wind energy without windmills

Windmills are ancient technology: they've been used to produce electricity since 1887.

In order to be cost-effective, modern wind turbines (particularly offshore) are huge: 250 feet high with blades 150 feet long. But their excessive size makes them difficult to transport, expensive to install, and they don't perform efficiently in light gentle breezes.

A small Michigan start-up called Accio Energy is working on a way to harness electricity from wind without using a windmill. No blades, no turbine, no moving parts. Accio's idea is based upon the same physics principles that create thunder & lightning. The ingredients are wind and charged water mist. The wind separates positive and negative charges as it moves the water droplets through a permeable panel. Once the wind carries off the positively-charged droplets, the negative charges remain, producing high-voltage, direct current electricity.

The wind-permeable flat panels are composed primarily of mass-produced tubes using common materials. Accio claims that a single wind panel with the height and length of a standard shipping container could produce 2.5-3 kW of rated power as part of a utility-scale array. The company says that the system could operate at peak efficiency at all wind speeds.

The U.S. Department of Energy has taken notice. In late 2015, the DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy awarded $4.5 million in funding to support Accio Energy's work in developing utility-scale EHD wind-power generation systems, specifically for the offshore market. The Accio team is currently partnering with the University of Maine's Advanced Structures and Composites Center to design, build, and test prototypes at a demonstration site off the Atlantic Coast.

Pretty cool. Speaking of lightning, pretty much everyone has watched it for thousands of years and probably wondered about harnessing it.

So in a real way, someone has I guess if this works well.

Quote: reno

Windmills are ancient technology: ]

This article hurts my head. Just give me
the juice, don't tell me how you got it.

Quote: Evenbob

This article hurts my head. Just give me
the juice, don't tell me how you got it.

Kind of agree, interesting idea but a hard time grasping it since not just turning the turbine. Even then, I just know it turns and it works. I can rough wire out a house if I had to but I just cannot get my arms around watts and amps.

Quote: AZDuffman

Kind of agree, interesting idea but a hard time grasping it since not just turning the turbine. Even then, I just know it turns and it works. I can rough wire out a house if I had to but I just cannot get my arms around watts and amps.

There are no turbines in this system. The moving parts are the water onto the vanes, and the wind blowing across the vanes to create a charge. Oh, and I presume a motor to turn the vanes so they lie perpendicular to the wind.

Quote: AZDuffman

Kind of agree, interesting idea but a hard time grasping it since not just turning the turbine.

It's probably a lot easier to think of it as 200,000V battery than a windmill.

Quote: TheCesspit

There are no turbines in this system. The moving parts are the water onto the vanes, and the wind blowing across the vanes to create a charge. Oh, and I presume a motor to turn the vanes so they lie perpendicular to the wind.

That sorta helps me get it, but again, my mind does not completely grasp how electricity works, just that it works. I know it is about exciting electrons or something.

Electric is the Greek word for amber. In greek it was more like "elector".



If you rub amber with fur you get static electricity.

Why can't we just put a giant propeller in front of Trump? Hook it up to a generator and his wind power could light a small city.

There are two questions I have about the ACCIO system. One is that the system produces DC current. How would this be efficiently transformed into AC so that it could be delivered onshore? Also, it's high-voltage, so I presume low amperage. Wouldn't you also need a fair number of step-down transformers to give you the current you need for domestic and industrial applications?

Quote: stinkingliberal

Why can't we just put a giant propeller in front of Trump? Hook it up to a generator and his wind power could light a small city.

There are two questions I have about the ACCIO system. One is that the system produces DC current. How would this be efficiently transformed into AC so that it could be delivered onshore? Also, it's high-voltage, so I presume low amperage. Wouldn't you also need a fair number of step-down transformers to give you the current you need for domestic and industrial applications?

All solar power via solar cells is DC batteries and inverters are the key. If the voltage it produces is not at a consistent level and can range to 6 figures this probably creates a new problem that needs to be solved for them to become viable.