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Prototype "flat-pack" wind turbine pops up in the UK

By James Holloway
July 18, 2012
Prototype "flat-pack" wind turbine pops up in the UK
The turbine is particularly well-suited to the gusting winds of inner cities
The turbine is particularly well-suited to the gusting winds of inner cities
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The turbine is particularly well-suited to the gusting winds of inner cities
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The turbine is particularly well-suited to the gusting winds of inner cities
McCamley says the design can be adapted to capacities between 1 and 24 kW
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McCamley says the design can be adapted to capacities between 1 and 24 kW

A new prototype wind turbine, 30 years in the making, and designed for flat-pack shipping and easy assembly, has been erected at Keele University in the UK.

Like other vertical axis turbines, the prototype, designed by McCamley, is particularly well-suited to the gusting winds of inner cities, though the company is quick to point out the design is also suitable for rural installations. The turbine is able to begin rotating during light breezes as modest as 1.8 m/s (4 mph) in speed.

McCamley says the design can be adapted to capacities between 1 and 24 kW, though larger sizes have yet to be realized. The present target is to develop a 12-kW model within the next six months. There are plans afoot to eventually scale the design to turbines of over 1 MW in capacity.

McCamley says the design can be adapted to capacities between 1 and 24 kW
McCamley says the design can be adapted to capacities between 1 and 24 kW

The low starting speeds mean that turbines can be mounted on building rooftops without the need of an additional mast, and McCamley claims the multi-leg design of the turbine reduces the stresses placed on the building's structure. Combined with the turbine's lightweight design, McCamley suggests the need for structure reinforcement can be reduced or negated.

Source: Keele University, McCamley

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EnvironmentRenewable EnergyWind PowerWind turbineEnvironmentally-friendlyKeele University
18 comments
James Holloway
James writes about science and technology from his home in rural East Anglia. Whether it's the internet, nature, video games or AI, he pays particular heed to the flash points with culture, society and the planet.

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18 comments
Uncle Roy
Here in Pennsylvania (USA), people complain about the noise from propeller based wind turbines and educationalists complain about the propellers killing bats. How does this design compare on those two points? I would think it is less likely to kill bats. Companies are also pulling out because federal funding is drying up, hopefully this design is less costly.
U.R.
Joel Joines
VAWT turbines do not suffer either of the issues you mention. Birds and bats see them as a solid object unlike the propeller style HAWTs you are used to, and since the "blades" are not long arms the tips move much slower generating less noise.
SpaceBagels
These small windturbines wouldn't pay for itself even after when the magnets and bearings wore itself out.
And what do you do you do when there's no wind? Woopdedoo
Slowburn
I have stood under the spinning blades of a 1.5 megawatt windmill in at least a 25mph wind the noise from windmill was less than the noise of the wind across the plains. However when the wind is blowing at an angle that brings it across 2 or more windmills you get more noise that just adding the noise from the 2 windmills together but a simple solution is to put greater separation between the windmills, and according to some research it will increase the output of electricity as well.
The number of birds killed by windmills is greatly exaggerated by the green fascists who voodoo up numbers by at the time of highest bird population count the scavengers and dead birds invent a number of dead birds that would have been eaten if the scavengers ate nothing but windmill killed birds, and then adding actual dead birds to theoretical dead bird and take that number and extrapolate for the number of birds killed in a year without accounting for the lowered bird population for the rest of the year. The life of windmill blades is shortened by bird strikes (this includes bats as well) so to prevent loosing an entire turbine when a blade fails they have sensors that count bird strikes and the actual count is at least an order of magnitude less than the "official numbers"
The real problem with windmills is that the output is subject to constant variation and the wind doesn't always blow when convenient. I have always thought that windmills should generate highly storable energy such as compressed air or lifted water and generate the electricity on demand.
Marc 1
Many of the 'bird killing' stroies about wind turbines emanated from the lattice style turbine towers employed in the early years. Modern towers are most usually mounted on a monopole that has absolutely nowhere for a bird to perch. The early towers provided plenty of places to roost - and as the birds flew in and flared for landing they'd get taken out by a blade. Bad design of towers was mostly the cause.
Scion
Sadly I agree with Slowburn. Windmills excel at the things they have traditionally been used for: milling and pumping.
I haven't read any research about using big windmills to pump water up a hill to make hydro power when it comes down and I'm too lazy to do the maths myself. Likewise they can compress air or just lifting a heavy weight. In those cases you could recover the potential energy added at a rate that more or less equalizes the average output of the windmill thus giving a steady power output. Maybe those storage techniques are inefficient enough to not bother with?
Mel Tisdale
Liquid flouride thorium reactors don't have any blades to kill birds with, produce electricity on demand, wind or no wind, sun or no sun, to name but a few of their advantages over the outdated uranium designs. This site had an excellent item on small modular reactors a few months back and it certainly pointed me in a direction that has led to my being convinced that thorium is the way to solve the energy/climate crisis.
Ali Sener
Augmented wind turbine seems, AWT Kingston Polytechnic Institute 1990 prototype, documented in Independent Energy Magazine, March 1990 issue, page: 66. Prototype has augmentation similarity for 180 degrees. Consists of diffusers and famous Darrius blades. Natural result: low cut-in wind speed. Recommending also to try another augmented VAWT design "G Model Wind Turbine" which exists on web site www.windturbine-performance.com. congratulations. yasener
jerryd
This turbine along with other VAWT are just scams. The only cost effective ones are the normal 2-5 blade, especially the 3blade units as much less material for a lot more power.
Any other than these 2-5blde units can't be eff, cosy efective because of basic physics that works againsat Vertical WT's.
Noise on any good WT is less than wind noise and other problems have easy fixes. A good 2kw 14' dia 2kw unit can supply an eff home in many places with the power it needs for 50 yrs. YMMV.
Anthony Holt
I was wondering about the practicality of lower powered versions in a domestic environment - for example within a suburban housing estate? You mention 1Kw turbines, would these be small and unobtrusive enough for someone's back garden area for instance.....? I'm a believer in reducing the distance Electricity has to move to the practical minimum, which of course is anathema to the National grid approach.
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