Wind

With so many heritage-listed sites and national parks in Britain, there are tight restrictions on what can be permanently built and where. Designer Philip Crewe, however, has come up with the idea of Rural Space, a temporary living space powered by wind and solar energy, which helps people get closer to nature, in considerably more comfort than the standard tent or hostel. Read More

Hywind, the 2.3MW floating offshore wind turbine being developed by Norwegian oil and gas company StatoilHydro, Siemens and Technip has now been installed and moored to the seabed off the coast of Norway. Once cables to the mainland grid have been laid, the wind turbine prototype will undergo a two year pilot which will provide valuable knowledge on how to perfect the technology and hopefully one day enable floating wind turbines to become a financially viable alternative to other energy sources. Read More

Mobile operator Orange and renewable energy specialists GotWind know they’ve hit on a good, marketable idea. The companies have joined forces for a third consecutive year to showcase their outdoor charging solution at next month's Glastonbury Festival, the United Kingdom’s largest and hippest open-air music bash. This year Orange has unveiled a mobile phone charger prototype it’s calling the Orange Power Pump. By treading on what is essentially a standard camping air foot-pump, the kinetic energy created drives a small turbine inside the Power Pump. The energy is converted into electrical current, which recharges the mobile phone. The idea is not only simple, it cleverly encourages you to dance and charge your mobile at the same time. Read More

Wind power is notoriously flighty, particularly at ground level. Most turbine-on-a-post wind powered generators operate at around 20-40% of their rated generation capacity, simply because wind is intermittent and changes direction. But a generator situated 500-1000 feet above ground level would enjoy much more consistent strong wind - which is why the Magenn MARS system makes so much sense. It's a helium-filled rotating airship that spins in the wind on the end of a variable-length tether that also acts as a power transmitter, and it's expected to operate at more like 50% of its rated capacity. Each MARS system will be cheap and portable, which will make them extremely useful in rural, camping and emergency situations. A prototype has successfully been flown in North Carolina. A great idea that makes economic sense. Read More

Wind turbines, predominantly constructed from glass fiber reinforced plastics, are vulnerable to fractures and flaws that can be impossible for the human eye to detect - and even the cracks visible to humans can often only be spotted in a time-consuming and dangerous examination. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute say that their latest robot creation, RIWEA, can solve both problems to increase the overall efficiency of the wind energy system. Read More

While wind turbines are a clean, green way to generate power, they can be a bit of an eyesore and require quite a bit of room meaning, more often than not, they need to be located in sparsely populated areas far from where the generated power is actually needed. We’ve looked at AeroVironment’s innovative urban solution as well as StatoilHydro’s HyWind. Now a look at another innovative product - Windspire. The Windspire, from Reno, Nevada based Mariah Power, combats the large footprint problem by employing a propeller-free design that makes it ideal for rural, suburban, and even some urban residential environments. Read More

Kinesis' K2 device combines a wind turbine, solar panel and internal 3800mAh battery to create a smart charger for all your handheld gadgets The device can be left in a sunny or windy place during the day and can be charge the internal battery 20 hours via wind alone or 8 hours via solar (in direct sunlight) or presumably less than 8 hours by both simultaneously. Read More