Vertical Axis Wind Turbines
Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs) can be either small or large. Regardless, they are not the mainstay of the wind industry. Very few exist and even fewer than those work. For many years, I kept these pages as subcategory of small wind turbines. However, this arrangement no longer worked well with the current web site design so I’ve put them under the main category of wind turbines even though most serious work on the technology ceased years if not decades ago.
Chapter 6. Vertical-Axis and Darrieus Wind Turbines, of my book Wind Energy for the Rest of Us: A Comprehensive Guide to Wind Power and How to Use It, has an extensive discussion of the technology–all in one place.
There is also an extensive collection of archival and recent photographs of VAWTs and various forms of Darrieus turbines on the Photos section of this site. There you can find photos of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines.
Dean Thomas Following in Father’s VAWT Footsteps
By
Paul Gipe
Dean Thomas, son of Robert Thomas, the designer of the Wind Harvest Vertical Axis Wind Turbine is still plugging away …
More on Wind Harvest History from Someone in the Know
By
Paul Gipe
I’ve previously written about the history of Wind Harvest’s Vertical Axis Wind Turbine from the mid 1970s. (See Wind Harvest …
Wind: An Energy Alternative–Video Blast from the Past
By
Paul Gipe
This is an update of an article I first posted in 10 November 2018. It follows on a series of articles about historical films of wind turbines. In 1980 the Department of Energy published a short film titled Wind: An Energy Alternative. The 12-minute film was produced by the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) probably in 1979.
DAF-Indal: The Canadian Darrieus
By
Paul Gipe
DAF-Indal[1] began working with Canada’s National Research Council and provincial utilities to develop Darrieus wind turbines using Canada’s abundant aluminum in the mid 1970s.[2] They constructed about a dozen small prototype Darrieus turbines less than 5 meters in diameter and about 9 meters tall in the mid to late 1970s, rated variously from 4 kW to 12 kW.[3] One was installed in the Arctic for Canada’s Defence Research Establishment.[4] Another was installed in Texas at the USDA’s Bushland Experiment Station in a wind-assisted pumping test. Another was installed on Block Island, Rhode Island.[5] One was still standing—inoperative–outside Toronto in 2007.[6]
DAF-Indal 50 kW Darrieus in the Pacheco Pass
By
Paul Gipe
The Canadian fabricator, DAF-Indal, installed a second generation 50 kW Darrieus turbine in 1981 at the the Romero Overlook Visitor …
Prototype 100 kW FloWind Darrieus Turbine Still Standing Idle in Washington State
By
Paul Gipe
NREL’s Owen Roberts reports that FloWind’s prototype 100 kW Darrieus wind turbine installed in early 1982 is still standing inoperative …
