Some people call them ‘kinetic art sculptures’ while detractors say the investment is not worth it.
The fact is that vertical axis wind turbines are constantly evolving and we’re likely to see more of them on top of residences and commercial buildings. They can be placed quite close to the ground, which makes maintenance easy. They operate well in different wind conditions and they make little noise.
Still, some people say the more common horizontal turbines are better and that small wind power generation is “uneconomical”. Horizontal turbines are definitely more widely adopted and their rate of efficiency is higher (35 per cent against 30 percent for vertical turbines).
The jury is out and the answer is, literally, blowing in the wind.
The video below was produced by StranWind, a company producing vertical axis wind turbines and which recently made a presentation at the 6th M.I.T. Energy Conference.
Article by Antonio Pasolini, a Brazilian writer and video art curator based in London, UK. He holds a BA in journalism and an MA in film and television.
4 comments
The problem is only partially the windturbines themselves, it is the amount and quality of the wind in the build environments. In cities and towns the average wind speed is low and and the wind is turbulent. Even if you got a windturbine producing at an efficiency close to the Betts limit, the yield is still extremely low.
With the current subsidies, the yields get better and even more. In addition, VAWT are design precisely to work with gusted winds and turbulences. Low winds are an issue, I agree, but these technologies are site specific. In low wind locations you should go for another technology or at least a combined one (solar-wind?).
The video is actually of an Urban Green Energy wind turbine (Stran Wind is one of their distributors).
My main issue with the wind energy and solar industry in the US is that their products are still way overpriced.
I can say this from experience, as we studied installations in Middle Eastern and African countries, and the installation cost can at times be 4 times cheaper than in the US or Europe!
At these prices, solar and wind would definitely be a no brainer in the US or Europe.
Finally, there is the matter of having cleaner, more efficient batteries.
These 2 factors could revolutionize the industry!
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