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.
Transpower—the Flying Clothesline from the Early 1980s
By
Paul Gipe
Transpower was another of those companies that thought they had a bright idea about how to harness wind energy in …
Wind Harvest VAWT—a Jungian Vision (the Backstory)
By
Paul Gipe
While strolling through the Bakersfield Museum of Art this summer—yes, don’t laugh, we have an art museum here—I came across …
Agile Wind Power VAWT Still Not Removed
By
Paul Gipe
Thilo Wirth visited the Grevenbroich test site west of Cologne 24 September 2023. He found that Agile Wind Power’s test …
Agile Wind Power’s Giant VAWT Coming Down
By
Paul Gipe
Agile Wind Power is removing its giant VAWT from the Grevenbroich test site. The dismantlement follows the second failure of …
Agile Wind Power’s Giant VAWT Re-Installed at Grevenbroich
By
Paul Gipe
Swiss VAWT Vertical Sky has been re-installed at Germany’s Grevenbroich test site west of Cologne.
Staffer blows whistle on blowhard America’s Cup wind-power plan
By
Jonathan Milne
A waterfront lantern festival powered by a ‘wind tree’ was the last gasp for a failing business. In the final in a three-part series, Jonathan Milne reports how Evan Price’s chickens came home to roost – on a steel tree.
