Above, is an interesting video done by one of the more popular youtubers in this space. It looks at a fascinating new idea about how we could harness the wind.
You might well ask, why do we need a new way? and that is a good question. The simple fact is that in the current model that we use with the standard wind turbine, they are reaching the biggest size that they can possibly be (there is a wind turbine in China, which is 50 storeys high). It is likely the simplest way to harness wind power at sea, but what about power for a single building or a small village? This new way of harnessing the wind has got Bill Gates attention with a cost of roughly 1/3. Being only 25m tall rather than the normal height, it could be placed in far more places, without reducing the power given. Furthermore, on this system, the whole of each blade actually helps pull around the track, rather than just the tip. It is true that these are early in their process, but why is this useful. Well with this idea, you could for instance put a track over a long terrace of houses, or even over a stretch of motorways. Furthermore, it is possible to put all of the parts of an 2.5mw turbine inside a single lorry.
Installation costs are Airloom energy $0.21Â per watt installed, vs wind farm $1.25 per watt on standard wind turbines. Multiplying that up, Airloom would cost $210,000 per megawatt hour, while a windfarm would cost $1,250,000. Looking at it differently, if Airloom succeeds, you would be able to install almost 6megawatt hours of Airloom for every megawatt hour of normal wind turbine. It should be noted that in recent times, solar has overtaken wind as the cheapest form of electricity generation. This to reverse this gain for a very long time.Â
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Another big bonus, is that as the blades are smaller and moving slower, it gets quieter. Now, it is a question of how quiet it gets, but if it is quiet enough, perhaps we could install these things above houses. Another advantage, is that, as a result of the far lower speed which any part of the turbine is moving, they do not kill birds. While you may not want it on a house in a picturesque national park, a remote cabin could produce huge amounts of electricity.
Having only been announced late last year, there is still likely quite some time of testing, likely seeing larger setups in the next few years. The next move, is to scale the design up to a 1mw system. It seems reasonable to suggest that it is still going to be a few more years before these become common,