Mar 09 2010
New offshore wind turbine design: cheaper and easier to maintain
Science, Wind turbines Add commentsA radical new approach to offshore wind turbines is being developed by UK researchers could solve one of the major challenges of offshore wind development. The Novel Offshore Vertical Axis (NOVA) Demonstrator puts the moving parts at the bottom of the unit, greatly simplifying maintenance. (How they will deal with corrosive factors will be interesting to see!) The units are 100m tall, and are planned to generate 5-10MW; however, they are some years away, with the initial test model planned for deployment in 2015.
Aerogenerator NOVA concept
For more on this new design, see this article in the Guardian and the NOVA website.