Single-bladed floating wind turbine promises half the cost, more power

https://newatlas.com/energy/touchwind-floating-wind-turbine/

by belter • 3 years ago

125 29 3 years ago

dmckeon• 3 years ago

Should be interesting to see how these work in the combination of wave action, high wind speed, and high rotor tip speed. Seems like the rotor blades would be under flexing action from passing waves. Cool idea, and reduces the classic killer of windmills: heat from friction in high winds.

lostlogin• 3 years ago

That blade makes me nervous if low wind speed and large waves is a combination that ever happens.

It would be interesting to watch one as wind speed increases, it’s a neat design.

belter2• 3 years ago

Addressed at 32 seconds in the video here: https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/this-tilting-one-blader-fl...

Dylan16807• 3 years ago

Addressed how? All I see is a demonstration of tilting up in high winds. The worry here is low winds and high waves.

Or did you mean the "watch one" part is addressed? Sort of, but it's just a video of a render.

tetris11• 3 years ago

I find the images more informative than the video: https://newatlas.com/energy/touchwind-floating-wind-turbine/...

As for low wind and high choppy waves, is that possible? My naive understanding is that these come during storms where it is typically windy

gbtw• 3 years ago

Sort of novel idea on a Tjasker windmill. I will be surprised if this ever makes it out of the idea stage though.

sytse• 3 years ago

Very cool idea. It is similar to an auto gyro copter, causing the rotor to pull the tower instead of a traditional wind turbine where it is pushing it sideways. This is way more efficient. If winds get high the rotor pulls the construction upright, causing the plane of the rotor to be horizontal, which reduces its wind capture area and speed.

iancmceachern• 3 years ago

Totally, it uses the materials in a much more efficient way, we can get way more turbines per unit of steel, etc.

skymast• 3 years ago

I am an environmentalist, I prefer nuclear.

belter2• 3 years ago

Even Don Quixote knew when to pick his battles...

ikekkdcjkfke• 3 years ago

There are hundreds if not thousands of nuclear plants, it's not like it's an unsolved problem to build a nuclear plant

naasking2• 3 years ago

Building them quicker and cheaper without compromising safety is an unsolved problem though.

imtringued• 3 years ago

You prefer increased cost over decreased cost?

Kerb_• 3 years ago

We can walk and chew gum ya know?

alecco• 3 years ago

Original non-blogspam:

https://www.rechargenews.com/wind/this-tilting-one-blader-fl...

zymhan• 3 years ago

That link has far less information on the design and function of the wind turbine, compared to the OP.

mkj• 3 years ago

Looks sensible! Seems like it would need an underwater rotating connector for the power, given it swings with the wind? I'm sure it's doable but seems like an engineering challenge.

Const-me• 3 years ago

It seems it needs a rotating connector, but I don’t think in needs to be under the water. I would place that thing above water, inside the turbine.

foreigner2• 3 years ago

What happens when the wind exceeds 70km/hr?

trklausss• 3 years ago

Do you mean 70m/s?

My guess is that power generation would be greatly reduced or constant after that. It can also be that the whole thing breaks apart, and therefore needs to be stowed in those conditions (we are talking about category five hurricane)

xctr94• 3 years ago

It’s literally explained in the article what happens at almost 4x the speed you mention.

chrisandchris• 3 years ago

Is it? I can only find this:

[...] this one is rated for speeds as high as 70 m/sec (252 km/h / 157 mph).

And the question was what happens above this 70m/sec. A Taifun might go above 83 m/s.

foreigner2• 3 years ago

Sorry I meant 70 m/sec. Current designs feather the blades and stop spinning when they exceed their maximum safe wind speed. The article says that this design can handle a much higher safe maximum wind speed, but there must still be a limit, and what then? If I understand correctly they can not feather the blade to stop.

It seems an obvious question so they've probably got a good answer, but I couldn't find it in the article.

acco102• 3 years ago

cheap energy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWa21NSQsJw

Single-bladed floating wind turbine promises half the cost, more power

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