World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

August 1, 2004 – Vol.9 No.19

WORLD WIND WATCH.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) is joining other grid-scale wind turbine manufacturers with ever-larger machines. By March of 2005 the company plans to have a developmental 2.4 megawatt nameplate-capacity turbine completed at its facilities in Yokohama.

The new MWT 92/2.4 will have a rotor diameter of 92 meters and a cut-in speed of 3.0 meters per second (m/s)(7 mph). By comparison with two similar-capacity turbines from GE Wind its 2.3 and 2.5 megawatt turbines have rotor diameters of 94 meters and 88 meters respectively and cut-in speeds of 3.0 m/s (7 mph) for the 2.3, 3.5 m/s (8 mph) for the 2.5 model. Visit Mitsubishi at http://www.mhi.co.jp/indexe.html

There’s still room in wind turbine development for unusual designs to come along. One of them is Doug Selsam’s co-axial, multi-rotor wind turbine.

His device uses multiple rotors placed along a single drive shaft to turn single or multiple electric generators. Each rotor has a relatively small diameter but connected to the shaft works together to increase power output. Light-weight, high strength carbon fiber composites are used in the construction of the turbine.

The company’s most advanced model has an output of 4 kilowatts in winds of 27 miles per hour (12 m/s) using 7, seven-foot diameter rotors. The project has been funded by the California Energy Commission. Visit Selsam Innovations at http://www.selsam.com/ .