Windpods Technology
Winpods are a ‘start from scratch’ purpose-built design approach to urban wind power covering several different design aspects unique to Winpods that are critical to urban wind performance.
Deflector Plate Effects
Although each Windpods blade cross-section shape is a full aerofoil, the foil is shaped and positioned in such a way as to provide a dual drag AND lift operational effect. In very light winds, the foils catch the wind in the same way as a drag-type Savonius rotor and provide easy starting. However, once the turbine gains sufficient RPM the rotor starts to act as a lift type device (spins faster than wind speed) with the TSR (Tip Speed Ratio) typically running between 1.5 and 2.
Deflector/Concentrator edges. DLI made a performance breakthrough by discovering that not only did roof-top ridge-lines concentrate wind into the turbine, but also provide other critical performance enhancements. As a result, roof apex lines and building corners not only provide structurally practical mounting points but also significantly improve turbine performance.
Traditional Horizontal Axis Wind turbines (HAWTS) usually involve a higher cost to mount in urban environments than to purchase the HAWT in the first place. However, the size and shape of Winpods makes them easy to mount on buildings and keeps the overall cost down to a very low, economically attractive range.
Other key characteristics of Winpods include :
• Extremely low noise and vibration.
• Able to operate vertically, horizontally or any angle in-between.
• Able to operate efficiently in gusty and turbulent winds such as typically found in urban environments.
• Able to be modularly mounted onto buildings at low cost in a location where wind is at highest concentration.
• Excellent power production per dollar of cost.
• Slender, elongated tubes of only 0.45m diameter.
• Being only 450mm diameter, should not require Council planning approvals.
Safe to birds. Turbines that are dangerous to birds have no frame surround and feature fast spinning, thin blades. Winpods have more moderate tip speed ratios and larger, smooth blades and are visually more obvious to birds. In addition, Windpods turbines are surrounded by a relatively large, static frame that further deters birds and animals. If specifically required Windpods can be fitted with a mesh cover guard however there is a small impact on performance.
In cyclones and extremely strong winds, the Winpods electronic control system slows the turbine to a stop, protecting it from damage.
Life-span. The only moving parts are bearings and these have a design life of greater than 17 years. Replacement of bearings after this time is simple and low cost.
WINDPODS AND SOLAR PV
The synergy of Wind and Solar creates an ideal, renewable partnership for distributed power generation. When one is not producing power the other probably is, so the combination tends to smooth the overall output and energy returns.
It can be seen from the above chart that Windpods perform equally with PV on a dollar-for-dollar basis at 4.25 m/sec annual average wind speed and become better as the annual average wind speed increases. At around 5.4 m/sec average annual wind speed Windpods can be up to 200% more efficient on a dollar per watt basis in comparison to a solar PV installation.
Based on average wind speeds in metres per second in: Perth (5.6), Adelaide (5.6), Brisbane (5.1), Sydney (6.2), Melbourne (6.6) and Hobart (5.6), in the right location many installations could see a dollar per watt return of up to 200% and possibly 320% better than solar PV.
The data for solar was derived from the paper ‘Experiences with Residential Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Systems in Australia’ by Watt, Morgan and Passey from the University of NSW. The study measured the performance of a ten x 160 Watt BP3160 panel system over a full year in Mudgee, NSW during 2005. The data was then corrected upwards to allow for inverter loss and system cost was $11.89 per Watt. This solar data was then compared to performance for the same cost on a dollar for dollar basis against Windpods. The Windpods data was derived from wind tunnel performance tests, extrapolated via the Weibull distribution method with a shape parameter of 2.
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