Top award for urban wind turbine
Updated on 14 June 2007
A revolutionary new design for domestic wind turbines has won first prize in a top competition.
Ben Storan, an industrial design engineering student from the Royal College of Art (RCA), has been working for the past year in conjunction with Imperial College to design an affordable domestic wind turbine suited to the urban environment.
The result is a design which uses vertical rather than traditional horizontal rotation. This gives a slower rotational speed, which allows the turbine to capture more energy from turbulent air flow, common to urban environments. It also means quieter operation.
As a result, it is able to generate more energy than other domestic models on the market.
The vertical rotation design uses lightweight materials, which means Mr Storan's turbine is more stable, leading to better energy capture and making it easier to install.
On winning the £3,000 first prize at the BSI Sustainability Design Awards, Mr Storan said: "I'm delighted to win such a prestigious award. Growing up in the windy west of Ireland I've always been acutely aware of the huge potential in harnessing such a free, clean and renewable source of energy which, along with a spinning clothes line, gave me the idea in the first place."
Mr Storan said he hopes his design, while still in the early stages of development, will be in production in the not-too-distant future.
Joe Wentworth, a student graduating in design products from the RCA, also won a prize for his retrofit folding handlebar design, which aims to encourage cycling - a sustainable and pollution-free mode of transport.
Mr Wentworth, a Londoner and keen cyclist, said he is only too aware of the storage and crime issues faced by cyclists living in densely populated urban environments.
Once a bike is fitted with the retrofit handlebars, it will sit more comfortably in tight spaces such as hallways, avoiding the need for buying a folding bike at considerable expense. The cost to the environment in producing a new bike is much greater than that of making a pair of folding handlebars.
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