10/06/2011
I think this is a great idea, but only for small scale wind turbines less than 300kw. There is still one problem that hasn’t been covered, and that is the construction of the lens itself. There has to be a rigid sheet that extends the entire circumference of the swept area, and must also be aligned with the rotor at all times. It seems unlikely that the concept model can provide Yaw control to turn it into the wind as the wind direction changes. With small systems, the thought of adding a ring is not hard to imagine. It is simply a cylindrical sheet metal part. I am guessing that the lens material weighs considerably more than the blades in the small lab tested designs. This would likely be the case for large systems as well. Even with the use of fiberglass or carbon fiber, the weight of the lens on megawatt scale machines would be enormous. The framework to support the fiberglass lens shape would also have to be considerable, and would have a far greater mass than the rest of the wind turbine. The final point to make is that even if a large scale Lens turbine can perform to the same level of a laboratory tested design, is it worth all of the extra material costs, weight, and lack of yaw capabilities? There are a few major hurdles to overcome with this design, but I think it is worth looking into, even if it only finds application in small scale wind turbines.
Necessity, as we’ve all been told can sometimes be the mother of invention. In Japan, there is a necessity for a power source that does not require fossil
