Tremendous leap in wind turbine tech
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webbie
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I would assume that the blades have some kinds of slightly different design also....
Whether patented or not, it's a great idea and move forward.....floating them is a good idea also, as opposed to most of the existing which have foundations.
Whether patented or not, it's a great idea and move forward.....floating them is a good idea also, as opposed to most of the existing which have foundations.
I like the fact that this is a low tech improvement with some nice gains. Now, the question is will they stand up better to Godzilla?
btuser
Minister of Fire
Hey I'll believe it. The vacuum behind the blades is a fact. I don't know about the floating hexagons. I bet a single 5 MW reactor could fit inside one of them.
My instict would have been to flip the shroud like a funnel, so that more wind would funnel past the blades. This makes sense like an airplane wing, in the sense that you really don't believe it till you see the airplane flying. 2x the power from the same turbine+tower has to be cost effective.
My instict would have been to flip the shroud like a funnel, so that more wind would funnel past the blades. This makes sense like an airplane wing, in the sense that you really don't believe it till you see the airplane flying. 2x the power from the same turbine+tower has to be cost effective.
Problem of course is that making the blades 50% longer also doubles the power, and is a lot cheaper to manufacture! The other major problem is the tower length - that's determined by the weight on top of the tower, which is usually pretty critical, and they're whacking a whole load extra on with this diffuser. You will probably have seen in the video the towers are extremely short in comparison with conventional wind turbines - this will also reduce the power output (wind blows faster at altitude) and turbine lifetime (turbulence is reduced at altitude).
Floating bases are also nothing new, but are still somewhat in development. Putting multiple turbines on the same base hasn't been done before, with good reason - the downwind turbines are in the wind shadow of the upwind ones, and so get radically less power coupled with more turbulence. The optimum distance is hundreds of metres - far further than would be economical sharing a base. In any case, there are currently plenty of shallow offshore wind farm sites, giving us time to crack the problem of floating bases.
So all in all, a series of bad ideas that everyone else rejected years ago!
Floating bases are also nothing new, but are still somewhat in development. Putting multiple turbines on the same base hasn't been done before, with good reason - the downwind turbines are in the wind shadow of the upwind ones, and so get radically less power coupled with more turbulence. The optimum distance is hundreds of metres - far further than would be economical sharing a base. In any case, there are currently plenty of shallow offshore wind farm sites, giving us time to crack the problem of floating bases.
So all in all, a series of bad ideas that everyone else rejected years ago!
btuser
Minister of Fire
In this case with the floating platforms I think one would capitalize on wave action. But why not both? One transmission line for multiple sources of power generation. I like it. Cover them with solar arrays too.
With strong tides in Puget Sound we have a great opportunity for tidal power. But the wheels grind slowly and there are environmental unknowns. Hope to see some progress here this year with at least a pilot project. http://www.pstidalenergy.org/
With strong tides in Puget Sound we have a great opportunity for tidal power. But the wheels grind slowly and there are environmental unknowns. Hope to see some progress here this year with at least a pilot project. http://www.pstidalenergy.org/
At this point, tidal current turbines are essentialy in infancy. There are powerful systems, however, they can (so far) only utitlise tremendous current flows, on the order of six knotts or better. There are in fact very few places with that kind of current.
There are several different ways to transfer tidal energy into grid power. Not all have the same requirements. Some fill with incoming water, then trap it behind a dam an release it to power turbines. Some use underwater turbines. Another design uses the ebb and flow to displace a large float powering an air turbine. The RITE project in NYC is one to watch. http://verdantpower.com/what-initiative/.
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