We are going through an energy crisis and scientists are busy looking for renewable energy sources. However, even among those that we have already explored and used, there is a lot of room for improvement.
For instance, look at the windmills which make use of wind energy to generate power. While they are a great invention when it comes to harnessing wind power, they pose quite a threat to the birds and aesthetically speaking, not so pleasing to see on the landscape. This is where the highlight of this post comes in. This new windmill comes from Sheerwind, a Minnesota based company, and it does not rely on blades to harness wind energy.
This wind turbine makes use of funnels and tubes to harness wind energy. The Invelox turbine is capable of harnessing wind energy from winds which are as slow as 2mph and that is made possible by directing the wind into a funnel and then channeling it via a tube to the generator of turbine located on ground. Usually the wind turbine generator is situated on top of the tower. However, Invelox keeps the generator on ground and directs wind to it. The other obvious difference being that in conventional methods, wind energy is harnessed when it passes through the blades. With this design, that wind is captured via a funnel that leads to the generator.
So how is it done? Basically, the wind is made to pass through a passage which tapers along the way and hence, accelerates. This induced kinetic energy is then used to run the generator. The effect is known as ‘jet effect’ and is achieved by forcing the wind to blow down a passage which narrows at the end. The end result is wind with increased velocity but low pressure. The technique is known as Venturi Effect and as per Sheerwind, by employing this technique, the wind turbine can operate even when the wind blows at 2mph.
This particular design is capable of producing 600% more energy in electrical terms due to the low wind speed it is capable of operating on. Sheerwind has also said that this system of theirs’ is scalable which means that it can be installed for smaller setups as well. Plus, the system will also reduce the risk that current system poses to birds and bats. Further details and requirements can be sent to Sheerwind on their website.
According to Sheerwind; ‘Conventional wind turbines use massive turbine generator systems mounted on top of a tower. Invelox, by contrast, funnels wind energy to ground-based generators.’ It further said; ‘’Instead of snatching bits of energy from the wind as it passes through the blades of a rotor, wind is captured with a funnel and directed through a tapering passageway that naturally accelerates its flow. This stream of kinetic energy then drives a generator that is installed safely and economically at ground level.’
This just might be the breakthrough which scientists have been attempting for, fingers crossed!
Hahahaha haters must be invested elsewhere. vvv
I think it should be work good
I think u have good grammar
Well I am not an engineer but the fact that the wind speed in the city of Pittsburgh, or any other big city downtown for that matter is clearly higher between the high rises tells me that wind does get compressed into those funnels from the following air, or not???
The last page (entitled “Downwind”) in the April 2014 Windpower Engineering & Development Trade Magazine is a full page article concerning “Windsheer” information. Nicely done. I think they are genuinely thinking! Most of us are looking for the holy grail, the processing of 100% of the wind stream confronting and arriving into the area of influence of Wind Energy capture machines. Most of the wind stream that flows by the three – bladed propellers is unused. Perhaps 3 to 5% of that wind flow actually directly impacts the prop blades and provides motive rotational force to the propeller (they are not “turbines” as we know turbines. A JET engine is a turbine!) So many of us out there see the vast inefficiencies inherent in that industry standard of Wind Energy Capture that we become inspired to try to do something better, influence the industry to drift into a new, accepted standard. Just as the promoters of the Windsheer have seen (and many others (Sauer Energy of Camarillo, California comes to mind) I too have noted the incredible complexity, massiveness and mega dollar expenditures of the Wind Farms and the wall that prevents economical placement of Power Augmentation Wind Machines in urban areas (safety concerns, unsightly, noisy). Therefore I too have joined the fray to endeavor to improve the Wind industry and capture The Next Big Thing in wind profits, reliability and efficiency. I finally received my patent for the CALIFORNIA WIND ENGINE on July 15, 2014 and will be entering the promotion of my design that processes THIRTY TIMES the wind that a similar – sized PROPELLER does. This should be FUN! Out of Burbank, California.
4 years later how have things progressed?
The Invelox is a very ineffective and very misleadingly represented wind generation device. It’s not six times better than conventional wind turbines, it’s six times worse.Don’t invest. Run away.
Dear Mike Bernard, Can you please share some statistics that support your caim? It can be helpful in measuring the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of this new technology.
Don Green, you have it exactly right. Spindrift energy is trying to sell the same thing, but with water as the working fluid. The reason narrowing the tube through which a fluid passes works in the case of a water turbine is the PRESSURE of the water column above. There exists no high pressure source to force that air down the funnel, therefore, it will NOT accelerate appreciably as it falls through the funnel. Therefore, the claims are unfounded.
What if a long flat-black vertical chimney was added to the exit?
The solar heat would create a updraft helping to pull air through the system.
I need información sobre el costo de colocar. eolicos o fotovoltaicas
1) Pressure difference after turbine is placed. Wouldn’t the air just be forced upwards out of a low pressure intake?
2) In a friction free environment it makes sense why not, however consider friction between air & surface molecule of the pipelines?
3) The exit funnel being parallel to any intake direction will negate any air intake in that particular direction.
4 ) ** MR Q Guy, God knows which university on earth gave you a doctorate, but seriously more than 1 law of physics is applicable to almost any objects. So there are far more variables negating the venturi itself, thus making this project completely invalid. And if it does work. I would like to know why the objects I threw off Taipei tower didnt hit the ground at the same time.
I am just a freshly graduated Civil Engineer from University of Glasgow, maybe thats why I can remember most laws as opposed to “So Called” experts who only has fluid dynamics in their head.
However, I have been tinkering with a model of the Invelox that I got made personally, and from my little knowledge of my field, I would like to add that structural modification to the tower / extension nearing the exit to form a natural vortex could actually give this project some productivity.
It looks interesting and mathematically sounds promising. In order to address some of the questions in the blog, facts and experience tend to be the best defense. My questions are: 1. What is/are the largest turbine/s and its real life generating output in the field right now? 2. When are larger units going to be in production? 3. It is mentioned that it has scaled up to 25MW, where? 4. Is it setup to store the energy for used when required or is just fed to the grid?
Thank you,
Steve
To Fraforst , possibly apylleraine, maybe the same person. Lord. To address your earlier concerns, Fraforst, I disagree on most of what you put forward. You seem to think that simply because you have a funnel and wind is pointing in that direction, that it will be eager to be compressed and speed up because it will be led into a constricted tube, Lordy, I have no choice but to speed up, and look at the miracle, now we have faster speeds and magically, more power. 30 years in fluid dynamics? Really? I think you need to sue the school that took your money. No, that doesn’t happen. Airflow increases when it is encouraged to do so, not when it is imagined to do so. My opinion is that this is nothing more than an investment scam, and there will never be any intention to sell another if these ridiculous things because then they can be tested and exposed for the fraud they are.
I am interested in the sounds generated by this turbine, are they higher, lower dba than traditional turbines? How about infrasound? Also what are the dimensions of the model that outputs 25MW?
It’s amazing what you can find on the internet. After your last response , FraForst, aka Daryoush Allaei, I got curious. You failed to mention that you are the CEO of Sheerwind, the company that produces these things. Methought you protested a bit too much, and your writing style is well known.
You’re probably right. Believe what you want.
Mt. Don Green,
Interesting reasoning, you claim because you worked with Wind tunnels, therefore what you say is correct. even though you present no physics or engineering reasoning. If you check their web site, there are a few professors on their team, one of them is full professor in Fluid Dynamic with over 30 years of experience. My Q is what it is that you know and these professors do not? what do you know that full scale CFD models, done by two universities, do not tell us? Now, when you say you do not buy 2m turbine generating much more power than traditional ones, did you do the calculation assuming the wind speed increases? it is simple power equation that you can find anywhere on web.
then the Q of increasing wind speed is raised. I hope we agree some wind goes in the tower, if that is true, what ever enters in the funnel must go through the Venturi section, are you claiming that wind speed does not increase? if so, you must be claiming that mass flow changes, that means what goes in does not come out. that is totally against the simple law of physics because what goes in has to come out. once a certain amount of air enters the intake and the cross section decreases, the speed must go up to compensate for narrow passage. and if what goes in has to come out through much smaller cross section, then it has to speed up. this simple principal that is known as Bernoulli and Venturi.
Yes, the outlet cross section is important, but I am sure they are or have optimizing their system.
In short, I certainly believe you have it all wrong.
To Fraforst, the current rotors you refer to are very massive indeed. This design was supposed to replace this size while exploiting low speed wind energy. Claims like 50kw with a 2 meter rotor make great press, I don’t buy it. For some reason, you believe that just channelling airflow into a space you want will increase the speed of that airflow just doesn’t work. Build a wind tunnel. Try it out. Good luck with that. I’ve been working with a wind tunnel for years, and it’s a lot more subtle that this. I wish it worked, life would be much better. There are answers, but I doubt this is one of them.
What is called “seriously massive.’ The current rotors are not massive? 135m rotor diameter is large enough for two 747 airplanes. that is massive. Based on what I read, their current demo is 50KW and uses 2m rotor. a traditional turbine uses 20 m rotor for 50kW tower. When i do the math, it makes sense to me. if you increase the speed by a factor of 2, 3, 4 (let’s say they can do so), then 2 m rotor can make as much power as 6m, 10m, and 16m rotor, respectively. they claim they can place multiple rotors in the Venturi section, if that is true, then the physicist supports their numbers. Also, their current demo appears to be omnidirectional system, taking wind from any direction. However, if one looks carefully, it is really four unidirectional systems put together. this means for a given wind direction only one of the 4 intakes is active in taking wind in. Of course they have much to show and demonstrate, but from basic physics and fluid dynamic point of view, I can not find anything wrong with it. the people they have on their team are pretty experienced people both in technical and business. I doubt it if they oversee these simple issues.
In my previous comment I confused the smaller turbine cross-section with the larger one. My error. Still, a few things bother me: there is no mention of the turbine itself. A generator can be a fairly bulky object, one that blocks airflow. You could do a belt, chain, or gear-driven system that would remove the generator from the airflow, but these things still reduce efficiency. I’m just skeptical. Perhaps if I saw vortex-inducing surfaces inside the tubes, similar to V. Shauberger’s work, I could be more convinced. If you want to pass fluids (air is a fluid) most efficiently through a tube and increase velocity at the same time, you need to induce a vortex, think water going down the bathtub drain. But doing that requires a very different type of turbine blade. Still, even with the workman standing beside these large tubes, the actual size of the turbine would be modest.
I like the inventiveness, the thought process, and the idea itself. Presumably this has had some real-world testing. So I’m curious about the installed cost per kilowatt, which is always key in these applications.
I also have some specific questions about any installation:
1. How do you keep birds and bats from flying into the intake? It seems that once they’re in, they’re going through the turbine. That can’t be good, either for them or the turbine. In the same vein, how do you keep crawling animals from walking into the outlet stream to get at the carrion that’s going to be inside?
2. The installation does not seem to be vaned to turn to face the wind, and the outlet is certainly stationary. So it seems that the inlet has to be faced toward prevailing wind, and the outlet faced away. So in winds that are 180° from “normal prevailing”, what is the efficiency like then?
3. I’m curious about the effects of ice, snow and rain, and high wind. (Also leaves and other windblown debris.) Presumably there should be no need to shut down in high winds, as there is with conventional wind turbines (an ironic problem, that), but how does this structure fare in high winds, especially when they come from unexpected directions.
I see that Don Green beat me to some of these questions.
No, sorry, this will not work. The idea that you can improve the speed of airflow by enlarging the outgoing pipe is understood, but it needs to be larger than the incoming orifice, otherwise there is not a lower pressure that will increase airspeed. The design as proposed may work, but I suspect it will only work at very low airspeeds. Higher speeds tend to resist directional changes as proposed. And the design shows an impossibly small turbine for the amount of airflow supposedly funneled into it. More than a few miles per hour, and I suspect there would be major turbulence, producing little power. And the prototype shows a fixed exit for the captured wind. What happens when the wind blows in the direction of the exit tube? There are two designs shown here- one that is omni-directional, and another that has to point into the wind. How the latter aligns itself with the wind is unclear, but the omni-directional model suffers from the fact that wind passing by intakes that are not in line with the airflow tend to create lower pressures which attack the efficiency of air movement downward into the turbine, which looks to be maybe 10″ in diameter. In order to scale this up, it would need to be seriously massive.
Very interesting. Do you or others have the technology to store the electricity if not needed at the time so as to use when needed?
Response to Niel,
This is a great article on a very promising invention. I am not sure based on what reasons Niel made his comment; it will be good to enlighten the rest of us if he has done his own analysis. Is Niel claiming that all the published articles, the very experienced team, and supply chain missed the fault in this technology. I really doubt it.
If all the test results are verified, this will be best energy generation breakthrough that I am aware of. It has all the key features, low cost, low environmental impact, and low O&M costs. It seems to be scalable. In fact, based on the information on the web site, one of the key features is being able to generate wind power at very low speed, and they have scaled it up to 25MW. I think this covers the entire range of applications, from small wind to utility scale. We should not dismiss good ideas without studying them.
Thanks for writing the article.
What about maintenance,, tubes n channels will get clogged as everything flows downward under gravity viz. Leaves dirt dust etc. Efficiency may drop……
Nice.
Nope, it’s not a huge breakthrough. It might help to harvest wind under some conditions, but low speed wind simply has low energy. Invelox improves the efficiency of capturing energy from low wind speeds. It might find a market in niche applications, but it won’t scale well to large-scale power generation.