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BMW tries "motionless" wind tech on UK plant roof (renewablesnow.com)
10 points by geox 29 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 8 comments



> The system has wing-like vertical airfoils that create a vacuum effect, drawing air behind an internal propeller to produce power, BMW explains.

So not really motionless.

This reminds me of that Dyson "bladeless" fan - it's not bladeless at all, the fan is just hidden in the base.


Motionless to the environment and observers is the point here.


No meat in the article. They’re using aeromine’s equipment, which uses airfoils to amplify the stack effect and then has a small vertical turbine in the base to generate power.

I’ve seen on one of the science YouTube channels, but it’s been a little while and I can’t recall which one.


Here’s more information on the actual technology being used:

- https://aerominetechnologies.com/

- https://youtu.be/OkRqVBpO2BQ?t=218

- https://youtu.be/VnSZ0MHIcvs?t=238

I’m not associated with it. I was just curious and looked it up myself.


Reminds me of "serverless"


Fifteen years from now we’re going to have to make a new suffix to replace “less” because we’ve completely broken it. Maybe we could steal “sans” from the French. British writers use it very occasionally.


The maintenance costs of microgeneration (especially wind) just seems like it kills all ROI to me.


The picture in the article shows one turbine. In video reports of this and similar systems I’ve typically seen three or more of these all along the prevailing wind side of the roof. From a maintenance standpoint I would presume that 1) this works better on a building that is broadside to the wind, and 2) offering a discount for other potential customers in the vicinity of other customers would be cost effective once maintenance costs are included.




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