Powering cell phone towers with wind

Helix Wind's The S322 vertical wind turbine

(Credit: Helix Wind)

Helix Wind announced Wednesday that it's beginning a trial run in Southern California to see if its wind turbines might be useful for powering cell phone towers.

The manufacturer is becoming known for its small vertical-axis wind turbines that can generate electricity with winds as low as 10 mph, as well as its unique business model to finance them.

The pilot program, conducted in conjunction with cell phone tower operator Core Communications, will experiment with whether the turbines powering cell phone towers could also generate surplus energy to sell back to the energy grid.

If they generate enough surplus power, small wind turbines could provide a new source of income for cell phone tower operators as well as a new power source.

Helix Wind's turbines, which will be installed in early 2010, will run for up to three months before being re-evaluated.

According to statistics provided by Helix Wind, there are approximately 3,500 cell phone towers in Southern California, and another 1,000 expected to be added in the next five years to cover consumer growth.

[ihatemyusername]

I'm surprised a lot of towers don't already use solar power, especially on sparse interstates.
Whatever works to get these things contributing, instead of leaching off of the power grid is ok by my book.

[ferricoxide]

Great idea. Too bad it will go nowhere in many areas. Given how much some areas fight cell towers as eyesores, I can't think that this will improve things, in that regard. These are probably the same people that wonder why cell coverage in their area sucks so badly.

[gjohnson]

This would be a great start for distributed power generation. I realise that this is not a major source of energy but this is the way power generation should go. Lots of little generators rather than one major one, this would cause less tress to the power distribution system and possibly fewer outages

[NRGspot]

This is a great start. Little things like this done in a big way add up to major savings. Decentralizing the grid has many more advantages than disadvantages. The power companies will fight this for awhile until they can upgrade their own grids and change their business model (perhaps more important). So they will fight this like most oligopolies would to protect their own interests until finally forced to change by legislature or competition? look at the telecom industry as an example. There is also another company you should check out in this space called www.harvistor.com. another cool site to check out is http://www.nrgspot.com

[WindEnergy7-com]

These vertical wind turbines will not do nearly as well as a horizontal wind turbine. It's a fact that pound for pound, dollar for dollar, watt for watt... The standard windmill design used by large commercial wind farms if far more productive than these FAD vertical wind turbines. Look at YouTube for WindEnergy7 http://www.youtube.com/user/WindEnergy7 and this is the type of effective design that you will see succeeding on wind towers, roadside billboards, and on homes across the US.

If the vertical wind turbines were practical and logical the big utility companies would be using them instead. These vertical designs were first patented in the 1930's and unless the laws of physics change to deny the fact of backside wind resitance, these vertical mills are going nowhere. Think about it, wind blows 1 direction at a time. As one side catches wind, what about the other side? It's called resistance. Like riding a bicycle uphill or agains a wind. Like driving a car with the brakes on? Sound effective to you?