Super Efficient Floating Wind Turbines from Magenn
Wind turbines at ground level produce at a rate of 20-25%, but when placed at altitudes from 600-1000 feet, energy output can double. Ottawa-based Magenn Power is in the prototype stages of the world’s first floating wind turbine. The Magenn Air Rotor System or MARS is a stationary blimp kept afloat with helium and tethered into place on an electrical grid. Centrifugal blades on the MARS can generate up to several megawatts of clean, renewable energy at a price well below our current grounded wind turbines.
While we’ve been intrigued by other forms of lofty renewable energy systems, MARS stands out for its seemingly low-impact presence and highly mobile capabilities. Eventually the company hopes to use MARS in remote locations for camping or cabins, in developing countries with little rural access to electricity, and for emergency disaster relief. For now, Magenn is focused on viability and testing the prototype.
Via Inhabitat
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So does this type make bats heads explode also? Because that was always my favorite part about the ground types.
absolutely beautiful.
How does it stay aligned with the wind?
Way cool - I wonder how many I would need in my backyard to power my house…
Now, what happens when this is invariably struck by lightening?
windmills naturally line themselves up with the wind. It usually isn’t optimal because of friction and variations in wind directions but its worked for centuries with traditional windmills.
I believe the anchoring point ought be a motorized spool with an attached computer, powered by a lead-acid battery (or multiple). The computer could wind & unwind the turbine on schedule, upon getting wet, or upon command. With the turbine & its tether acting as an antenna & a transmitter mounted on the turbine axle, wireless range for the transmission & receipt of commands should be sufficient. Of course, keeping the batteries charged should be a simple task for the turbine.
@Bryan J Blevins: I imagine some creative engineering can result in a design that maximizes the turbines perpendicularity to wind direction. I also imagine that it will be impossible to achieve a constantly perfect orientation. Changing wind directions will not only hurt efficiency, but twist the tether. One possible solution to reduce twists is for the spool to be mounted on a rotating pedestal. I’m not a materials engineer, but nifty things have been done with fiber optics being embedded in materials to monitor for stress.
@ikkonoishi: All renewable energy sources have some impact. They all require some disruption of environment to the detriment of local species, and all require raw materials which are themselves disruptive to acquire. Geothermal power is possibly the least species-disruptive, but it’s simply not feasible in many parts of the world.
oops, forgot
@Faranya: The winching down of the turbine during storms will reduce its vulnerability. For particularly vulnerable locations, the turbine and spool can be placed in a retractable lean-to that is grounded independently from the turbine. Otherwise, the turbine can be winched to a rest upon a (separately grounded) pedestal which surrounds the winch but does not touch it. This should help keep the winch assembly dry and direct some of the errant lightning through the pedestal - reducing the chance of the tether cable frying from the shock.
You’ve accomplished nothing when you produce an unfeasible design.
Helium is not common in rural Manitoba; generation devices capable of several megawatts are neither common nor are they likely to survive a drop to the soil when the wind fails and no system retrieves the MARS. You see, computers fail, battery backup systems can fail to be ready, and then … lightning. Lightning often strikes the higher objects before any other objects…. a 600 - 1000 foot high MARS which is tethered from the top of a hill is the object most likely to be struck first. And then there is the problem of winds that start shifting to such a degree that nothing can winch the MARS in quickly enough. Or maybe you make a MARS which is more robust, and allow it to swivel 360 degrees, which means the problem of the rotor swath of the land based bladed turbine has now become a hemispherical restriction of much larger cubic volume.
Ummm Think of kites. You cant have too many of these near each other. imagine untangling them
why not let them get struck by lightning … a thin conductive skin (or lightning rod type extension) could (possibly) transmit the bolt to the ground station and this becomes a dual natural energy source