oh well, probably just a stock photo. (Get me something with a wind turbine and a Chinese person). This technology has been all the rage recently but I still don't see any actual data on how much energy is produced, or data on a working Mag Lev wind farm. Still theory.
I would be more accurate to say that these turbines use magnetic bearings, as the term Mag Lev, implies magnetic levitation. So they are standard hawt that use magnetic bearings to improve efficiency by reducing friction.
how do i calculate the average wind speed needed in my place and how long will a wind turbine last. I am very much interested.
Energy conservation - The transition
For the past several years, all the debates and analyses related to the use of primary energies are influenced by a set of incontrovertible facts. They all lead to the same conclusion: "it is essential to rationalize the use of energy on a world-wide scale, in order to ensure the sustainable future of the species that inhabit the planet and of the corresponding biodiversity that supports them".
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