Wind energy until today has just had one major drawback. The windmills of old were pretty useless if the direction of the wind didn’t suit their positioning. So, you would have thought that someone would have come up with the idea of an omni-directional wind turbine a wee bit sooner than today. But it’s better late than never, right?
They key difference between Varan Sureshan’s IMPLUX and a conventional windmill is that the axis of rotation of the wind turbine is vertical and not horizontal. Which means it can aggregate wind coming from 360 degrees to generate power from. It’s easier said than done, however, and a lot of work was put into the design of the system to ensure that it would effectively utilize wind energy.
It goes without saying that IMPLUX would generate more energy than regular windmills, but that apart, it would do so by producing less noise, and would be adaptable to urban environments at elevated heights where wind patterns (speed and direction) change at a rapid pace. Sureshan believes that the larger the model, the more power it can generate, and currently, his best IMPLUX prototype can generate upto 30kW, with a 15m diameter. Not too shabby.
Via: GizMag
