As wind turbines proliferate across land and sea all over the world, everyone knows what they look like: tall, towers with three blades that rotate in the wind.
But is that the best possible design? Several companies are challenging the classic wind turbine concept, for offshore use in particular.
Sweden’s SeaTwirl, for example, makes vertical-axis turbines. Where a traditional wind turbine looks somewhat similar to the nose of a propeller aircraft, SeaTwirl’s vertical wind turbine looks more like a kitchen food whisk. It claims significant advantages over traditional turbines, which have a number of potentially energy-restricting limitations, especially that high winds can require a temporary shutdown of generation at a time when wind energy is at its maximum.
So could vertical-axis turbines speed our endeavours to become carbon-neutral within the next 30 years?
