Wind power with no windmill

[trof]

Vertical oscillating generator


The Vortex wind generator represents a fairly radical break with conventional wind turbine design, in that it has no spinning blades (or any moving parts to wear out at all), and looks like nothing more than a giant straw that oscillates in the wind. It works not by spinning in the wind, but by taking advantage of a phenomenon called vorticity, or the Kármán vortex street, which is a "repeating pattern of swirling vortices."

http://www.treehugger.com/wind-technology/vortex-vertical-bladeless-wind-turbine.html

[mopinko]

1. pretty cool.

makes sense to me.

[DetlefK]

2. Very nice, but would sadly make a contemporary problem with wind-turbines even worse:

The big problem with wind-turbines is that their output varies. A lot. Even when comparing wind-turbines sitting right next to each other. And this is a huge problem for feeding the electricity into the network: You can't maintain a constant voltage.

I figure, with this generator it would be even worse. The video said that it is optimized for a certain wind-speed, making the individual generator even more picky as to how much electricity it produces.

[on point]

3. easily rectified with intermediate storage and constant feed to network

This is a network problem and not a generation problem

[DetlefK]

4. Are we talking about storage or about supply?

You have to maintain a constant voltage in the electric network, because all electronics are geared towards that voltage. But electricity-consumption varies hour-wise (e.g. factories don't run during night-time) and so the voltage-drop varies. At the same time the generators feed voltage into the network. The drop and the feed have to balance each other out so the voltage stays constant.

The problem with wind-turbines is that they do not deliver a reliable voltage-output you can add to the system or withhold from it: Sometimes a wind-turbine produces too much voltage, sometimes not enough.
Imagine a large room with lots of people having conversations at the same time. And it's your job to add people to the conversations or remove people from the conversations so the noise level stays constant.



And on top of that we are talking about AC-voltage here. How are we supposed to store AC-voltage?
Method 1: Pump water uphill (with losses), let the water run a water-turbine (with losses).
Method 2: Turn into DC-voltage (with losses), store in capacitor, remove from capacitor, turn into AC-voltage (with losses).

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Why do people always make such a big deal about “losses” involved with energy storage?

Loss is a fact of the world. (Hello 2nd Law!)

Whether you’re storing energy by putting electricity into a capacitor, or by heating rocks, there will be losses involved. There are losses involved in transporting electric charge over wires.

The question isn’t whether there are losses involved or not, the question is whether they are acceptable. You make it sound so scary, with losses at all steps. OK, so what is the overall efficiency?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Pumped-storage hydroelectricity[/font]

[font size=3]… Typically, the round-trip energy efficiency of PSH varies in practice between 70% and 80%, with some claiming up to 87%. …

A new concept is to use wind turbines or solar power to drive water pumps directly, in effect an 'Energy Storing Wind or Solar Dam'. This could provide a more efficient process and usefully smooth out the variability of energy captured from the wind or sun.

One can use pumped sea water to store the energy. The 30 MW Yanbaru project in Okinawa was the first demonstration of seawater pumped storage. A 300 MW seawater-based project has recently been proposed on Lanai, Hawaii, and several seawater-based projects have recently been proposed in Ireland. Another potential example of this could be used in a tidal barrage or tidal lagoon. A potential benefit of this arises if seawater is allowed to flow behind the barrage or into the lagoon at high tide when the water level is roughly equal either side of the barrier, when the potential energy difference is close to zero. Then water is released at low tide when a head of water has been built up behind the barrier, when there is a far greater potential energy difference between the two bodies of water. The result being that when the energy used to pump the water is recovered, it will have multiplied to a degree depending on the head of water built up. A further enhancement is to pump more water at high tide further increasing the head with for example intermittent renewables. …[/font][/font]

[kristopher]

6. Individual turbines are no more of a problem than a WalMart turning on its lights.

The grid can handle a lot of variability - we to do it all the time to service demand. The structure of the grid will evolve to accommodate higher levels of variable resources, but it isn't nearly the challenge that utilities would like the public to believe.

Some reading from some of the foremost experts on wind integration into the grid.

Wind Power Myths Debunked
By Michael Milligan, Kevin Porter, Edgar DeMeo, Paul Denholm, Hannele Holttinen, Brendan Kirby, Nicholas Miller, Andrew Mills, Mark O’Malley, Matthew Schuerger, and Lennart Soder

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2009.934268 november/december 2009 1540-7977/09/$26.00©2009 IEEE Power and Energy Magazine Master Series


Questions addressed:

Can Grid Operators Deal with the Continually Changing Output of Wind Generation?

Does Wind Have Capacity Credit?

How Often Does the Wind Stop Blowing Everywhere at the Same Time?

Isn’t It Very Difficult to Predict Wind Power?

Isn’t It Very Expensive to Integrate Wind?

Doesn’t Wind Power Need New Transmission, and Won’t That Make Wind Expensive?

Doesn’t Wind Power Need Backup Generation? Isn’t More Fossil Fuel Burned with Wind Than Without, Due to Backup Requirements?

Does Wind Need Storage?

Isn’t All the Existing Flexibility Already Used Up?

Is Wind Power as Good as Coal or Nuclear Even Though the Capacity Factor of Wind Power Is So Much Less?

Isn’t There a Limit to How Much Wind Can Be Accommodated by the Grid?

Samples:

Wind Power Myths Debunked
Common Questions and Misconceptions
Introduction:
THE RAPID GROWTH OF WIND POWER IN THE UNITED STATES AND worldwide has resulted in increasing media attention to — and public awareness of — wind generation technology. Several misunderstandings and myths have arisen due to the characteristics of wind generation, particularly because wind-energy generation only occurs when the wind is blowing. Wind power is therefore not dispatchable like conventional energy sources and delivers a variable level of power depending on the wind speed. Wind is primarily an energy resource and not a capacity resource. Its primary value is to offset fuel consumption and the resulting emissions, including carbon. Only a relatively small fraction of wind energy is typically delivered during peak and high-risk time periods; therefore, wind generators have limited capacity value. This leads to concerns about the impacts of wind power on maintaining reliability and the balance between load and generation.

This article presents answers to commonly asked questions concerning wind power.

It begins by addressing the variability of wind and then discusses whether wind has capacity credit. The article addresses whether wind can stop blowing everywhere at once, the uncertainty of predicting wind generation, whether it is expensive to integrate wind power, the need for new transmission, and whether wind generation requires backup generation or dedicated energy storage. Finally, we discuss whether there is sufficient system flexibility to incorporate wind generation, whether coal is better than wind because coal has greater capacity factors, and whether there is a limit to how much wind power can be incorporated into the grid...

Summary
The natural variability of wind power makes it different from other generating technologies, which can give rise to questions about how wind power can be integrated into the grid successfully. This article aims to answer several important questions that can be raised with regard to wind power. Although wind is a variable resource, grid operators have experience with managing variability that comes from handling the variability of load. As a result, in many instances the power system is equipped to handle variability. Wind power is not expensive to integrate, nor does it require dedicated backup generation or storage. Developments in tools such as wind forecasting also aid in integrating wind power. Integrating wind can be aided by enlarging balancing areas and moving to sub-hourly scheduling, which enable grid operators to access a deeper stack of generating resources and take advantage of the smooth- ing of wind output due to geographic diversity. Continued improvements in new conventional-generation technologies and the emergence of demand response, smart grids, and new technologies such as plug-in hybrids will also help with wind integration.

Doesn’t Wind Power Need Backup Generation? Isn’t More Fossil Fuel Burned with Wind Than Without, Due to Backup Requirements?

In a power system, it is necessary to maintain a continuous balance between production and consumption. System operators deploy controllable generation to follow the change in total demand, not the variation from a single generator or customer load. When wind is added to the system, the variability in the net load becomes the operating target for the system operator. It is not necessary and, indeed, it would be quite costly for grid operators to follow the variation in generation from a single generating plant or customer load.

<snip>

Does Wind Need Storage?
The fact that “the wind doesn’t always blow” is often used to suggest the need for dedicated energy storage to handle fluctuations in the generation of wind power. Such viewpoints, however, ignore the realities of both grid operation and the ...

-Wind Power Myths Debunked


This is as credible a source of information as can be found on these frequently asked questions related to wind power. Download the entire open access report here:
http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf


For Further Reading
European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). (2005). Large scale integration of wind energy in the European power supply: Analysis, issues, and recommendations. European Wind Energy Association [Online]. Available: http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/publications/grid/051215_Grid_report.pdf



Biographies
Michael Milligan is a principal analyst with NREL, in Golden, Colorado.

Kevin Porter is a senior analyst with Exeter Associates Inc., in Columbia, Maryland.

Edgar DeMeo is president of Renewable Energy Consulting Services, in Palo Alto, California.

Paul Denholm is a senior energy analyst with NREL, in Golden, Colorado.

Hannele Holttinen is a senior research scientist with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

Brendan Kirby is a consultant for NREL, in Golden, Colorado.

Nicholas Miller is a director at General Electric, in Schenectady, New York.

Andrew Mills is a senior research associate with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in Berkeley, California.

Mark O’Malley is a professor, School of Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering of University College Dublin, in Ireland.

Matthew Schuerger is a principal consultant with Energy Systems Consulting Services LLC, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Lennart Soder is a professor of electric power systems at the Royal Institute of Technology, in Stockholm, Sweden.

[mackdaddy]

7. It will be interesting how much usable energy they can get out of these.

Most of these type of articles and announcement are pretty lacking on any real numbers, or even details on how they are converting these physical oscillations in to electricity. I am assuming a set of permanent magnets suspended of a series of stationary coils and the magnets move with the oscillation of the vertical tube.

There was a similar vibrating ribbon of material that was being built on a micro scale (could recharge your cellphone) that looks similar. http://www.humdingerwind.com/#/wi_overview/

But the energy from the wind is only from what is called the "swept area" or how large an area of moving air is being applied to the moving part of the wind generator. Does not seem to be a lot of swept area exposure on this device. It might work OK for smaller applications though like a self powered streetlight.

Interesting approach but it is hard to argue with the thousands of Massive 300ft tall pinwheel style horizontal axis wind generators producing utility scale electricity every day. We have several large wind farms now in NE Ohio. We had more slated to be built until Gov K-sick and the repubs passed the ALEC anti renewable energy bill last year.