Recently, I wrote about the low-profile Aerotecture wind turbines, which are designed to be installed on the rooftops of city buildings. Now I’ve heard of another rooftop wind turbine under development. It’s called the Helyx Wind Generator, and it’s composed of two twisted wings of fiberglass that rotate around a vertical axis. The turbine is also colored bright green, which I find quite appealing for some reason. It was invented by Toby Kinkaid in Portland, Oregon, and Kinkaid says the turbine is especially designed to take advantage of low wind speeds. You can see the turbine in action in these videos:
The 40-inch tall turbines will soon be tested on the rooftops of several buildings at Portland State University, with the help of faculty and students. The aim of the project is to see if the turbines will adequately harvest energy in an urban environment.
These test turbines will power 40-watt generators and send out data over a wireless computer network telling researchers how efficient the devices are and whether they have a place in Portland State’s active sustainable energy program. Students and faculty members will measure the output of the generators at various places on the roofs, finding just the perfect windy spots for them.
Kinkaid estimates the devices can be mass produced for $1.50 per watt, meaning a 40-watt machine would cost $60, excluding installation. He said the prototypes cost about $200 each because they’re made one at a time, by hand.
Toby Kinkaid’s company is Oregon Wind.
For more information see these articles: Newhouse News Service and The Bee News
Found via: Earth Times
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{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
This is terrific!
Looks like a rip off of the picoturbine at http://www.picoturbine.com Nothing new here.
I’ve been awarded a Patent from the US Patent Office for my Helyx Wind Turbine Technology because it is new and unique. You can’t imagine how much work went into this, and how many details are involved. I suggest you do your homework before you make such casual comments.
Why is a helix shape used? Is that to get more uniform torque? Wouldn’t that shape make it less effective? I would think it would tend to direct the wind upward lowering the affect of the wind hitting the upper part of the turbine. Has this been wind tunnel tested, simulated, or compared to a more straightened version?
How is this different than the helical design that has been manufactured for 25 years by Windside (www.windside.com)? Also, did a search of the USPTO website, and can’t find the patent under your name…
The devil is in the details. The information you’re asking for is confidential. In the 3QR’07 the HelyxTM will be available for purchase, I invite you to test the unit yourself. The Hx40 will be for 12 volt battery charging systems and will cost less than a PV panel of the same power rating. We’ll have brackets for Marine, RV, and pole deployment.
what will the hx40 cost?
There are dozens of variations of this design that are currently in development. And as for confidential information, this is wind energy! The designs are impossible to patent protect and prevent others from using. (Companies will never be able to produce these for less than what the average home owner can build them for). The age of patents and confidential information is long gone.
These guys already have one working:
http://www.aerotecture.com/
These guys perfected the spiral design years ago and they also will email you construction details or you can buy it.
http://mariahpower.com/
May I know this will work at low wind speed? Maybe 4 ~ 8 mph.
Whats the latest news on the availability of the turbine?
Kasia, the product featured by Mariah Power is neither a spiral as you claim, nor a helical turbine as in the Kincaid design. And if by “perfected” you mean they designed a wind mill capable of chopping to pieces any birds that may fly too near it, then “yeah, they did a great job”.
We are interested in your VAWT.
Can we have performencs details ? And would you consider trading with us in the UK ?
Rgards,
Bruce S Fookes.
These vertical designs are not competitive in performance with the more efficient three bladed horizontal axis wind turbines. If you looked at the starting wind speed, they create too much drag to perform well in low wind. Well, low wind is what most people have. Pound for pound, dollar for dollar, and in terms of swept area or footprint, the vertical wind turbines cannot compete favorably against a real, professional wind turbine. Their site has a video of them running without a generator? Like a pinwheel blowing uselessly in the wind. The best rooftop wind turbines are like the ones that WindEnergy7.com has. These are miniature home sized models that are effective like the large Utility Scale wind turbines.
This is great.So many people are trying to compare these with hawts but it is obvious that hawts are not viable in urban locations. I like that this company is proposing to make them at a reasonable cost. So many wind companies are charging ridiculous amounts for their products which is helping to put people off. The materials are not expensive. To the people who consistently use the argument that they don’t produce much electricity , all you need to do is look at the cost of one and imagine having four dotted around your house or garden then you could realistically start to think about having a considerable reduction in bills within a year- it’s free after that and will last as long as the product does. The biggest immediate consideration is that I can put these on my hosue or around my property with very little fuss in terms of legality and planning permission. The are not dangerous and don’t make any noise. How many houses have four corners ? Imagine one on each corner.The other one of these that I am fascinated by is the HelixWind , it’s beautiful but those guys are charging enormous amounts for theirs , they are truly not going to change the world by having such a disproportionate cost. I am interested in making vawts even cheaper so much so that it would cheaper in one year to buy a couple than pay the equivalant electricity bill. The energy companies would then be seriously forced to rethink policy.
Attempt at selling snake oil usually involved giving little technical information but publishing excessive “great results”, especially on public media. Last I heard such claims are people trying to sell perpetual energy from generators running on water.
can you put this on homes and what is the cost?
I am in the alternative energy field and I like philosophy of close-to-user-site generation and specifically, the looks of this design. The bottom line:
If Toby listened to all the nay-sayers out there, he would never have invented anything. My hat’s off to him and all the inventors and entrerpreneurs trying to make the world less dependent on fossil and foreign energy sources.
– Zehaas Sram
The video clearly demonstrates numerous similarities to various forerunner wind designs. The video also demonstrates major inefficiencies of the design. It seems clear to me that it was not designed by an engineer with aerodynamics knowledge. The ‘racket’ office will sell patents to anybody. There’s nobody home. They are asleep at the wheel. There are thousands of patents on the ball point pen alone.
http://www.tinaja.com/glib/casagpat.pdf
I am all about ‘practical’ innovations and from what is demonstrated here, this isn’t one of them. (sorry to say) Keep working on it, you’ll get it sorted out. It is simply too inefficient (comparatively) in it’s current form.
Blessings,
MR
Check out all the negativity by what we can only assume are CEOs of their own wind turbine companies, currently marketing their myriad of products after years of research, trial-and-error, testing, revision, upgrading, etc., etc.
not
These are pretty neat but very experimental. Wind generally blows in a single direction at a time with a bit of side to side turbulence maybe. Unless winds blow in a circle, somehow putting a little whirlwind right over this thing… IT WILL HAVE RESISTANCE ON ONE SIDE.
So, as one side catches wind, harnessing it, the other is resisting wind, torning against it, running into the wind. Think about it.
Why are there no examples of big utility wind farms using vertical? Because people would get fired. Have a look at WindEnergy7.Com site and all their video footage of actual turbines, inexpensive enough to put on your home, certified to 130 mph. Rooftop Wind Turbine The systems that are pictured and video at WindEnergy7 site are patented rooftop wind turbines that are working on homes and businesses all over the US, available and shipping now. Have a look. And, these systems are actually designed around proven turbine performance that is used in big utility wind farms. They don’t use vertical because of that backside resistance, aerodynamics and physics say it does not work. Vertical was patented in the 1930’s, hasn’t worked (well) yet. Think about it, use your head.