Like a breeze stirring ahead of a storm, there is a growing interest in wind power and the renewable energy source rode another gust toward widespread use last week with the groundbreaking ceremony of a unique wind turbine that will help power Sullivan County Community College and eventually, advocates hope, move on to power far more users in the near future.
And with the installation in Sullivan County of a prototype aimed at large scale “wind farm” production coupled with the recent building-scale installation in Poughkeepsie of a prototype aimed at powering individual structures, the Hudson Valley hopes to garner a share of research, development and even production investment for the emerging new energy economy.  Â
On Nov. 5, Manhattan-based Environmental Technologies L.L.C. (ETLLC) broke ground for a 10-story wind machine along with an educational kiosk describing the technology and how it works, to be constructed on approximately one acre of land located at the intersection of College Road and the campus traffic circle. The land is being leased from the college and Sullivan County.Â
The “Vertical Type Wind Turbine” being installed is different than the propeller turbine commonly pictured when depicting wind energy. The turbine”™s blades are designed to catch the wind from all directions. Their configuration resembles Venetian blinds stacked on top of each other in an array that is flexible enough to catch intermittent winds. At just over 111 feet, the wind machine is about one-third the height of traditional propeller-style wind turbines, yet is estimated to produce twice the output.Â
According to the company web site, traditional wind mill type generators transform about
35 percent of the kinetic energy into actual usable electric power, while the vertical turbines transform about 70 percent of the wind power to electric power.
“We can utilize wind much, much better than conventional propellers,” said Osamu (Sam) Ikeda, founder, president and chief executive officer of ETLLC which was established in February 2007, after some two decade of research. The vertical turbine needs minimum winds of about 9 miles per hour and a single machine can power about 500 homes.  Â
Ikeda said that the company”™s mission is in effect, to do well while doing good. “Given our mission to help solve the problems facing our planet as a result of global warming, we are very excited to install our internationally patented, 1.25 megawatt-class vertical shaft wind turbine here at Sullivan County Community College,” said Ikeda. “This will be the world”™s first installation of our ETC-LU model wind turbine; the first, we hope, of many to come.”
The vertical turbine is quieter, and easier to maintain than traditional wind turbines, said Ikeda. Since all of the mechanical elements will be located in a ground-level power room rather than at the top of a 300-foot mast, maintenance is easier and the configuration allows the turbine to be outfitted with a set of DC motors and AC generators that will work like the transmission of a car that kicks into a higher gear as wind speed increases.Â
Another feature of the ETC model is the slow rotor rotation (estimated at 10-15 rotations per minute) which causes no motion smear or blur, a reason for many bird kills caused by traditional turbines.
Construction at Sullivan Community College is taking place under the direction of Albany-based engineering firm Clough Harbour & Associates L.L.C.
ETLLC plans to complete the installation of its wind turbine on the campus in January and be in full operation by early spring, making it the world”™s first “grid-scale” vertical shaft wind turbine.
The wind machine at SCCC is a different type than a prototype wind machine whirling atop a building in downtown Poughkeepsie that last month was awarded a $1 million state energy grant. The Poughkeepsie prototype is designed to directly power a building, rather than contribute to a grid, like the wind machine rising in Sullivan County.Â
AeroCity L.L.C., the company testing the machine in Poughkeepsie, hopes the grant will finance production of turbines by Fala Technologies in Kingston, perhaps as soon as next year. Their machine is also not a traditional wind mill, but has helical blades intertwined almost like a DNA strand, that spin vertically, a configuration that is safer and more efficient at lower wind speeds and within the air turbulence of crowded cities.
The basic AeroCity unit will have a rated capacity of 1.5 kW. Multiple units can be linked together to provide supplemental power. The units are also compatible with solar panels. Installations normally will require an elevation of at least five stories above the ground.
