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Saturday, May 12, 2007

Why is VAWT (Vertical Access Wind Turbine) Struggling?

Why is VAWT (Vertical Access Wind Turbine) Struggling?

This blog post @ WindBiz refers to an article in The Economist's Technology Quarterly which has picked up on recent developments in Vertical Access Wind Turbine (VAWT) designs, offering a glimpse at a company that sells equipments, one TMA Global Wind Energy Systems of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Dwelling on the Economist story, the author asks: why has VAWT technology struggled to make it to the mass, industrial scale market, since it's been affirmed time and again as a more reliable and cost-effective design than the current upright tri-bladers (Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine -HAWT)?

The author feels there two broad technical and commercial reasons why VAWT has struggled. One is technical: VAWTs are low to the ground and don't capture the high winds like the 60-80m hub heights of HAWTs. Reason two is commercial: the same old story of technical innovators whose marketing story hasn't been well-banked, well-communicated, nor well-timed....

Read the WindBiz post for more of this discussion

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