Zero-Blade Turbine Could Revolutionize Wind Power Industry

Beth Buczynski | 03 August, 2012 | Clean Tech, Wind

Despite explosive growth, wind energy is still a fledgling industry compared to coal or oil. Although advances in efficiency are announced with increasing frequency, one of the biggest challenges is finding a way to make wind cost competitive with fossil fuels. A new technology from Tunisia-based Saphon Energy could be key to making the next big leap toward more efficient wind power as well as lower production costs.

Saphon is responsible for something called Zero-Blade Technology: a wind turbine design that completely eliminates the need for the three blades that have now become synonymous with wind energy. According to Hassine Labaied, Saphon’s CEO, the design is mainly inspired by the mechanism of a sail boat, and is a new and better way to collect wind’s kinetic energy.

In the bladeless turbine, blades are replaced by a sail-shaped body while both hub and gearbox are removed. Instead of spinning the blades’ rotor, the wind is being harnessed by a sail which follows a non-rotational back and forth motion. According to Saphon’s website, such movement follows a knot path and allows the conversion of the majority of the kinetic energy into mechanical energy (using pistons). The same is then converted to a hydraulic pressure that could either be stored (in hydraulic accumulator) or instantly converted to electricity via a hydraulic motor and a generator. The aerodynamic shape means drag force becomes the driving force of the system while the lift force becomes almost nil.

The company claims that zero-blade technology is capable of overcoming the Betz limit, which states that no turbine can capture more than 59.3 percent of the wind’s kinetic energy. On average, a bladed wind turbine can only capture 30 percent to 40 percent.

Also, without the need to construct and then transport the massive turbine blades into what are usually remote areas, the company hopes to catalyze a drastic reduction in turbine production.

So far, Saphon has patented the Zero-Blade Technology and is now looking to partner with a major manufacturer to bring the technology to the commercial market. “We’ve developed several prototypes. We are at our second generation prototype. We did the testing and this second one is twice as efficient as a three blade turbine and in terms of manufacturing is at least 50 percent cheaper,” Labaied told EcoSeed. Once a manufacturer is found, Saphon believes that it will take around 18 to 24 months to get the first commercial device on the market.

Photo Credit: Patrick Feller/Flickr

http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Barnard/604449062 Mike Barnard

I’m not buying it. It’s a drag based system with greater mechanical actuators hence greater mechanical inefficiencies. It takes no advantage of the aerodynamic efficiencies of triblade turbines to gather additional energy from the wind.

They claim to have run tests on their prototype proving greater efficiency, however, they don’t define efficiency and they don’t publish their actual results.

Like many ‘innovative’ wind generation technologies, they attack the remarkably effective and efficient triblade wind turbines in an attempt to promote their own very theoretical technologies.

One key trigger I’ve come to expect is ‘integrated storage’. The inventors seem to think that wind farms don’t exist in an energy system with enormous grid interconnectedness. Basically, they prey upon the naive for funding.

I’ve assessed a half dozen alternative technologies and the gap between what the inventors say and and what the devices actually do are remarkably wide. I expect that this will be the case here as well.

mrjmgspam

Interestingly, there seems to be neither an animation nor a page showing how the thing works. They remind me of the now debunked cold fusion promises. Their “promo” is little more than a sting of still that reveal nothing of the devices operation other than what look like linkages which would mean that the conical pate would have to oscillate and create great forces on the supporting pole. The whole thing looks fishy to me.

denton2787

thank you for posting. I hate speculators they mess up the world
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Barnard/604449062 Mike Barnard

As has been pointed out on another comment board about this technology, the patent they point to from their website is actually for a bladed wind generator with hydraulic components. Their conical system is not what they have a patent for.

And this system won’t scale up. A conical cross-section at their promised efficiency would have to have a surface area in the range of 15,000 square meters and be ten+ meters in depth to generate as much electricity as a triblade horizontal axis 3 MW wind turbine. That 15,000 square meters would be very heavy regardless of the lightness of the material used. The wind required to move this device would be hurricane scale, and the device would be heavily cantilevered out from the theoretical mechanical linkage requiring it to be much heavier and larger than a triblade design hub.
ActionGarden

Really? You are going to put a good idea down? You know, there is a reason your mothers said, “If you don’t have anything good to say, then don’t say anything at all. They do have an actual system demo in the TED video easily found on youtube. They do have a patient for it. Maybe you can provide ideas on how to improve on the concept rather than quickly dismissing it outright. grrrr.
ActionGarden

Here is a good article containing more info:
http://nicklovesskagit.org/2012/09/01/new-bladeless-wind-power-opportunity/