Eco Factor: Highly-efficient wind turbine design.
FloDesign Wind Turbine has developed a new turbine design that could generate electricity at half the cost of conventional wind turbine. The design has been inspired from jet engines and avoids the wind losses associated with wind turbines. Normally, when wind strikes a turbine, about half of the wind is forced around the blades and the other half is used in electricity generation.
FloDesing’s new design uses a shroud that directs air through the blades and speeds it up, eventually increasing its output. This design enables a single turbine to generate as much electricity as conventional wind turbines with blades twice as big in diameter would generate. The small size of the blades also allows for more turbines per acre of land.
As air approaches the turbine, it comes across a fixed set of blades, which further redirect wind into a set of movable blades. This rotation slows the wind speed and mixes it with the relatively fast-moving air coming from the shroud. This fast-moving air increases the speed of the slow-moving air, creating a low pressure area behind the turbine blades, which allows more air to be sucked in, increasing the power output.
The Dark Side:
If the company is able to keep the cost of the actual wind turbine down to an affordable amount, then we can expect traditional wind turbine dangers a thing of the past.
Image Courtesy: SustainableDesignUpdate
Via: TechnologyReview
