Cities are full of wind that we don't use. Updrafts, eddies between buildings, breezes that change direction: all this energy potential is wasted because traditional turbines are not suited to urban environments. But mini wind is about to make an impressive leap in quality, thanks to a technology that uses wind regardless of its direction.
Why does “traditional” mini wind fail?
Small wind turbines have always faced significant obstacles in urban settings.limited efficiency has been one of the main problems, making it difficult to justify the costs of installation and maintenance. Traditional turbines suffer particularly in urban areas, where the wind is often turbulent and changes direction frequently.
The problems don't stop there. The vibrations and the noise generated by the moving blades have always been a significant deterrent to adoption in cities. In addition, the visual impact of conventional turbines has often met with resistance from residents and local governments.
Small wind turbines often struggle to achieve satisfactory efficiency, making their high costs difficult to justify.
A new approach to mini wind
The new release of O-Innovations in the field of urban mini wind power it is represented by the turbine O-Wind: a spherical device covered with a series of strategically designed openings. As he explains Nicholas Orellana, CEO of the company:
If you live in a house in a rural area, you can install solar panels or whatever and you take responsibility for it. But in urban spaces there is no way. You are not responsible, you are just passing the problem on to someone else.
The uniqueness of this technology lies in its ability to exploit chaotic urban winds that normally pose a problem for traditional turbines. The design, as mentioned, allows for capturing currents from any direction, both horizontal and vertical.
The Physics of Urban Winds
City winds are notoriously complex and turbulent. Buildings create phenomena such as downwash, where the wind descends along the smooth surfaces of the buildings, and thetrail effect, which generates turbulence at street level. As Orellana points out:
In these places there are very fast winds, with great potential energy. The wind can reach speeds three times higher than in open spaces,
which means 27 times more energy.But exploiting this wind, which goes in different directions (vertical, horizontal, diagonal) is very difficult for traditional turbines.
The main challenge of mini wind power is precisely this: conventional turbines are designed for “clean” winds, with constant direction and speed. The urban environment offers completely opposite conditions. Even other turbines that we have recently talked about (such as Aeromines, for example) tackle the problem brilliantly, but O-Wind seems really brilliant to me.
The working principle
The O-Wind turbine exploits the Bernoulli's principle, the same one that allows airplanes to fly. Its spherical shape is covered with asymmetrical openings: wider on one side and narrower on the other. When the wind passes through these openings, it creates a pressure difference that makes the turbine rotate.
Orellana underlines a fundamental aspect:
The word 'omnidirectional' has been misused in the past in reference to vertical axis turbines, but omni means all, so 'all winds' includes vertical thrust.
Performance and applications
The first commercial model will have a diameter of 2,2 meters and will be able to produce between 2.000 and 5.000 kilowatt hours per year, sufficient to cover the average electricity needs of a home.
According to Orellana:
We think it will be comparable to a standard solar panel installation in the UK, both in price and return on investment.
A particularly interesting aspect is the reduced environmental impact. During the pilot tests lasting a year and a half, no problems with the local fauna were recorded:
We had no incidents of any kind with environmental issues or wildlife. No birds, bugs, ants, nests, nothing inside. It was excellent.
Future perspectives
O-Innovations is currently running a pilot project sponsored by Spotify, with the goal of bringing the turbine to market by the end of next year. As Orellana concludes:
There are turbines out there and some people are trying them. But overall it is not a mature industry. There is still a lot of room for urban implementation of mini wind, and no one has made the leap yet. We hope to be the first to start populating urban space with energy.
The vision is clear: to make city dwellers an active part of renewable energy production through mini wind power, offering a practical solution to an increasingly pressing problem.
I hope so: it would be, it must be said, a breath of fresh air.
