Michael Bergey is a renowned wind turbine manufacturer.
In addition to that, he conducts almost daily evaluations of out-of-the-box wind power concepts, including some AWE concepts, and also VAWT. He usually gives his verdict in a single word: nope: Activité | Michael Bergey | LinkedIn.
Such an assessment can be considered summary, but it must be understood that we are dealing with a wind energy expert. Noting the invariable repetition of the same flaws (primarily lack of efficiency, but also reliability and other problems) associated with the same architectures, which lead to a lack of market despite investments, he finally summed it up in a single word: nope.
It’s interesting to go through all these wind turbine designs that end in a “nope”: you eventually see what’s wrong and understand why the dominant HAWT 3-bladed design is crushing the wind power market.
When you’re well-versed in this, you realize that this “nope” saves considerable time. For example, the last presentation led to endless questions when a simple “nope” would have been enough to close the thread. Why? Simply because a Savonius wind turbine is inefficient for electricity generation, a fact that has been proven for a long time.
In this forum, @dougselsam knows wind turbines better than anyone: he’s built them and even installed a Bergey turbine. His opinion should therefore carry weight.
The thread above has generated some interesting discussions. See, for example, @aokholm’s arguments, including:
Seems that the visualized design suffer at least 3 of the suggested disadvantages with conventional 3 bladed designs.
Extreme Bending Moments: (In so far that the airfoils generate useful lift). Parasitic Drag: The blade roots that generates no lift, acting primarily as a drag penalty. Fatigue & Gearbox Failures: Predictable torque spikes that severely damage conventional PTO systems.
I will suggest try designing a conventional 3 bladed turbine with the same power production capacity before believing the novel concept is better.
These arguments can be a counterpoint to Michael Bergey’s “nope”.
There is also quite a few ‘nope’ about other projects based on vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT), and an AWES, but I couldn’t find the direct links.
Abstract
A claim becomes science when anyone can reproduce it. A result no one outside its authors can check is not a weak finding — it is not a finding. This paper asserts a rule that binds everyone, not one institution: an unreproducible claim is not science and not prior art, and no one should grant scientific credence — or public funds — to a person or institution that withholds data or countenances fraud. Reproducibility, not the standing of the author or the institution, is what earns a claim any credit, and what should decide where public money goes.
Under these conditions, given that these are statements made on a professional site, if a relevant commentator in the field (in this case Michael Bergey) considers that the elements given do not allow a scientific validation of the concept presented, the “nope” can be considered as a response of non-validation.
It is an empty claim. Under these conditions – to have scientific integrity – , it is “not a finding”. It is nothing.
“A professional site” (it is not, a professional website would have editors that never would have approved the posts), “a relevant commentator,” the article explicitly argues that these do not earn a claim any credit. Nullius in verba.
I now looked at 3 of the posts. They are uninteresting. Are there more plausible concepts posted?
Extreme Bending Moments: (In so far that the airfoils generate useful lift).