New Turbines Reduce the Cost of Producing Green Energy

Blogger's Note:
New turbine models are more efficient. They also reduce the cost of producing green energy - yes, there is a cost to producing green energy. The statement below says traditional turbines were only 50 percent efficient. Most data suggests they were only 20 - 30 percent efficient. Which models would you want, the new ones or the old ones?
Watch the video at treehuggers.com or youtube


Jet Engine Wind Turbine is 4X More Efficient, Will Hit Market Soon (Video)
by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York on 01.26.10

A traditional wind turbine extracts only 50% of the available wind energy in the given area it occupies. So perhaps it's time to up the ante, and move past the towering turbines, as iconic as they may be for the clean energy revolution. This is the thinking behind FloDesign's idea--they've created a wind turbine based on the design of jet engine--and they say it's 3-4 times more efficient that the current standard. And thanks to $42 million in recently received funding, this jet engine wind turbine is about to hit the market. Video of the turbine in action after the jump.

Flodesign just received $34.5 million in venture capital, along with $8 million in grants from the DOE, allowing it to begin commercial production on its tested turbine.

Here's how the innovative design looks in action:



As explained in the video, the vast efficiency comes from the technology which "forces air through a small hole to create a pressure differential."

TreeHugger first reported on FloDesign's jet engine wind turbine a little over a year ago, before it had secured funding for large scale deployment. Back then, Matt was intrigued that the proposed unit would reduce the cost of generating electricity by wind power by half by effectively doubling the output from a single turbine.



And it's good to see an idea take off--even exceeding initial expectations in terms of efficiency. FloDesign has evidently garnered so much interest in their technology that it's ""aiming to transform itself from a research and development organisation into a mainstream renewables firm," according to Cleantechnica. Interest has been piqued, and venture capital firms have taken notice--FloDesign may be a major player in the clean energy sector in year to come. And who knows? Its jet engine wind turbine design may be the next pervasive icon of the wind power industry.