The Future of Wind Turbines? No Blades

Liz Stinson
It’s no longer surprising to encounter 100-foot pinwheels spinning in the breeze as you drive down the highway. But don’t get too comfortable with that view. A Spanish company called Vortex Bladeless is proposing a radical new way to generate wind energy that will once again upend what you see outside your car window.
Their idea is the Vortex, a bladeless wind turbine that looks like a giant rolled joint shooting into the sky. The Vortex has the same goals as conventional wind turbines: To turn breezes into kinetic energy that can be used as electricity. But it goes about it in an entirely different way.
Instead of capturing energy via the circular motion of a propeller, the Vortex takes advantage of what’s known as vorticity, an aerodynamic effect that produces a pattern of spinning vortices. Vorticity has long been considered the enemy of architects and engineers, who actively try to design their way around these whirlpools of wind. And for good reason: With enough wind, vorticity can lead to an oscillating motion in structures, which, in some cases, like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, can cause their eventual collapse.
Where designers see danger, Vortex Bladeless’s founders—David Suriol, David Yáñez, and Raul Martín—sees opportunity. “We said, ‘Why don’t we try to use this energy, not avoid it,’” Suriol says. The team started Vortex Bladeless in 2010 as a way to turn this vibrating energy into something productive. They just launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise awareness of the technology.

A prototype of the Vortex. Vortex Bladeless

The Vortex’s shape was developed computationally to ensure the spinning wind (vortices) occurs synchronously along the entirety of the mast. “The swirls have to work together to achieve good performance,” Villarreal explains. In its current prototype, the elongated cone is made from a composite of fiberglass and carbon fiber, which allows the mast to vibrate as much as possible (an increase in mass reduces natural frequency). At the base of the cone are two rings of repelling magnets, which act as a sort of nonelectrical motor. When the cone oscillates one way, the repelling magnets pull it in the other direction, like a slight nudge to boost the mast’s movement regardless of wind speed. This kinetic energy is then converted into electricity via an alternator that multiplies the frequency of the mast’s oscillation to improve the energy-gathering efficiency.
Its makers boast the fact that there are no gears, bolts, or mechanically moving parts, which they say makes the Vortex cheaper to manufacture and maintain. The founders claim their Vortex Mini, which stands at around 41 feet tall, can capture up to 40 percent of the wind’s power during ideal conditions (this is when the wind is blowing at around 26 miles per hour). Based on field testing, the Mini ultimately captures 30 percent less than conventional wind turbines, but that shortcoming is compensated by the fact that you can put double the Vortex turbines into the same space as a propeller turbine.
The Vortex team says there are some clear advantages to their model: It’s less expensive to manufacture, totally silent, and safer for birds since there are no blades to fly into. Vortex Bladeless says its turbine would cost around 51 percent less than a traditional turbine whose major costs come from the blades and support system. Plus, Suriol says, it’s pretty cool-looking. “It looks like asparagus,” he says. “It’s much more natural.”
The company has already raised $1 million from private capital and government funding in Spain, and they have plans to close a round in the United States soon. There’s enough interest, Suriol says, that he fields upward of 200 emails a day from people inquiring about the turbine. Of course, the technology still has a ways to go. They’re hoping to have their first product, a 9-foot, 100-watt turbine that will be used in developing countries, ready before the end of the year. The Mini, it’s 41-foot counterpart, will be ready in a year.
For the time being, you’ll continue seeing pinwheels dotting the landscape, which Suriol is actually happy about. “We can’t say anything bad about conventional wind turbines; they’re great machines,” he says. “We’re just proposing a new way, a different way.”


source :  https://www.wired.com/2015/05/future-wind-turbines-no-blades/

Wind Generator & Solal Panel Wiring Diagram

Saved From : DIY Wind Turbine

Small Wind Energy Goes Urban In Italy, Korea, Brazil And Texas

by Jennifer Hicks
Tech 5/17/2012 @ 5:48PM

Streetlights usually operate at electricity rates like the ones we pay in our private homes. About one-third of a municipality’s electrical costs are for street lighting. So having that energy provided by some form of renewable energy, means that every cent is saved. For municipalities, whose budgets are being squeezed, that’s something serious to consider.
Take Trondheim, Norway for example. The city has 21,500 street lights (1,100 on highways, 2,800 on county roads, 16,600 urban roads, 300 in parks, 700 on private roads). Their 2006 lighting budget to run and maintain, including the cost of the energy for those 21,500 lights was €1,881.250 m euros a year.
It’s possible to reduce today’s energy consumption for street and road lighting by as much as 60% with new technologies – LED, smart lighting, distributed wind energy and even lights out programs. By example, the city of San Jose, California was able to trim down their $4 million annual electric bill for streetlights just by converting their street lights to LEDs. The city of Calgary replaced all of their street lighting with efficient lights which ended up saving the city about $2 million a year. The City of Oslo in Norway, installed intelligent street lighting which led to an energy savings of 70%.

Hybrid wind turbine from UGE powering street lights in Busan, Korea

And if you could power a street light with a renewable energy like wind, why wouldn’t you? That is exactly what some cities around the world are doing, going beyond replacement of street lights with LED but using small wind – through distributed energy – to power their city street lights and other small-scale energy needs.
Energy politics aside, the buzz around wind energy is mostly around reducing dependency on fossil fuels or getting off the grid. But sometimes those big leaps don’t start that big, they start at a local level  – either from a personal desire to make a change in your own electric bill or a city choosing to take a stand and install a hybrid city lighting system.
(The video below shows a row of wind turbine’s powering street lights in Spain.)
The distributed energy market refers to small-scale energy produced primarily for on-site energy consumption meaning street lights, roof tops and ledges anything that requires a direct power source. In 2011, the size of the distributed renewable energy market was estimated around $70 billion dollars globally. It’s expected to top $150 billion by 2015. Because distributed energy is generated at the source of where energy is needed, the inefficient transmission lines are eliminated, creating a more direct source of  renewable energy, with the traditional grid being used as a supplemental energy source.
Urban wind solutions from newcomers are also on the rise.  Italy’s Enatek is building micro wind turbine’s for urban roof tops (Forbes, August 2011) and Southwest Windpower in Arizona (the founders modified a Ford alternator to create their first wind generator) put a roof top wind turbine on house in San Francisco’s Mission district. [video courtesy GigaOm]
All around the world, you see cities (and homeowners) turning to small wind energy solutions to power city lights or control commercial electricity costs.  In fact, the installed capacity for small wind by country at the end of 2012, and this might surprise you, goes like this: US, China, UK, Germany, Canada, Spain, Poland, Japan, Italy, Sweden and South Korea.
Urban Green Energy (UGE) is a relatively new player to the wind business entering the market in 2008, but the company is almost fanatically committed to putting customers in control of their energy source. To them those installations can be residential or commercial from suburban US homeowners to off-grid telecoms towers in rural Africa.

With the right wind resource, hotels, the military, businesses, homeowners and off-grid telecoms sites can generate the energy they need onsite and save on their electric bills, or operate off of the utility grid  –  Mateo Chaskel, AVP Operations, UGE.

UGE has created and installed some unique urban wind turbines in more than 60 countries since 2008. Their emphasis is on small wind system and renewable energy systems. Their vertical axis, versatile hybrid wind systems are not out in the ocean, an open field or windy plateau, but in urban areas right in front of you. Hide in plain site the spy code says, and that’s what UGE has been doing with its customers around the world.
These urban wind installations or renewable energy systems by UGE might not look like what you expect, in fact Don Quixote might not even notice them. But they are making a difference to city budgets globally and setting the pace and perhaps the expectation from consumers that wind energy doesn’t look so bad.

Hyrbrid street lights with custom sails and 150W solar panels and 84W LEDs were used for extra illumination. Busan, Korea

Korea – Hybrid Street Lights
In 2011, Korea’s second largest city, Busan which also happens to be the country’s largest port city, installed Sanya hybrid street lamps. To test their performance before they went live, the hybrid street lamps were placed around the city in a number of varying topographies – the seaside and high and low lying areas including the Amisan Observatory, Hwamyung Arboretum, Busan Central Park, Taejongdae, and the Bn factory.
Typical LED output is around 70W, however the sites in Busan had access to strong renewable energy (wind and sun) so were able to use a stronger wattage which increased the light on the ground.

Italy  – Historic Bell Tower, Italian Flag powered by Renewable Energy

600 w wind turbine on top of Imperia Bell Tower. The Italian flag represented in LED lights is powered by the wind turbine.

In March 2011, a 600W vertical axis wind turbine was installed on top of the historic Bell Tower in Imperia, Italy. The tower was built in 1923 and so it was vital the architectural and design integrity of the Bell Tower was not obstructed by the wind turbine. This wind turbine will offset a percentage of the City Hall’s electricity.
The wind turbine was part of the Mayor’s plans to green the city but also to meet an European Union objective to reduce CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020.
The installation coincided with the 150th anniversary of the unification of the Italian Republic and to commemorate this event, an Italian flag was to be implied with green, white and red LED flood lights which illuminated the facade of Imperia’s City Hall that were powered by the wind turbine –Italy’s first Italian flag powered by renewable energy!
This eddy will offset a percentage of the City Hall’s electricity.
This installation shows everyone that making energy is a fun process that can enrich our city experience. It should become a new way of furnishing the living space we all enjoy outside our home. Wind…is a rich resource…, most importantly it’s free! And [with the wind urbine]…we can [capture] it in style.” –  Dr. Michele Benvenuti of greenwire

Texas – Commercial Building Powers Up with Wind Turbine

A four kilowatt vertical axis wind turbine to power the commercial building

It’s hot in Texas. And energy bills run on the high side all the time. In July 2011, an air conditioner wholesaler, Johnstone Supply in Corpus Christi, Texas decided to take a new approach to his businesses energy bills and installed a 4 kilowatt vertical axis wind turbine on the roof of his commercial property to power his commercial building.
The wind turbine was installed 30 feet off the ground on a fiberglass tower behind the building. Mr. Stephens started a trend and shortly after his installation, several large companies in the Corpus Christi area installed wind turbines on their property to take advantage of the area’s strong winds.

As the owner of an air conditioning business, you use a lot of energy. We’re in a windy area, so I thought I’d give it a shot. The idea fit our business model and we can achieve energy efficiency this way — Tim Stephens, Johnstone Supply

This installation didn’t take long, you might wait longer for your cable guy to show up — drilling and setting the foundation took three hours and setting the turbine on top of the pole took about half a day. This particular turbine can withstand 150 mph wind speeds and can easily be taken down during hurricanes which is a requirement for all wind turbines installed in Corpus Christi.

Wind turbine for eco Hotel, Vale des Nuven, Brazil

Brazil – Hotel Vale des Nuvens

In Guaramiranga, Brazil, Hotel Vale des Nuvens decided to push the eco-hotel concept to the limit and installed in July 2011, a wind turbine was installed at the hotel.

Guaramiranga is 100km away from Fortaleza, the capital of Ceará, a state located in northeastern Brazil. Remote and isolated. The wind turbine, known as the eddyGT, was installed on the property of the hotel and they use the turbine to power the rooms and the hotels ground lighting – actually it powers anything that needs power.
Electric Cars – The Skypump

The Skypump by UGE and GE. Wind turbine + solar panel to charge your electric car.

And now back to you, the consumer.  Wind is everywhere so why not use it to power your electric car. UGE and GE have created what they call the Skypump. One wind turbine, the Eddy4K, and a solar panel connects to a and EV panel (charging station) for electric cars. Back it up, plug it in and charge your car, with wind.  When it’s not charging, the companies say it will send electricity back to the grid. This solution further supports the greening of electric cars because wind is truly green and renewable power source unlike electricity produced from the grid which could be from coal or natural gas. The Skypump is expected to debut in New York or Barcelona early next year.

 

Elecric Generator

The reverse conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy is done by an electric motor, and motors and generators have many similarities. In fact many motors can be mechanically driven to generate electricity, and very frequently make acceptable generators.

In electricity generation, an electric generator is a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. A generator forces electric charge(usually carried by electrons) to flow through an external electrical circuit. It is analogous to a water pump, which causes water to flow (but does not create water). The source of mechanical energy may be a reciprocating or turbine steam engine, water falling through a turbine or waterwheel, an internal combustion engine, a wind turbine, a hand crank, compressed air or any other source of mechanical energy.

Before the connection between and was discovered, electrostatic generatorselectrostatic principles. These generated very high voltages and low currents. They operated by using moving electrically charged belts, plates and disks to carry charge to a high potential electrode. The charge was generated using either of two mechanisms:

• The triboelectric effect, where the contact between two insulators leaves them charged.

Because of their inefficiency and the difficulty of insulating machines producing very high voltages, electrostatic generators had low power ratings and were never used for generation of commercially significant quantities of electric power. The Wimshurst machine and Van de Graaff generator are examples of these machines that have survived.

How to Build Homemade Wind Generator

Phil Martinson

Building a homemade wind generator is a new trend in normal households, although some people hesitate to use it. Well they should not, because this is the only way to reduce your power bills.

Construction is not as hard as it sound, because homemade wind generator consists of few parts which are easy to acquire and assemble.

1. Hub and Blades
2. Body
3. Tail
4. Tower

Yes, that's true, only four part and there is not much more to do also. Although I could tell you exactly how to make the wiering, but its against laws to talk about electrical connections online. Therefore you can read about it from one of the guides we have reviewed.

Building the Hub and Blades - This is somehow the easiest part, because you wont have to build anything yourself here. Whenever you buy a guide you will receive a list of sites from where you can buy hub and blades for very cheap price.

Body - This is usually made from Ventilation pipe, which is really cheap and easy to obtain. Although building homemade wind generator body is somewhat tricky, since you have to seal it properly

Tail - Building the tail part is relatively artistic, because there are hundreds of different designs to choose from. I usually cut my tail out from wood or PVC plastic which is really cheap. There are also other materials you can use for building the tail part.

Tower - seams like a enormous thing to build, but it is easy, because you only have to get a hold on a flagpole or smth. These items are usually really cheap and give good results.

I really recommend you to buy a correct guide like we offer here, because electricity is the hardest part to set up and a good in-depth manual will guide you through nicely.

I hope this helped you,
Phil Martinson

Home Wind Generator - Prerequisites You Need to Check Out Before Installing One

By Chas James

When it comes to building or installing a home wind generator, there are four things that you need to check out in advance so that you can have a successful money saving project. Specifically, they include reliable wind, clear space, legitimacy and your current utility bills. I am going to explain each of these items so that you can make an informed decision after reading this article.

A reliable wind source is very important for a wind generator which is supposed to be propelled by wind. Wind of minimal force and speed, over 9.8 mph, should be available all year long. Otherwise, you will not be able to benefit from the generator. So you should check out or recall from experience what the wind is like in the place where you live. Or you can consult with meteorological bureau.

After checking the wind out, the next step you need to look at is the clear space. Are there many obstructions around where you live? This is because there will be many turbulence around high building or trees which will effect the power sufficiency provided by the wind generator. It is advised to install the wind generator over 30 feet higher than the obstruction in order to keep the utility of the generator high enough. Many experts even recommend that there should be an acre of empty land in order to benefit sufficiently from the wind generation system.

Another external item that you need to check on before setting off in building the wind generator is the legitimacy. The local regulations should be check out. Only when it is locally allowed can you do that. You can also make a call to your lawyer. It is as simple as that.

After you have checked all of these items, you can get started. However, to benefit completely from the project, there is another thing you need to check on, i.e. your monthly utility bills. If you are paying less than $150, then you might hold on and give it a second thought. This is because you will have to invest some money at the beginning, even if you build it yourself. The more you are paying for your utilities, the more you will benefit from the home wind generator.

Now that you have checked out the items that you need to and have made up your mind, thengrab a guide now and get started right away.