A more efficient and less intrusive wind turbine design has been welcomed by two of the UK industry’s biggest critics and government regulators

A new bladeless wind turbine that promises to be more efficient, less visually intrusive, and safer for birdlife than conventional turbines has been welcomed by two of the UK wind energy industry’s most vocal critics.



The RSPB and the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), which have both expressed concerns over the impacts of industrial-scale windfarms on the landscape and wildlife, said the new turbine was encouraging news for birds and had the potential to open up more urban environments to the sector.

The streamlined design contains no contacting moving parts, making it virtually noiseless and less prone to vibration. Vortex Bladeless, the turbine’s Spanish developers, hopes these advantages could finally help usher in a viable consumer wind power market.

“Wind turbines now are too noisy for people’s backyard,” says David Suriol, who co-founded the company with Raul Martin and the turbine’s inventor, David Yáñez. “We want to bring wind power generation to people’s houses like solar power.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The bladeless turbine oscillates in swirling air caused by the wind bypassing the mast. Photograph: Vortex Bladeless

Big improvements

Using the scientific principles of natural frequency and vorticity, the turbine oscillates in swirling air caused by the wind bypassing the mast, and then builds exponentially as it reaches the structure’s natural resonance. It’s a powerful effect that famously caused the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940, footage of which inspired Yáñez to try to build a structure to harness this energy rather than prevent it.

“The best wind turbine will collect around 50% of energy from the wind,” says Suriol. “We are close to 40% with bladeless turbines in our wind tunnel laboratory.”



The turbine “floats” on magnets, which as well as significantly amplifying the oscillation, also eliminates any friction and the need for expensive lubricating oils or mechanical parts. So even if newer conventional turbines are promising greater and greater power generation, Vortex Bladeless claims that the efficiency of their design will always make it cheaper at whatever scale.

“We are using less parts so manufacturing costs will be 53% less, and the operational costs – including maintenance, land rental and administration – will be 51% cheaper,” predicts Suriol for a planned 150-metre tall, one-megawatt bladeless turbine, compared to current onshore windfarm’s most common three-bladed turbines. “We estimate that it will be 40% less expensive than conventional wind turbines per megawatt of generation.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The bladeless wind generator promises a more efficient, cost-effective and environmental friendly way to produce energy.

This industrial-sized turbine is at least four years away from reality, Suriol confesses, but within 18 months he hopes to sell a three-metre-high version, generating 100W, paired with a 125W solar panel and small battery. This, he says, could be offered as a “really cheap system” for people living off-grid in Africa and India, supplying enough electricity for three lights, a TV and a refrigerator.

A 13-metre, 4kW turbine for domestic use is planned within a similar timeframe, which would fall foul of current residential planning permission rules in England that stipulate free-standing turbines can be no higher than 11.1 metres high. Even if these issues couldn’t be surmounted, Suriol argues that the 13-metre turbines could be used en masse as viable alternatives to current windfarms.

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Support from wind farm opponents

“You can put four, five or six 4kW turbines in the space of one conventional turbine, which need 5 metre diameter space around them,” he says. In fact, wind tunnel tests have shown they perform even better placed closer together as they benefit from the vortices each of them creates.

But of most interest to conservationists is the elimination of standard wind turbine issues of noise disturbance, shadow flicker and bird strike, and the new design is arguably less visually intrusive.



“Any development in the countryside needs proper scrutiny to ensure it doesn’t damage the environment in any way, but if [this] technology helps lower greenhouse gas emissions and doesn’t cause harm to birds, then fantastic,” says Grahame Madge, senior media officer at the RSPB.

Nick Clack, senior energy campaigner at CPRE, agrees. “If the claims can be verified about the impacts of this new bladeless wind turbine – on carbon, the surrounding area, and cost – then it could play a really useful part in our energy mix,” he says, adding that any proposed project would still need to be properly scrutinised to reduce impact on the landscape as much as possible.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change, whose new minister Amber Rudd recently pledged to remove subsidies for large onshore windfarms and delegate future planning decisions on them to local councils in consultation with residents, couldn’t say whether the new bladeless turbines would be exempt from such measures. But the government quango responsible for approving English windfarm developments, Natural England, said, “We could only comment on the potential landscape impact of these designs once we see where and how they would operate in any given location. However, by avoiding the use of blades, this design clearly has the potential to reduce the impact on birds.”

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With the support, among others, of Harvard University, advisers from US solar power giant SunEdison, and international design consultancy IDEO, Vortex Bladeless hopes to raise more money from venture capitalists to develop its turbines further before approaching any major energy companies to roll out for commercial generation.

“Lots of people from around the world are supporting us, which is amazing, so we just have to work hard to do what we have to do,” says Suriol.