SheerWind announced their newest innovation as part of their Industry changing INVELOX technology. The bold technology integrates three turbines in a row or series and increases the electrical power output for a single tower.
SheerWind's INVELOX™ system is a large funnel that captures, concentrates, and accelerates wind before delivering it to turbines safely and efficiently located at ground level. By placing three turbines in a series in an INVELOX system, additional 120% power may be generated compared to a single turbine.
Recent reports state technologies have allowed some markets in renewable generation to be competitive with coal or natural gas. This is good news, however, renewable energies intermittency and massive size challenges will continue without industry changes. SheerWind's INVELOX attends to the intermittency and size issues by combining the best traditional wind technologies with a unique wind delivery system that produces more efficient and powerful wind generation machines.
Ultimately combining technologies will allow us to achieve the necessary power generation capacities to transform wind energy into a reliable base-load power source. This includes reducing intermittency issues by producing power at lower wind speeds, placing turbines safely covered at ground level allowing installation close to the end user. This could be the beginning of transforming wind power into the base-load power source that coal has been since the early 1900s.
Multiple turbines in a single INVELOX tower means nearly zero operational downtime because maintenance can be done on one turbine while the others continue producing energy. With INVELOX capacity factor at 60–90% and turbines installed safely and conveniently at ground level, maintenance costs and failure is greatly reduced.
Benefits of multiple turbines in single tower:
- 120% additional power output at minimum added cost of turbine-generators
- Reduced capital expenditure per kilowatt
- Increased production capacity
- Gain in output without increasing footprint
- Offers upgradability to meet increase in power demands
- Minimizes operational downtime
"This is a great achievement, for the first time in wind industry history three turbines may run in series in a single tower to produce more energy. This means customers can gain an increase in output from a single INVELOX tower —reducing cost per kilowatt—all without additional structure or land use," said Steve Hill COO of SheerWind, "Plus increased capacity allows production in areas previously limited by low wind speed, size or land constraints."