Comments on: Falcon Wind Turbine: Versatile & Efficient Power Generation

By: Alternative Profits

Alternative Profits — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:54:28 +0000

Sounds good. The problem is, I come across too many wind turbine designs these days each claiming pretty much the same benefits – more modular, more efficient and so on. I think the key issue is price – how much does this cost? Remember, wind turbines go at around $1-1.5 million per MW, so this has to fall in that range for it to be competitive.

And as ThisIsNo has said before, perhaps it can work at lower wind speeds, but somewhere it’s gonna hit you…no free lunch.

Some thoughts from the Alternative Profits – http://www.altprofits.com/ref/report/report.html

By: ThisIsNo

ThisIsNo — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:24:40 +0000

The only problem is that with a 1.5 mph (.671 m/s) wind, you’d need 330+ square meters of rotor area to power a 60W light bulb.

By: Brivari

Brivari — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:21:48 +0000

I think that 1.5MPH is a mistranslation, their documentation shows speeds in terms of meters per second. Their English spec sheet lists ‘kick in’ speeds of 2m/s and cut-out speeds of 14m/s. That translates roughly to 4MPH and 30MPH.
http://www.loopwing.co.jp/en/01wind/022850_02.html
Theirs are cute, but the performance is similar to SW Windpower traditional micro-turbines.
http://www.windenergy.com/products/products.htm

By: EfficiencySeeker

EfficiencySeeker — Mon, 11 May 2009 11:43:30 +0000

Brivari, check out the other wind power articles on the site, such as this one:
https://metaefficient.com/renewable-power/loopwing-wind-turbine-at-japanese-tradeshow.html
It says that it only need 1.5 MPH wind to start.

By: Brivari

Brivari — Sat, 09 May 2009 14:35:47 +0000

Aren’t micro-turbines that eliminate the grid more meta-effecient than ones like this that continue the megacorp delivered power?

I’d LOVE to find one that kicks in below 7MPH and doesn’t throttle down above 30!