The New NIMBY-Defeating Wind Turbine
Wind turbines? Dontcha hate them! Horrible things going round-and-round. Roundandroundandroundandround. They make a lot of noise, and bits seem to keep on falling off them. Dangerous.
Then there’s the NIMBY neighbours: “Oh, we don’t want one of those here,” they say. “Renewable energy: yes. Somewhere where it’s inconvenient: NO!” It’s as though they think a wind-energy solution can be integrated into every house with minimal visual impact.
Well blow me down, it can!!
Ridgeblade is a fabulous wind-turbine solution from UK based The Power Collective. It’s very simple: instead of a large standalone windmill-like structure, put a long bladed turbine along the ridge of a building’s roof.
The blades are about the same length as a medium wind turbine, so you can catch about the same amount of wind. What’s more, as these can be mounted along an existing roof, there’s no need for an additional NIMBY-provoking superstructure.
So revolutionary is this approach that the company has won $750,000 from the Green Challenge Awards.
“It’s beyond a dream,” said Power Collective CEO Dean Gregory when Skype founder Niklas Zennström announced him as the winner. I’ll bet: he’d only entered the competition two days before the closing date!
This is the right kind of innovation, one which will bring a community together to provide energy together on a collective scale, rather than relying upon some far away power station to provide the same for a profit.
Let’s hope it succeeds.
I have been see this desing in last week. It is really unique idea for the rooftop wind turbines. How about its generator efficiency?
It’s not going to rotate to catch wind from every direction, so it can never be as good a traditional one.
Still, better than nothing.
thats a great idea, but not as efficient as the big turbines. and what about the people who live in wooded valleys? people need to get over it. put one in my back yard!! im not a thick skulled elitist..
i don’t imagine a regular turbine would work much better in a wooded valley.
this would be g
another theory goes down in flames, this is just fine as long as the wind direction never changes
the conventional wind turbines track the wind and have a feathering device to avoid damage in case the wind speed becomes to intense
lil more thought needed
It would work well on ranch-style houses with L-shaped ridges on the roof.
Wow. Will these bad ideas never end?
Re: “The blades are about the same length as a medium wind turbine, so you can catch about the same amount of wind. ”
The amount of energy captured is not related to the length of the rotor, but to the **swept area** which is very small in this case. But, why not check in with Paul Gipe and Mick Sagrillo, leading wind power experts:
http://www.wind-works.org/articles/RoofTopMounting.html
Re: “Wind turbines? Dontcha hate them! ”
nope!
We will never see one in use!!
We keep trying to take a non efficient system and making it worse. Wind power is only as good as the battery or system that stores it. It reduces down to the cost per kilowatt. Remember, poverty kills more people than wars, diseases or anything else. The solution must be inexpensive energy. The cheaper the better. I’ll trade in “feeling good” over being poor anytime.
Thanks for all the thoughts everyone!
bawbag’s point that they cannot rotate is a con when compared to traditional turbines; however in most places the roofs are not aligned in straight lines but curve with the road. From a community POV a roof somewhere may be generating at any point in time.
The thing is that this ideas is for a good, unobtrusive turbine which could be fitted to every building. Sure it won’t be as efficient as a large scale wind turbine, but with these fitted to houses the need for large turbines could be drastically reduced.
thos’ point about poverty is also well made and this, once the fundamentals have been sorted out, could well become the lightweight low-technology solution of choice.