Alternative Energy – The Facts – Part 1 – Wind Turbine Designs

While the most common commercial wind turbine is the “horizontal-spindled three-bladed propeller” design, here is a round-up of some of the other types of turbines. Some aesthetically pleasing to the eye if not (yet) top of the efficiency chart in harnessing wind power!

Laddermill

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Researchers at the Delft University of Technology, in the Netherlands are building what they call a Laddermill to tap the steady and stiff winds in the jet stream. This consists of a stack of tethered kites that rise up to five miles in the air and then return toward earth in an endless loop to generate electricity. As the kites sail up to the jet stream and back, they pull with them tethers that turn an electrical generator located on the ground.  This is still at the Research & Development stage… and with such a high altitude, the Laddermill would have to operate in areas clear of aircraft. However, the University says it has proved the basic concept by generating 10Kw of electrical energy by flying a 107 square foot kite.

THE MAGLEV Magnetic Wind Turbine

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The MagLev wind turbine was first unveiled at the Wind Power Asia exhibition in Beijing in 2006. The vertically oriented blades of the wind turbine are suspended in the air above the base of the machine. The turbine uses “full-permanent” magnets, not electromagnets – and therefore, does not require electricity to run. The full-permanent magnet system employs neodymium (“rare earth”) magnets and there is no energy loss through friction. This also helps reduce maintenance costs and increases the lifespan of the generator… claimed to be up to 500 years!

For several years, maglev wind turbines have been held out as the holy grail of the wind energy industry. Efficient, frictionless, a single unit capable of producing the power of 500 standard commercial turbines, maglev technology was said to have it all. But what it didn’t have was, as of the beginning of this year, a significant number of products in the market. The initial cost may also be prohibitive. Some estimates claim large-scale machines can cost $50 million or more, even though they would have longevity and operating costs are expected to be below. A number of companies are now manufacturing versions of the Maglev for commercial use.

WindSpire Turbine

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At a height of 30 ft. tall and only 2-4 feet wide, the WindSpire converts wind energy into measurable electricity through a vertical design, a rotor/generator system (with a low-speed giro mill and rotating ‘air core’ motors) and a wireless modem that an owner can track on a computer. It is said that it can produce about 1900 kilowatt-hours per year in 12 miles per hour average winds, which is about a quarter of the total energy used by a regular U.S. household.

At the beginning of last year, Adobe’s building in San Jose was equipped with WindSpires manufactured in Manistee, Michigan, United States. The turbines were placed on the sixth floor — surrounding the outdoor employee basketball court — where winds can get to about 14 mph.

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