Windmills on power lines...it's the perfect place for them.

I see drawings, not a model that works.

This is complex and looses the one benefit of the Darrieus design, that of taking advantage of gusting winds.

How much for a unit? How much per kW?
Do you have any of these made and working?

Right. This is a paper design, with many problems and hurdles, without even a working prototype.

Problems for them to solve: Mechanical stability - their SketchUp drawings fails the structural sniff test (no outside support for the blades on the twin model, no support between blades, the members are incorrectly sized, no detail showing how they prevent the blades flexing). Functionally, they show noting or the blade control mechanism, no generator details, no info about how the front blade's turbulence affects the rear blades. There are v. good reasons why VAWT have only 3 blades.

Worse HAWT are generally less efficient than VAWT.

This a a start up paper company hooping to cash in on the wind energy crazy. Just look at their management team.

Isn't this just a horizontal-axis Cycloturbine?

The above astute observations are well -appreciated. Especially revealing are the qualifications of the CEO as being a "Serial Entrepreneur" with "a proven track record of being in the right place at the right time".

Guys they displayed a model at WINDPOWER 2008. Not everyone out there in the small wind market is a fraudster, so let's evaluate before we dismiss. I hope to see the idea work.

Not everyone is a fraudster, but certainly these people are. I challenge them to put their "model" in a 30 MPH wind and stand down wind. I'll stand upwind and watch the blade twist off their supports.

I hope that all the energy savings ideas work, but there is a world of difference between sound engineering based on sound science, and con men peddling rubbish.

Yeah, thats a great idea - let's take a darrieus turbine and flip it to horizontal, so it loses all the advantages of the vertical axis eg no need for a high mast, no need to turn it to the direction of the wind, possibility of having all the serviceable components close to the ground level etc - It's like a hybrid car that uses electricity to generate fuel for its ICE (patent pending)

These "paddle wheel" designs suffer from enourmous drag incured from the necessary supports and mounts. Plus the cam idea, which optimally "aims" the blades into the wind, goes back to the 1800's, and always fails due to vibrations and friction. And, as others have noted, the high drag and light frame will collapse in a windstorm. The only positive feature, common to all four or more blade windmills, is better efficiency at low velocities- but always at the cost of poorer efficicency in high winds.

Seductive modeling is a poor substitue for engineering experience.

Hi everyone,

I would like to clear up some misconceptions about Broadstar and the Aerocam turbines.

There have been 4 Aerocam prototypes in total. The first two prototypes were a working proof of concept model and a fully instrumented 6ftx 6ft working prototype. The 6x6 working prototype exceeded projected power output and survived 60mph winds. It has been around a long time and is still used on occasion for various data collection and analysis. It has been successfully run at angular velocities that it would reach in winds exceeding 60mph

There have been two additional prototypes built since then, both in Type 1 configuration. They are the display model seen at the Windpower 2008 convention and a similar unit for research and development use by the engineering staff. It is important to note that these two turbines are prototypes, not beta, pre-production or production models.

The two Type 1 prototypes are 10ft in diameter and 16ft in length. The addition of generators increases overall length to just shy of 20ft. The Type 1 is mounted on a horizontal axis to take advantge of the air flow over the pulpit of a building wall. The type 1 is designed to mount on the roof tops of commercial buildings in an urban or rural environment, not on stand alone towers or the roof tops of typical homes.

Each Type 1 prototype currently uses two Gin Long PM5k generators. The generators are mounted on opposing ends. These genertors are for prototype testing.

The CGI in the downloadable videos is an artists rendering only. The images in these videos should not be considered as the actual structural design.

Projected pricing targets are as follows:

10kw machine = $2.50/w
100/250/500kw machie = $1.00/w

As with any new product there are hurdles to be overcome and the Aerocam machines are no exception. However, many aspects of these machines that appear to be criticl issues are not, and many of those that do not appear to be critical issues are.

Unfortunately, in most cases a product is judged on it's appearence rather than the thought process, performance or science behind it's design. This is because those aspects of product are not readily discernable. We will never know all of the "Why's?" so we often fall back on our preconceived notions to use as a basis for understanding and comparison... the problem being that our preconceived notions are mostly based on evidence no stronger than what we have seen in the past, what we have been told, or the first tig that comes to mind. Unless we are involved in the entire process the best we can do is guess as to what is really going on.

My respect and regards,

Chris S

I actually did a live interview with the founder of Broadstar Steve Else at wind power 2008, you can check that out here if you like. He was a great guy and very passionate about their new AeroCam. BTW i did see an assembled 10kw unit at the show In fact i have video of it on the site further down.

http://mattgoesgreen.com/windpower-2008/

about half way down the page.

I recently ran across this.

http://www.emailwire.com/release/16515-JC-Penney-Announces-Solar-and-Wind-Power-Projects-with-SunPower-Corp-and-Broadstar-Wind-Systems-.html

J. C. Penney is going to install these and solar panels on some of their stores. I am very interested to see how this design works.