Renewable Energy Products - Blue Sky Power

Items:
Total:

0
£0.00

Innovations

The Guardian Tuesday 29.01.2008 Duncan Graham-Rowe

AEROGENERATOR TURBINE SETS SAIL FOR A GREENER FUTURE

It may resemble a giant rotary washing line, but it might just help Britain meet its hugely ambitious new wind energy targets. The 144 meter high v-shaped structure would be mounted offshore and capableof generating up to 9 mega watts of electricity, roughly three times as much power as a conventional turbine of equivalent size. Switching to such a design could ensure that thousands fewer turbines would be needed in order to meet the governments new wind power targets.

The idea of VAWT's has been blowing around for decades, but despite many advantages the technology has so far attracted little interest. That is about to change, according to Bird. Invented by aeronautical engineer David Sharpe, the Aerogenerator is an adaptation of the egg-whisk-shaped Darrieous wind turbines and solves a number of problems originally posed by the technology. One of the advantages with VAWT's is they can be built lower, so they are less visible and can withstand more harsh environments, says TMS's John Nunley. Unlike conventional turbines the company's design doesn't need to be shut down when wind wind speeds exceed 64mph, he claims, and even then the structure can withstand speeds of up to 110mph.

But it will be at least 2013 before we see Aerogenerators as powerful as 9MW and that's assuming Bird manages to convince the right people. BUT if he pulls it off, he may well turn the wind power industry quite literally on it's side.

Please see the link below for the full article.

AEROGENERATOR TURBINE SETS SAIL FOR A GREENER FUTURE