Inventor Patents “Tree-Hugging” Hollow Wind Turbine For Urban Areas
Finding the space for wind turbines in urban areas is difficult—even for vertical turbines like Mariah Power’s Windspire. But a new design from Sridhar Condoor could drastically reduce the space requirements for wind turbines. Condoor’s turbine is hollow, cylindrical, and lacks a central hub. Its hollowness allows it to be placed around existing objects— so you could literally have a tree-hugging turbine.
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The outside of Condoor’s turbine is fitted with inlets that catch the wind from all directions. The inlets are toothed on the inside to drive a gear that powers an internal generator.
An inner frame on the turbine lets the main cylinder rotate freely, and also provides the option for the turbine to be mounted around other objects either vertically or horizontally. In addition to minimizing space requirements, this feature could also help hide some of the turbine’s “uglier” features.
Condoor filed for a patent on December 9, 2008, so chances are that he has a long way to go before his turbine is ready for commercialization. Still, his design is something to keep an eye on.
Photo Credit: WIPO
“so you could literally have a tree-hugging turbine” … or an expensive bird house.
Why hang it on a tree? How many trees are there in a concrete urban setting? Small ones at best I know, I know you are planting more…
Instead hang them on a street lamp to power the light, like the new ones discussed in this article:
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/12/29/new-york-city-to-install-led-streetlamps/
The lamp can be powered by solar and wind…
Also you could hang them on telephone poles all across the country. Half of the infrusturcture is already in place. Just add the turbine and inverter.
All of these ideas can work. But IMO they are a diversion from real progress. There’s no way this turbine can convert kinetic energy to electricity as efficiently as the three bladed horizontal axis turbines. As people keep being interested in all these very interesting designs, they are being diverted from going ahead with superior systems already in production. Example, the WindSpire referenced above has a cut in wind speed of 9mph. The reason is that it has serious drag. One side catches wind, the other resists wind. A three bladed turbine with a horizontal shaft, like home wind turbines developed by WindEnergy7 has very little drag in comparison. That’s why it has a cut in speed of less than 6mph. These odd looking vertical turbines like drawn here, and Windspire look cool, but simply cannot make energy as effectively, it takes so much more wind just to start them up. Like driving a car with the brakes on, it’s just not a good design in comparison, no matter how neat it may look. Sop, before you buy a “neat looking” vertical turbine, compare the cut in wind speed to a competing turbine like WindEnergy7.
Like chrisp said above, right on buddy. With a small turbine and solar panel, put in an efficient LED light source, and you have a winner. But again, the most efficient models of this have a normal three bladed turbine, not an inefficient vertical drag turbine.
Disregard Home Turbines comments.
This does and will work.
Great idea. Start manufacturing and you have a big winner