The Impossible Wind Turbine Design That Just Might Work
Adam Fuller has dedicated his life— and his life savings— to disproving the wind industry’s claim that vertical turbines are ineffective. Last week, I had a chance to talk to the Racine, Wisconsin inventor about his 12 foot diameter, 36 foot tall patent-pending wind turbine.
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Fuller’s design consists of 8 turbines that each have 4 structural steel wind scoops. There are multiple points of impact for the wind to hit, so even the slightest breeze will spin the blades. So far, the prototype has worked flawlessly.
While nobody has ever made an ultra-large scale vertical turbine before, Fuller thinks his design is an excellent candidate.
“I’ve been able to demonstrate that for every 10 feet of baffle, there’s a 300 percent increase of output with the rotor. So my thought is that a 40 foot baffle will increase output by 1200 percent. If the 40 foot baffle system is successful, that means that 1 turbine and baffle system (about $200,000), would have the same amount of power as 12 turbines without baffles (about $150,000 ), so there’s financial efficiency. That’s a big change,” he explained.
Eventually, Fuller wants to build a 120 foot model of his turbine. He estimates that it could produce 30,000 to 75,000 kWh each month—enough for 30 to 70 homes.
Whether Fuller’s dreams of a large scale vertical turbine come to fruition depends on future funding for his project. Fuller was previously funded by an investor who lost most of his money in the current economic crisis. Now he hopes to get money from a government grant.
Once Fuller has some cash in his pocket, he believes his design can go straight to commercial production. “After our organization achieves some credibility, it won’t be difficult to find R&D money, especially with so much evidence that the turbine works. This thing is ready to go to market. ”
The Walworth County News posted a video of Fuller explaining his design here:
Photo Credit: Adam Fuller
This was originally written about in December 2007. Shame that there hasn’t been any good news since then. Maybe Barack will see this video and pay Adam a visit!
http://gazettextra.com/news/2007/dec/26/vertical-tower-next-breakthrough-wind-power/
Seems like he’s going to run into problems with bearings and structural loads at larger scales too.
Congratulations Adam for Amazing VAWT design.
This could be revoulation in wind turbine industry.
This technilogy must focused for commercial exploration. I would be happy to receive more info and up date.
Ravi Soparkar
Pune, India
renewableenergy at in.com
The video is of a very early prototype. The system now has immense walls on each side of the turbine that create a pressure/vacuum combination that is hyper-efficient. This creates enormous increases to the outputs. All engineering has been performed and the machine is rated for codes in over 85% of the country. My email is fadam91@yahoo.com & see website listed above.
“I’ve been able to demonstrate that for every 10 feet of baffle, there’s a 300 percent increase of output with the rotor. So my thought is that a 40 foot baffle will increase output by 1200 percent.”
Extrapolations like this aren’t usually accurate. Further, I’m also confused on
“Eventually, Fuller wants to build a 120 foot model of his turbine. He estimates that it could produce 30,000 to 75,000 kWh—enough for 30 to 70 homes.”
75,000 kWh over what period of time? (A large conventional wind turbine can do that over about 3 windy days.)
The basics of rotating foils began in the 18th Century and were defined in detail by Boeing engineers in WWII. Tip speed is max, hub speed is zero, mean speed is therefore 1/2 max. Since Speed or velocity is squared in the force formula 1/2 squared is 1/4 which tells you the most you can get from a rotating foil is 1/4 of the energy that hits the blades and of course a lot does not. Work also has confirmed that only 1/3 of the rotating blade length can be optimised. So in short your friend just wasted a lot of time and money because he has no ideas what the basics are or what he is doing.
We are in Minneapolis and would like to talk with you. Please contact me or Steve McMIchaels at- 952 484 8598 or 952 393 3706 to discuss how to work together to bring your patent to market. Wind Energy of America
why don’t they coat wind turbines in light solar cells?
“While nobody has ever made an ultra-large scale vertical turbine before”
What do you call the 100 ft tall 300 kW Flowind VAWT?
http://www.ecopowerusa.com/vawt.html
amazing, i hope it works.