Humdinger – Wind power without a turbine
Posted by: GeekFury on August 10, 2010
Environmental Technology, It's just cool..., Science
This is the kind of innovation the green movement needs. Shawn Frayne of Humdinger LLC explains his new invention using the phenomenon aeroelastic flutter to harness wind energy without using a big clunky wind turbine. Very cool idea and as the video below from Popular Mechanics shows, it seems to work pretty well.
An explanation of Windbelt Technology – What powers the idea.
From the Humdinger Website:
On the medium and large scales, Humdinger is developing ‘Windcells™’ and the ‘Windcell Panel™’. The 1-meter Windcells are designed to work alone or in groups to provide power to lighting, WiFi nodes, micro-base stations, or any situation demanding 0.1 kWh to 1 kWh of energy per month. The Windcell Panels have a form-factor similar to solar panels and are designed for larger installations, targeting applications with 5kWh to several MWh of energy demand per month , with particular attention to cost. On larger installations, the Windcell Panels have an initial projected production cost of US$0.05 per kWh (at 6m/s average windspeeds). Cost combined with modularity, safety, and form factor gives this variation of the technology access to many of the places that wind and solar cannot presently go
The only thing I wonder about this technology is when you have 500+ of these things vibrating, what does it sound like?
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