Most people seem to live under the misimpression that wind power has already been perfected. At most, people expect the wind turbines they have already seen to get bigger or more efficient, or maybe float out to sea. There are, however,
different kinds of wind turbines that are being earnestly developed. I bet you haven't seen anything like this before:
As you know I make it a general rule only to talk about devices that are about to see the light of day -- to actually be sold on the open market. This, and the other product I'll show you, are no exception. Read on.
The floating blimp wind power solution is being marketed by a Canadian company called
Magenn. Recently they announced a partnership with a "value added reseller" (VAR) named
Krystal Energy. If their claims are to be believed, a hundred of the 4kw units will be sold and operational by the end of the year. They are working on a range of them, from 1kw possibly up to 1.6MW. The latter would put them in competition with traditional big wind producers like GE and Vestas -- again, if they live up to hype, this is a serious hat being thrown into the global wind power industry ring.
You may wonder how big these guys are. Big. Even the 4kW one is the size of a winnabago. More information is here
On another front, we have a rather humble company that isn't looking to revolutionize the entire industry, just to fill a niche: people who want a wind power solution that works in low surface-level winds. One reason to do this is to avoid building codes:
Terra Moya Aqua has discovered, through a combined approach of computer modelling, small-scale wind tunnel testing, and field testing that it is possible to make the age old Savonius VAWT design reach efficiencies of 40% by adding a shroud (measured by the size of the rotating part, not the shroud.) As it turns out, though the Savonius is in general considered a "drag based" design, it does have some "lift based" properties that are greatly enhanced by the shroud. This is competitive with traditional small wind HAWT designs and in fact bests them in many ways. They are the yellow line on the scaled down image below, click to enlarge.
http://tmawind.com
The picture above shows an earlier attempt -- the new design has three fins and two cups, for what it is worth. For the technically inclined, the PDF paper on their website is a fantastic read.
While TMA have not announced any product availability for the new unit yet, they have, obviously from the photos, made some small number of sales of their original design. In addition, a company touting a similar design to their earlier attempts has announced a contract for 15 units:
http://www.goldrockholdings.com/...
So folks, don't think chemistry and nanotech are the only competitive technology feild in the energy market. Good old-fashioned mechanical engineering is alive and well -- and as TMA shows us, we haven't even scratched the surface on improving centuries-old windmill designs.
Oh, and FWIW, the two VAWT companies are American, for a change.