Wind Energy. Project Vortex Bladeless

Vortex Bladeless is a disruptive aerogenerator. It represents a new paradigm of wind use with a new concept without blades. VORTEX can capture the wind kinetic energy by 'vortex shedding', transforming it into electricity. The technology seeks to improve issues such as maintenance, amortization, noise, environmental impact, logistics, and visual aspect, performing a secure, clean and efficient energy production that could be cheaper than the conventional small wind turbines (SWT). VORTEX could make renewable energy more financially accessible for end-users.

Clients will benefit from this new technology, especially in areas where solar energy does not perform well. Vortex has enough room for improvement and lots of industry and commercial interest. Our goal is to provide power to European households for close future commercialization and later massive market uptake. We want to achieve these goals of becoming the designer, manufacturer, and seller of the first-ever bladeless wind generator for the Small Wind Market (SWM). Combing our patented and market-backed technology with improved properties, we want to reinvigorate the SWM addressing EU 2020 energy targets.

Market Niches

The new generator will be easily installed and combined with existing solar panel installations, where the electrical equipment and batteries would be shared by both generation systems. Due to the increasing demand of these type of energy, massive sales of generators in the range of 100 W, for example, are expected (electric vehicle charge, the combination of VORTEX technology with existing solar panel installations, etc.).

Since the source of energy is different (wind and solar) together with the elements in the installation that can be share, the synergies between both technologies can create a very competitive solution. Green energy sources suffer a limitation linked to discontinuity in their generation, for example, during the night, solar panels do not produce energy. In this case, the usual solution is to oversize the power generation of PV panels and store the energy in a battery for the night hours supply. Combining both energy sources, wind and sun, the battery needs will decrease because of the continuous generation of energy.

Replacement and mix of SWT installations: The requirements for a conventional wind turbine installation is the separation of the turbines several times its dimension to avoid interference. This area can be reused to locate vortex if the height of the wind turbines is over the size of the vortex devices. In this way, a turbine installation can be upgraded for more energy extraction.

Commercialisation Strategy

This new product will directly address the needs of widen specific groups in different ways:

- Installation companies or big suppliers of similar devices for industrial, services and residential sectors.

- Energy Service (or Savings) Companies (ESCOs): ESCOs nowadays focus their business into retrofitting in buildings and street-lighting.

- Third world countries when the supply needs are fewer compared with the first world, small generators can role an important place to improving the quality of life for many people.

- Fast installation needs (military and emergency use). Sometimes equipment that can be easily transported and installed can be crucial for the surviving of the population, in particular, situations (Refugee and rescue camps).

Therefore, the end-users for a small wind VORTEX generator are:

· Residential (mainly rural/isolated).

· Commercial and industrial.

· Fishery and recreation boats.

· Hybrids systems.

· Farms and remote villages.

· Portable systems for leisure.

· Pumping.

· Desalination and purification.

· Remote monitoring.

· Research and education.

· Telecom base station.

A market analysis update has been developed for the small wind generator. The studies have shown that most of the SWT state-of-the-art solutions are neither technologically, nor economically viable, and most importantly, they are subjected to national financial incentives to be profitable and to offer an attractive payback period for investors.

Consequently, there is a huge business opportunity for the company that successfully introduces an innovative solution to the small wind turbine sector that is capable of dealing with the following challenges:

1. Minimizing Manufacturing Costs: Current designs still demand too high investment (materials, manufacturing, and transport).

2. Reduce Operational and & Maintenance Costs (O&M): High annual costs, mainly due to numerous mobile parts and components, orientation mechanism to wind direction, oil consumption for start-up and lubricants.

3. Reduce Environmental Impact: Critical limitations such as visual impact, high level of noise and not being fauna-friendly.

4. Improve Social Impact: Environmental impact related to visual impact and noise extremely affects public acceptance of such devices. Citizen supports wind generation as renewable energy, but far from their homes.

We can conclude, that the new scale of the device is an opportunity rather than a difficulty in the success of the project.

"In addition to the evident improvement of the knowledge and deep specialization of the professionals involved in the project, there have been many and important impacts that the project has had beyond the technology.

Two of the three largest wind energy companies in the world have begun to value and study this technology: One of them has officially proposed a collaboration project in which this company would participate together with our team and a large public European research center. Another is currently dedicating a team of people from one of its departments to make a case business of our product. In addition, technical information is being exchanged with them and in a few weeks, they will be sent a prototype for analysis.

Source: cordis.europa.eu