Wind power plant, new technology

Currently, the most widely used windmills do not operate in a very efficient manner, as every schoolchild learns in our days.

See: https://www.lernhelfer.de/schuelerlexikon/physik/artikel/windkraftwerk

And: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power     as well as              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_farm   

 

Typical efficiency is between 40 and 45%, with a maximum efficiency of 60% that cannot be exceeded. The typical initial cost of wind turbines is between € 3000 and € 9000 per kilowatt - an outrageously high price, which is about a full order of magnitude higher than the turbines I propose here. Only with huge wind turbines in the multi-megawatt range does the price (of widespread windmills) get better, but then the decentralized design of the energy supply is lost, resulting in remarkable costs and energy losses in the transport of electricity (overhead power lines). See:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=anschaffungskosten+windmill+per+kilowatt 

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=price+windmill%2Bper%2Bkilowatt

 

Now, of course, windmills can also be built much more cheaply and efficiently, if the typical high-tech composite materials of the rotor blades are dispensed with, together with the immense environmental and disposal problems associated with such materials.

 

See: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills

https://www.google.com/search?q=windmill+blades+waste&client=firefox-b-d&ei=qdFaYLvKAczlkwW2mIr4Aw&oq=windmill+rotor+waste

 

It is hard to believe but actually it is as following: We (as humanity) have a major disposal problem with the rotor blades of aging windmills, which significantly adversely affects the environmental aspect of using windmills. The pictures of the rotor blades waiting for disposal and not being able to dispose of them, are frightening. See: https://correctiv.org/faktencheck/2020/12/09/ja-diese-fotos-zeigen-rotorblaetter-von-windkraftanlagen-die-in-wyoming-lagern/ 

 

The solution would be so simple: Build simple rotor blades from normal standard sheet metal, which can be cheaply deep-drawn, or in poor countries even made into the needed/desired shape by a village craftsman with a normal rubber mallet (by hand).   See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_drawing

 

What is needed, however, is a different technical design (diffenrent shape) than that of the windmills currently sold in large numbers in the industrialized nations. Surprisingly, these windmills in the industrialized nations still base their design on windmills as they have been many centuries before. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmill

and: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wind_power

 

The lack of creativity on the part of developers and engineers is astonishing. Yet there are already a number of alternative superstructures that can even be produced privately by skilled do-it-yourselfers in the hobby sector. The picture on the right shows one of many existing possible constructions. A thin sheet of metal is formed into a rotor (in gray colour), which rotates around an axis of rotation (in orange colour).
The only development work still to be done is the theoretical computation of the optimal shape of the rotor blades. An FEM (finite element) computer-simulation of the aerodynamics/fluid dynamics is suitable therefore, with the aim of making the CW-values as asymmetrical as possible in the forward versus backward direction. The rotor blades can run either horizontally or vertically. Efficiencies up to 80% are theoretically achievable.

Since complicated high-tech materials are not used (for our windmills) and the limits of what is technically possible are not approached, the prices of our low-tech windmills (purchase price per generated kilowatt) are quite similar to the purchase prices of tidal power plants - and that even for the operation of small (autarcic) self-sufficient wind power plants with an output of a few kilowatts.

 

Advantage: Very inexpensive wind turbines, freely scalable in any size, even to small units, which can be manufactured with simple means in all countries of the world.

 

In a price comparison, we are a factor of 2 more cost-effective than the large wind power plants commonly used today, and even a factor of 10 (!!) more cost-effective than the smaller wind power plants for individual operation, that have been widespread up to now (without connection to a power grid and the associated line losses and costs).

 

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