1/17/2006: Horizontal windmill

[Undertoad]

It took a French-to-English translation of the full story for me to comprehend what this is. It's the first horizontal windmill in France, they say. First one I've ever seen, too.

They're putting on top of a building where it will generate 9000 kW/h -- they don't say whether that's in top gear, or an average. Well, nothing else is going on, on top of most buildings, so why not take advantage and generate a bit of juice.

One interesting thought. The mill is one of the earliest ways that humanity captured energy for its own purposes. Designs for different types of mills are some of the earliest hard core engineering ever done. A tremendous amount of thought went into designing and building the things, over centuries of time. And yet, here is an innovation that only recently happened, due to the need to take advantage of different space with different demands.

There are always new things in the world, you know?

[Wormfood]

Hope that roof is not accessible to anyone while they're on.
They look fastrotating. So watch your heads guys...

[beavis]

let's hope a bird doesn't get sucked into a wind current up there...

[srom]

nine-thousand? that's a lot of lightbulbs...

[barefoot serpent]

I think that design will allow it to work with the wind coming from any direction. So it won't need to be able to turn on a vertical axis.

[gerstle]

i want one, that's damn cool.

[YellowBolt]

9000 kW/h... how much power is that compared to say... a regular generator and a regular windmill?

[glatt]

I have no concept of units of electricity. So I tried to Google it to get some idea of how much power we are talking about. According to this, the average household electric power demand in the US in 1997 was 10,219 kWh. So that's roughly what a typical house runs on in a year.

If this thing generates almost that much in an hour, then I'm floored. It just seems impossible to me. What am I missing? It's too good to be true.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by glatt

According to this, the average household electric power demand in the US in 1997 was 10,219 kWh.

Following the link above, (thanks onetrack!) we see that one module produces the following:

A WindWall turbine consists of one or more interconnectable modules. The specification of a standard module is:

Rotor diameter: 1990 mm
Length: 5 m.
Mass: 1500 kg
Nominal capacity: 2 kW
Yearly production: 1500-4500 kWh/y dependent on wind and location

So the 9000 kWh quoted from the article is the absolute most that two of these modules can provide in a year. A typical US household uses 10,219 kWh in a year.

The bottom line? The turbines pictured in this IOD don't even produce enough power to run one typical US household, but if it's a very windy location, they come close.

[Pancake Man]

Is it just me, or could that beat one huge egg?

[Wombat]

A few years ago I saw a design for a giant flying one of these. It would fly like a kite, with the powerline doubling as the string to hold the kite in place. It had a generator/motor at each end of the axis. To get it up in the air, power was fed to it and the motors turned it and it flew itself up. Once it was at maximum altitude (really high, in the jet-stream) it would then get turned by the wind and the motors would become generators and it would send power back down to the ground. It could stay up for days or weeks at a time because the wind in the jet-stream is fast and steady. It would only need to be winched back down to ground if a storm was approaching (the generators could be made to work as motors again to power a safe landing).

[xoxoxoBruce]

From the link via babelfish;

"It has a power of 9.000 kW/h and should produce the equivalent of consumption necessary for the common parts of the two buildings (of 20 dwellings each one, note) located below"

It looks to me like the shore in the background so they're probably going to have an onshore/offshore winds thing happening, hence the orientation.

[richlevy]

I saw the vertical eggbeater versions in a demonstration in 1976. The company claimed they were more efficeint than the propeller design, but all I see are the propeller style windmills, so something must be driving the selection.

BTW, the kite idea sounds interesting, but if enough people did it I could imagine a real hazard to airplanes. It would be like having barrage balloons in WWI and WWII.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by richlevy

I saw the vertical eggbeater versions in a demonstration in 1976. The company claimed they were more efficeint than the propeller design, but all I see are the propeller style windmills, so something must be driving the selection.

IIRC, Popular Science showed a ship designed with several vertical eggbeaters powering the electric motor driven props.

[VinDurzle]

Originally Posted by richlevy

I saw the vertical eggbeater versions in a demonstration in 1976. The company claimed they were more efficeint than the propeller design, but all I see are the propeller style windmills, so something must be driving the selection.

BTW, the kite idea sounds interesting, but if enough people did it I could imagine a real hazard to airplanes. It would be like having barrage balloons in WWI and WWII.

I wonder...If these are more efficient, why not have wind farms with this style on end for more efficient use of space? As you say something must be driving the prop style generators.

btw looks like a giant one of those weird head massage things people have at festivals! Itd certainly take care of any headache!