Inside a small wind-turbine beta test

MUSKEGON, Mich.--Tucked in the back corner of a nondescript office park is an early shoot in the budding green-energy economy--a start-up with big plans for small wind turbines.

Last month, I took a detour from a summer road trip to visit WindTronics and see a prototype of its wind turbine designed for individual homes and commercial buildings. The company's lab, housed in a nearly empty warehouse, is a glimpse into the fervent experimentation going on among green-tech entrepreneurs and, specifically, in small wind.

With people looking for clean and cheaper forms of energy, sales of small wind turbines are brisk and projected to grow in the coming years. There are now dozens of different small wind turbines available in a dizzying number of designs, although most commercial products are just smaller versions of big turbines--a propeller with three blades.

Despite all the activity, there's some creeping doubt about the ultimate potential of small wind. A study in Massachusetts and one in the U.K. found that many residential locations don't have sufficient wind to meet the promised output of small turbines.

In WindTronics' lab, a protoype of the Honeywell Wind Turbine, which is 6 feet tall and weighs 95 pounds.

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)

WindTronics has designed a turbine that addresses that wind speed issue head on. While most wind turbines start to work when the wind blows at seven or eight miles per hour, its machine--to be sold for $4,500 as the Honeywell Wind Turbine--starts to generate electricity at only two miles per hour. That, say company executives, means small wind can make sense economically in many more locations.

Kilowatts versus kilowatt-hours
Entering WindTronics' lab, there wasn't much to see except for a spartan office and conference room. A design drawing of its wheel-like turbine on the wall gave me a clue I was in the right place. After a moment, the turbine's inventor and chief technical officer, Imad Mahawili, greeted me and brought me into a warehouse.

At the back end of the cavernous room, there was the 6-foot-high turbine, a table with some testing equipment, and a truck trailer that had been converted into a low-cost wind tunnel.

WindTronics has designed its turbine, which is now going through certification testing and will be available later this year, to be mounted on rooftops or onto free-standing poles. The most striking thing about seeing the turbine up close is how big it is. At 6 feet high without the mounting gear, it would be a conspicuous addition on a home's roofline, although I imagine less so on a pole.

The turbine is built around a wheel with long spokes, each of which has a specially shaped, bendable nylon blade attached to it. Around the rim of this big wheel is a "shroud" that covers the blade edges. This is where WindTronics' design differs from most other wind machines.

Wind tests on the cheap--a wind tunnel built inside a tractor trailer container.

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)

Most turbines have a gear box at the hub of the rotor. As the wind turns the blades, the gear box turns a generator to make electricity.

WindTronics turns things inside out by having the electricity generation happen at the rim of the turbine. Permanent magnets attached to the blade tips spin past stators--essentially wire coils--attached to the shroud to generate a current. Without the resistance of a gear box at the hub, WindTronics says its turbine will spin--and generate electricity--at low wind speeds, which over the course of time will add up to more power than other turbines, company executives argue.

"The reality is because most turbine makers sell to utilities, they have to specify the maximum power," said Mahawili. "The other companies don't give details on how many kilowatt-hours a turbine will make, just the plate power (in kilowatts), which doesn't signify much. We're really not telling the story as we should."

WindTronics says its turbine will generate 2,000 kilowatt-hours in a year for a home with a very good--called Class 4--wind resource. That's between 15 and 20 percent of the annual electricity consumption for the average U.S. home.

Green collar industry?
Mahawili then cranked up the wind tunnel, which is used to measure the output of the turbine. Rather than pay a lot of money to test its turbines in commercial wind tunnels, it built its own with a giant fan placed at the front of a semi trailer.

As the fan cranked up, we could see on a laptop how much power the test turbine produced at different speeds. With about 10 mile-per-hour wind, it generated about 100 watts and kept climbing upward with higher speeds.

Part of its system for capturing wind power at low speeds is a battery--a standard issue 12-volt car battery--that stores electricity at very low wind speeds. As it speeds up, the turbine can directly feed an inverter to produce household current, Mahawili explained.

When I walked into the wind tunnel itself, there was no noticeable vibration. The fan for the wind tunnel made noise but I couldn't distinguish the sound of the WindTronics test turbine, which the company says will operate very quietly at 35 to 45 decibels.

After the wind tunnel slowed down, WindTronics CEO Reg Adams told me about the company's business plans. It has a partnership with Ace Hardware to distribute the turbine starting this fall. The first units will be manufactured in the Netherlands but the company is looking for factory sites in the U.S.

There are already tax incentives offered from Michigan, a state that's desperately seeking out new manufacturing industries, notably wind. WindTronics was incubated in the Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center in Muskegon, a city known in the past for its lumber industry.

Although it has the support of government officials plugging for "green-collar jobs," WindTronics has a long way to go before it can claim to be a commercial success. In addition to finalizing its product, it has to develop the distribution channels and ensure enough people are trained to install the turbines.

Also, the small wind category is relatively immature. Although there was a big jump in sales last year, there were only 10,000 units installed, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Even with its ability to spin at low speeds, WindTronics' turbine should be placed in good locations for wind, said president and CEO Reg Adams. Typically, that means well above and away from any obstructions, including trees, in a site with steady wind.

Still, the company's goal is to bring the cost of distributed wind down significantly and get a toehold in this relatively new market. When compared to other turbines or solar panels, the yearly energy output of WindTronics' turbine will compare favorably on price, said Adams. "We want this to be mainstream, not a specialty item," he said.

[Mark Holloway]

This is wonderful News.
Affordable Wind power that the average Joe can now go out and purchase.
I hope it does well when it is released out on the market.

[automationassembly]

These roof mount / urban turbines are invariably poor investments. If you're interested in learning about small wind turbines that provide real return on investment, visit this site:

http://www.small-wind-turbine.com

[Seaspray0]

nice link.

[Allsmallwindturbines]

A complete overview of small wind turbines, both invariably poor as well as providing a real return on investment, can be found on:

http://www.allsmallwindturbines.com

[LancerEQ]

A permanent magnet losses efficiency doesn't it? What is the expected lifespan of the generation mechanism? I really like the idea, but replacing the central generator would seem to be easier than removing magnets and so forth

[Mergatroid Mania]

Most generators and motors use permanent magnets. You can still find alternators and generators from early in the history of engines and motors that still work and have not lost their magnetism.

[bschmock]

It would be very good if this product did well. I don't really care about wind energy but I do care how the state I grew up in is doing, this company has the potential to create some good jobs for Michigan.

[chrispix99]

These are still way too expensive. 10mph which is probably about average for Dallas, you generate 100W of electricity or enough power to light 6CF light bulbs. For $4500 it will take me years to make that up. Their best case of $2000KWH/yr or about $200.00 of electricity would take me 20 years to recoup my investment. While I really like the idea, in texas w/ Air Conditioning your electric bill can sometimes be 2000KWH in a month!

[EvilUrgency]

Great article any body notice the typo about the flat bed? Flat beds are flat, I guess not everybodies father was a truck driver. :)

[mlamonica]

thanks for catching. fixed.

[Electro_Fox]

'Everybody's Father', rather...

[hexor]

As another has mentioned a wind turbine on a roof is the last thing you want to do. The turbulence near a roof would be so hideous it would be pointless. Furthermore, unless you are actually on a mountain with nothing around you above your roofline, you will get hardly any useful wind to begin with. Wind turbines need to be up in the air away from obstructions, not near them. Third, the turbine is going to have some vibration and under the right conditions I'm sure it will resonate throughout the entire house if you have it on your roof.

[WindEnergy7-com]

WindEnergy7.com already has beaten these guys to the market, systems are running installed all over now. For the same money you can get a system that has solar panels with it as a wind/solar hybrid system.

WindEnergy7 turbine is roof mount, modular, hybrid, and leverages more proven turbine technology, like using stainless steel parts instead of plastic etc. Windtronics conceal the whole mounting problem of roof mounted turbines, that?s main reason I was into WindEnergy7 is that the problems of vibration and noise were solved, we invented solutions and filed patent pending on the mounting apparatus and method. If anyone is serious about this technology they should look at the WindEnergy7 hybrid wind/solar kits for the home. WindEnergy7-com

[Mergatroid Mania]

Are there not rules regarding advertising here? Your message looks more like a free ad than just a factual reply, as also seems to be indicated by the name you selected.

Hey, can I advertise my company here too?

[Mergatroid Mania]

I seem to recall this same article (or one just like it) from a few weeks ago. I remember commenting on the flimsy fabric looking blades and wondering if they would stand up to extreme storms.

[MD_Willington]

Nice, someone ripped off Ted Baer's Bicycle Wheel Windmill idea from instructables, threw a shroud on it, and now they want to charge beau coup bucks for it...

http://www.instructables.com/id/Ted-Baer_s-Bicycle-Wheel-Windmill/

Build your own at the link above:

[ikciwatslrac]

GEE, SORTA LOOKS LIKE THE FARM WINDMILLS SEEN FOR A CENTURY.

[carlhage]

There is a problem with physics here-- the energy in wind is proportional to the cube of wind speed (not directly proportional as would seem intuitive). The difference between 2mph and 20mph is a factor of 1000. So it doesn't really matter if the turbine cuts in at 2mph or 7mph-- the energy is still virtually 0 at 2mph. (Likewise wind at 7mph has only about 3% of the energy at 21mph. This is the fallacy with low wind areas-- generators cost a comparable amount for low speed or high speed, but there is so little energy, it's not worth installing a low speed cut-in unit.

Likewise, energy is proportional to the square of the rotor diameter (proportional to cross sectional area), so a rotor 3x larger can produce the energy of 10 turbines.

[dsakarya]

Forget about it. This is a joke. Why can Tata sell a car for $2500, but this thing cost $4500.

[andrewquayle]

This is a great looking product when will it be available in the uk. Andrew Quayle Trax Energy Solutions.
08009175082