Thursday 5 July 2012

New turbine could “revolutionise” energy industry

A new design of wind turbine could potentially “revolutionise” the renewables industry.

A prototype of the turbine was installed at Keele University last week, where academics and students are monitoring its progress.

McCamley UK, who built the turbine, said it has developed it to help generate electricity in urban areas.

While traditional turbines rely on a steady wind speed, the new model is expected to cope with the turbulent nature of wind conditions in urban environments.

The company claims the new model is a self-starting turbine as it will continue to operate even when wind speed drops below 2-3 metres per second, compared to a traditional one which stops and draws power from the grid to restart when the wind picks up.

The turbine also has the potential to be effective on farms and rural areas.

Dr Scott Elliott, CEO of the company said: “Wind energy has huge potential in the UK but the traditional wind farm models are just not effective and are certainly not suitable for urban environments. This leaves a huge gap in the market where businesses, residential blocks and other organisations could be benefiting from clean energy. We believe this design has the potential to be the new face of wind energy and is completely scalable, from 12kW designs to larger megawatt designs.”