IRWES: New Thinking about Wind Energy in the Urban Environment
The Integrated Roof Wind Energy System (IRWES) is a novel wind energy solution invented to overcome the limitations of many of today’s available renewable energy technologies and make ‘clean’ energy a reality for our cities and our planet. This revolutionary, integrated energy system is created by using an axial array of skewed, shaped funnels, which exploit the Venturi Effect to accelerate the wind flow towards an enclosed turbine. This inventive use of shape and geometry results in an air inlet that causes the airflow to converge, and creates a flow of air with high mass and velocity, which is funnelled towards the vertical axis wind turbine in the centre-top of the roof. This high-energy air has the potential to generate a lot of power.
By Dr Rossella M. Ferraro, Dr Alexander B. Suma and Dr Faas Moonen, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, The Netherlands
The Ibis Power b.v. company of the Netherlands, together with the Technische Universiteit (University of Technology) Eindhoven, has a mission to develop a system of energy production that is located close to where it is needed and is acceptable to the user. This team is currently working on a novel technology called IRWES, the Integrated Roof Wind Energy System.
The Problem
Production of ‘clean’ energy in proximity to the user’s location has received increasing attention over recent years. Being the cheapest of the renewable electricity technologies, onshore wind energy is likely to be the largest contributor to the 34% share of renewable electricity needed for the European Union to meet its 2020 commitments. However, despite the high rate of development experienced over the last ten years, the urban wind energy systems available today are still in the infancy of their development and substantial room for improvement exists.
A Solution – IRWES
IRWES is a wind energy solution that is designed to produce usable electrical power efficiently in low to high wind speeds, thus providing both environmental and economic benefits to its users and consumers. IRWES has the potential to generate more power from the same sized buildings than today’s conventional systems. With this system, users will harvest wind energy at the location where it is needed, using it to supply their own electrical needs and selling the excess energy at a profit; battery cells are used to store energy in case of emergency. IRWES can be adapted to high and low buildings, and it can be built in at the time of construction or added to an existing building with no impact or devaluation of the aesthetics of the structure.
How Does it Work?
The rooftop system consists of a axial array of skewed, shaped funnels that make use of the Venturi Effect to accelerate the wind flow. This inventive use of shape and geometry results in an air inlet that is designed to cause the airflow to converge, thus creating a flow of air with high mass and velocity which is funnelled towards the vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) in the centre-top of the roof. This high-energy air has the potential to generate a lot of power (Figure 1). IRWES makes use not only of the direct wind flow coming into the system, but also the flow that interacts with the façade, which thanks to the louvres, is captured and guided inside the structure towards the turbine. The louvres, and the internal shape of the structure, ensure a laminar flow, which reduces noise and increases the turbine efficiency.
Aesthetics
Increasing global energy demand, rising energy costs, environmental pollution and disaster risks are at the top of our critical list with respect to society, the economy and the world we want to leave for future generations. Driven by this common concern users are more and more directed towards renewable energy sources, but the acceptability of available technologies is still a major concern for the industry. Is the user willing to accept a neighbourhood that looks like a factory with lines of houses topped with wind mills or covered with solar panels? The answer is…NO! It would seem that the majority of people are not prepared to change the look of their buildings and cities in any radical way. In order to increase the acceptability of renewable systems in the urban environment it is vital that the changes should be aesthetically acceptable to the users. IRWES aims to conquer users’ hearts by blending changes into the building structure. By hiding the turbine inside the roof structure and making use of different materials and colours, IRWES is designed to meet the wishes of the user.
Research and Development
In the early stage of the project numerical studies were conducted by means of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Subsequently, a full-scale IRWES prototype was built (Figure 2) and tested for more than six months (an ongoing trial). Results have shown that IRWES could become a strong competitor to the systems currently available in the market. The acceleration due to the internal shape of the structure seems to make it possible to ensure that air velocity at the turbine is very similar to that observed in an open field. This represents a substantial improvement for applications of wind energy in urban areas. One of the major problems for the use of wind turbines in those areas is the deceleration of the wind speed due to the obstruction of the buildings around the turbine. While today’s conventional turbines only generate energy from wind velocities above 3.6m/s, with IRWES lower wind velocities could now be used for energy production.
The aim of the prototype test was to study the development of the wind flow around and into the innovative roof, and the loads path on the structure; for this reason the prototype did not include any turbine. The next step in the research will be to build a pilot unit on top of an existing building in a city and optimise the system. The building selected is the Vertigo building at the Eindhoven University of Technology (Figure 3).
Through an innovative approach, IRWES introduces a prospective new way of helping to solve the global energy problem and to fulfil society's current and future needs.
The Integrated Roof Wind Energy System (IRWES) is a novel wind energy solution invented to overcome the limitations of many of today’s available renewable energy technologies and make ‘clean’ energy a reality for our cities and our planet. This revolutionary, integrated energy system is created by using an axial array of skewed, shaped funnels, which exploit the Venturi Effect to accelerate the wind flow towards an enclosed turbine. This inventive use of shape and geometry results in an air inlet that causes the airflow to converge, and creates a flow of air with high mass and velocity, which is funnelled towards the vertical axis wind turbine in the centre-top of the roof. This high-energy air has the potential to generate a lot of power.By Dr Rossella M. Ferraro, Dr Alexander B. Suma and Dr Faas Moonen, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, The Netherlands
The Ibis Power b.v. company of the Netherlands, together with the Technische Universiteit (University of Technology) Eindhoven, has a mission to develop a system of energy production that is located close to where it is needed and is acceptable to the user. This team is currently working on a novel technology called IRWES, the Integrated Roof Wind Energy System.
The Problem
Production of ‘clean’ energy in proximity to the user’s location has received increasing attention over recent years. Being the cheapest of the renewable electricity technologies, onshore wind energy is likely to be the largest contributor to the 34% share of renewable electricity needed for the European Union to meet its 2020 commitments. However, despite the high rate of development experienced over the last ten years, the urban wind energy systems available today are still in the infancy of their development and substantial room for improvement exists.
A Solution – IRWES
IRWES is a wind energy solution that is designed to produce usable electrical power efficiently in low to high wind speeds, thus providing both environmental and economic benefits to its users and consumers. IRWES has the potential to generate more power from the same sized buildings than today’s conventional systems. With this system, users will harvest wind energy at the location where it is needed, using it to supply their own electrical needs and selling the excess energy at a profit; battery cells are used to store energy in case of emergency. IRWES can be adapted to high and low buildings, and it can be built in at the time of construction or added to an existing building with no impact or devaluation of the aesthetics of the structure.
How Does it Work?
The rooftop system consists of a axial array of skewed, shaped funnels that make use of the Venturi Effect to accelerate the wind flow. This inventive use of shape and geometry results in an air inlet that is designed to cause the airflow to converge, thus creating a flow of air with high mass and velocity which is funnelled towards the vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) in the centre-top of the roof. This high-energy air has the potential to generate a lot of power (Figure 1). IRWES makes use not only of the direct wind flow coming into the system, but also the flow that interacts with the façade, which thanks to the louvres, is captured and guided inside the structure towards the turbine. The louvres, and the internal shape of the structure, ensure a laminar flow, which reduces noise and increases the turbine efficiency.
Aesthetics
Increasing global energy demand, rising energy costs, environmental pollution and disaster risks are at the top of our critical list with respect to society, the economy and the world we want to leave for future generations. Driven by this common concern users are more and more directed towards renewable energy sources, but the acceptability of available technologies is still a major concern for the industry. Is the user willing to accept a neighbourhood that looks like a factory with lines of houses topped with wind mills or covered with solar panels? The answer is…NO! It would seem that the majority of people are not prepared to change the look of their buildings and cities in any radical way. In order to increase the acceptability of renewable systems in the urban environment it is vital that the changes should be aesthetically acceptable to the users. IRWES aims to conquer users’ hearts by blending changes into the building structure. By hiding the turbine inside the roof structure and making use of different materials and colours, IRWES is designed to meet the wishes of the user.
Research and Development
In the early stage of the project numerical studies were conducted by means of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Subsequently, a full-scale IRWES prototype was built (Figure 2) and tested for more than six months (an ongoing trial). Results have shown that IRWES could become a strong competitor to the systems currently available in the market. The acceleration due to the internal shape of the structure seems to make it possible to ensure that air velocity at the turbine is very similar to that observed in an open field. This represents a substantial improvement for applications of wind energy in urban areas. One of the major problems for the use of wind turbines in those areas is the deceleration of the wind speed due to the obstruction of the buildings around the turbine. While today’s conventional turbines only generate energy from wind velocities above 3.6m/s, with IRWES lower wind velocities could now be used for energy production.
The aim of the prototype test was to study the development of the wind flow around and into the innovative roof, and the loads path on the structure; for this reason the prototype did not include any turbine. The next step in the research will be to build a pilot unit on top of an existing building in a city and optimise the system. The building selected is the Vertigo building at the Eindhoven University of Technology (Figure 3).
Through an innovative approach, IRWES introduces a prospective new way of helping to solve the global energy problem and to fulfil society's current and future needs.
