Affordable Solar & Wind

Helix Wind - Turbine Testing

What can you tell me about wind turbines that move vertically or in a helix shape?

Our town is considering purchasing several of these types of wind turbines. I am on the youth advisory board and we think it will save us time and money as well as a cleaner, more efficient source of energy. Links, videos, and any other information is greatly appreciated as well as your general imput. Thanks!
Overall, do you think this would be an investment or a waste of money. (We would receive grants, fund raise, etc...)
We literally live right on/next to the beach, so we always have plenty of wind currents!
It is not possible to purchase any other type of wind turbine, as we do not have enough room for huge turbines. We were considering attaching them atop light posts and using them to power these huge "cutters" that shred "things" from out toilets, sinks, etc before leaving to a sewage plant. These "cutters" use a tremendous amount of energy and cost the town $20,000-$25,000 in electrical energy alone.

Hey Love Me...I'm curious what got you interested in that particular type of wind turbine? The vertical helix used to be called the Darrieus Rotor, named after a French engineer who invented it years ago. They were never meant for power developement because they are fairly inefficient as wind turbines go, and since all the stress of the wind load has to act on the base of the rotor, until recently, you never saw them in any real size. For the swept area they cover, lots of the energy is used up swinging the rotor the wrong way through its circular course, but it still acts as a side load even on the trip back to its power curve portion of its rotation. They were used as small water pumpers for remote locations, or to power a small DC generator for remote electronics, like an unmanned weather station. To take one of these devices and use it to make thousands of kilowatts of power would be kin to using minivans to haul jersey barriers around town. There are naturally people in a hurry to sell something like this because the world is suddenly in the market for all things renewable, and they look really neat, but there is a reason that nearly all wind turbines designed to produce electricity over the last 50 or 100 years are horizontal axis. In a horizontal axis turbine, the blade is producing power during its entire rotation, and can produce much more power in the same swept area as the Darrieus Rotor, yet all the side load forces act at the hub which is very near the center of pressure of the rotating blades.

The most efficient wind turbine in the world will never operate above an efficiency of 39%. This is referred to as the Betz Limit, again named after an engineer who developed it some 60 years ago or so, most horizontal axis commercially built units today operate in the 25 to 30 % range, pretty good as wind turbines go. My suggestion, since you are involved in more than buying one of these to put in your garden, is not to waste your time asking hacks like me online for advice, go to the source where people work with these things all the time. The American Wind Energy Association has been testing, promoting and improving designs for years, and they run classes on these things. There are some other places to look for info as well, I will list them below.

In case you're wondering, the reason we know all this is we live in a home that is powered by the wind and sun, has been for over 10 years now. I can assure you that we haven't saved any real money making our own energy, for us it has become more of a hobby and environmental cause. Utility power in most places today is really inexpensive when you consider all that goes into making and shipping it. Some people grow their own tomatoes even though they are cheaper to buy at the store. In addition to the cost and time invested, they have to know about watering, ph, bugs and dirt. People that grow their own electrons have a similar curse, we have to know where each one goes in our house, because we would rather eat a bug than start up the generator. Check out the sources below, and try to make it to one of the energy fairs listed in Home Power Magazine, that is where we got started. In the end, you might decide not to get involved at all, and that's fine, but at least you will be well informed. Good luck, and take care, Rudydoo

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Darrieus Wind Turbine $76.47 High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles The Darrieus wind turbine is a type of vertical axis wind turbine used to generate electricity from the energy carried in the wind. The turbine consists of a number of aerofoils usuallybut not always vertically mounted on a rotating shaft or framework. This design of wind turbine was patented by Georges Jean Marie Darrieus, a French aeronautical engineer in 1931. The Darrieus type is theoretically just as efficient as the propeller type if wind speed is constant, but in practice this efficiency is rarely realised due to the physical stresses and limitations imposed by a practical design and wind speed variation. There are also major difficulties in protecting the Darrieus turbine from extreme wind conditions and in making it selfstarting Author: Miller, Frederic P./ Vandome, Agnes F./ McBrewster, John Binding Type: Paperback Number of Pages: 104 Publication Date: 2010/07/01 Language: English Dimensions: 5.98 x 9.01 x 0.24 inches

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