Three Fold Increase in Energy Output from New Wind Turbine Technology?

Wind power generated electricity contributed to 2% of the global electricity consumption by the end of 2009. Last year wind power achieved a growth rate of 31.7%, a trend that could potentially see to a doubling of the wind capacity every three years! Japan, as a result of all its geothermal sources, is at the forefront of renewable energy technology and an innovative technology recently unveiled in Japan could very well result in a two to three fold increase in energy output from wind turbines in the future.

The new technology…

Introduced at the Yokohama Renewable Energy International Exhibition 2010 is called the Wind Lens and it’s certainly one of the most visually impressive wind turbine technologies to have been proposed in recent times.

The structure of Wind Lens…

That you see in the image supports several hoops and floating hexagonal bases. One hoop is a whopping 112 meters in diameter and it can focus the power of the wind to the centre of the hoop, similar to a magnifying lens that can focus the sun’s rays.

The result?

As determined from preliminary experiments, a threefold increase in energy output can be expected, in addition to a reduction in noise pollution often associated with large wind turbines and an increase in safety as well.

Via: cnngo