It’s almost two years since I first wrote about Flodesign’s Jet Engine-like wind turbine, and, at that time, I was saying it was 4 times more efficient than any regular wind turbine used today.
Now it’s good news to hear that they grew up, and their plans pass on from theory to practice. The company the inventors created is called “Flodesign Wind”, and it had managed to gather $8.3 million from an ARPA-E grant, who aims high-risk emerging energy technologies, giving them a chance to manifest on the market.
FloDesign’s CEO has also changed, now being Lars Andersen, the former president of the Chinese headquarter of wind turbine maker Vestas. The company now seeks to shift from R&D to manufacturing, and has already tested a prototype wind turbine for the past few months.
The wind turbine is built around a fan that has a shroud that surrounds it. The wind flowing through the fan and around the outside of the shroud creates an air mixture at the back of the turbine, pulling it quicker inside the turbine, and thus increasing efficiency.
It’s no wonder FloDesign’s turbine works like a jet engine, since their origin is in an aerospace company. Their turbines work best in locations such as mountain ridges or city buildings. The rated power for a turbine is 150kW.
Good modern turbines run at an efficiency of around 40-50%. You state that this design is 4 times more efficient. Are you inferring it is overunity? I don’t think this site does any fact checking
Cool article. Correction though Vestas is a Danish turbine producer and Lars Anderson was the President of Vestas’ Chinese Sales Unit.