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Underground Wind Turbines? You Betcha
A Chaska, MN-based renewable energy development company, SheerWind, is putting a new twist on wind power by moving the spinning blades on top underground. The new wind turbine technology, called Invelox, promises significant cost, reliability, power and esthetic improvements compared to current turbine technology.
It's in the running for a $100,000 grand prize at the Clean Energy Challenge in Chicago, hosted by an Illionois-based partnership of research institutions, corporations, investors, foundations, trade groups, and government agencies, and rewards the most innovative clean energy companies in the Midwest with cash prizes.
Invelox is definitely innovative. Imagine the typical wind turbine as you drive down the interstate in rural Minnesota or Iowa. Now reduce the height by half, put the turbine blades underground, and replace them with a double-tiered, skyward-facing phonograph horn. This technology, developed by SheerWind founder Daryoush Allaei, harnesses whatever wind is blowing above ground and directs it through small openings below ground, increasing the velocity and therefore the production power of the wind, to turn the turbine blades attached to generators. The process essentially does with air what a dam does with water.
There aren’t any pilot programs or test models of the Invelox technology in action yet. But Sheerwind’s simulations and computer models predict that the technology can produce nearly three times more power than a conventional turbine, with cuts in installation costs, lower operation and maintenance expenses, and a reduced landscape footprint than current wind towers.
But what I think is the most significant feature of Invelox is its apparent ability to generate power at wind speeds as low as 2 mph. If this claim holds up in test models, this technology could make wind power feasible in countless areas where current technology doesn’t work. And it increases the opportunities for utilities to use wind power as a baseload energy source rather than as alternative or peak demand sources.
Although Invelox has not yet ventured from the laboratory of computer models and simulations into the real world, SheerWind’s emerging tech has some power behind it. In addition to being a finalist at the upcoming Clean Energy Challenge, SheerWind was a finalist at the Clean Tech Open in 2011 and received the Sustainability Award for the North Central Region. And one look at its management and advisory teams, which include former Xcel Energy execs, former Chief of Staff for the Army Corps of Engineers, and strong business and academic representation, indicates that the right people are taking this technology seriously.
Technology and business innovations from a Minnesota-based company that can provide clean energy for our state. Everybody wins.
Posted in Economic Development | Related Topics: Energy Wind Energy Small Business Technology
7 Comments
January 26, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Hey Bill, Iam just telling you what the volcanologist told me in the park. He said that this has happened a number of times & when they close the site the geysers re-appear. That’s different than drilling deeping to use the heat of the volcano(big bucks) than someone trying to tap into the steam power to run a local power plant(small bucks). I’ll match his doctorate to yours, but I think we are talking about different scales.
January 26, 2012 at 2:26 pm
Wow Tony, you just spouted one of the 2 most common of the untruths about tapping power from Yellowstone. The other one is that we would set off the volcano. You should watch PBS more often. Tapping heat from Yellowstone would be from much deeper than the guysers and would have no effect on them what so ever. Perhaps you would rather have a few dozen more Nuclear plants, or better yet let’s disappear anouther mountain for coal.
January 26, 2012 at 1:08 pm
Insteresting idea. And furthermore,,it seems to me that this technology could be adapted for use in urban areas with high rise buildings. The buildings already gather and direct the wind.
January 26, 2012 at 12:19 pm
Good luck Bill on your project. Im sure it will be a success. The problem with Yellowstone is if you tap into the thermal features you shut off the geysers. The last time I was in the park, they went after a landowner on the edge of the park that had tapped a steam vent & shut off the thermal features in a part of the park. The people have spoken and they said dont mess with the thermal features in the park.
January 26, 2012 at 9:13 am
Excellent and useful piece Will. I too am working on a low profile Darrieus offshoot with low profile and low wind speed qualities. There are 2 other even larger potential energy sources that need more exposure. Ocean currens that at 6 knots hold more power than a 30 mph wind. The other is geothermal using the largest heat source in the USA, Yellowstone. Yellowstone holds the potential to produce more enegy than we will need for the next 100 years at less than 2 cents per kilowatt. Of course your enviro friends will move heaven and hell to keep us from capturing this free renewable energy. The only thing we need is a government by the people to aggresively go after and capture these sources.
January 26, 2012 at 8:49 am
The creativity of humans is amazing. We can come up with solutions. After the oil crisis of 1973, where the Arabs cut us off ... you think we might have been a bit more proactive after that? Nope, we relied totally on the “let the market” decide approach… even though there was this clear global political element. So the oil industry opted to? The “keep them addicted to oil, and “keep raising the price” approach. Which is why they are now the most profitable .. and incredibly, still subsidized here… global companies.
We have delayed and delayed facing this. About 40 years worth. It was/is going to be tough problem. I do think Kennedy said it best that “our problems are made by man, and therefore can be solved by man….” This is way different from the doom-and-gloom, here’s some scarcity-for-you (but not so much for me) approach that the cynical and resigned crowd is constantly “selling.”
I’m with Kennedy. Our energy problems were made by man… and therefore they can be solved by man. Let’s have our human ingenuity, rather than cynicism and resignation, triumph.
W. D. (Bill) Hamm says:
January 26, 2012 at 5:50 pm
Old Faithful has changed it’s timetable many times since we have been monitoring it. The newest geological information about the magma pool under Yellowstone shows where we can drill down and then diagonally like what is done for fracking. The difference is that the pipe is sealed as is the steam system, the pipe heats the steam. We have only to look to iceland for the best how to technology. Without this energy source we will wait a lot longer for hydrogen technology to be affordable.