Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Njord (Rugged durable small wind turbine for powering telecom towers residential buildings in extreme weather conditions areas)

Teaser

Extreme weather conditions (i.e. strong and unsteady winds, icing, etc.) - that countries such as Iceland and the other four Nordics (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland), the UK, Ireland, Canada´s Prairies, Northern US, Russia, and Nigeria along with high altitude sites...

Summary

Extreme weather conditions (i.e. strong and unsteady winds, icing, etc.) - that countries such as Iceland and the other four Nordics (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland), the UK, Ireland, Canada´s Prairies, Northern US, Russia, and Nigeria along with high altitude sites face - make traditional wind turbines (horizontal-axis) to spin out of control resulting in catastrophic system failure in the first year of operation. As a result, these locations needed a different kind of wind technology capable of working over a wide production range (whether it’s in the stormy afternoon, in hurricanes or on calm and icy winter nights in the range of -10 to -30 °C) with minimum maintenance. IceWind has therefore identified a business opportunity for a rugged and durable VAWT intended for extreme wind conditions with a power capacity range between 100W to 1,000W and focused on on-site small applications that require a continuous 100% green energy source of reduced carbon footprint and will bring down energy bills of customers through self-generation and consumption. The excellent match of aerodynamics and materials give our NJORD turbines unique features such as optimal structural stability, strength, and hence durability to withstand the most extreme wind conditions. Our VAWT can produce electricity at very low wind speeds, as well as spin elegantly, non-stop and noiseless at high speed winds. As for our commercial strategy, we plan to respond: 1) directly to individual end-users of isolated areas for residential applications (i.e. cabins, homes, and small farms) mainly in Iceland and other EU countries (i.e. the other four Nordics, the UK, and Ireland) and 2) owners of telecom towers worldwide.

Work performed

During the first period a lot has happened.

Technical summary
Icewind has managed to make hybrid turbine made from a Darrieus turbine and a Savonious turbine. By doing that Icewind managed to double the efficiency from the last prototype.
A prototype of a charge controller was made but that is the first time Icewind ever to managed to do that.
Icewind managed to make various other steps forward like destructive testing, coating of the turbine, seals for generator and then design and build a frame both ground-based and tower-based.

Commercial Summary
Icewind has always had a lot of attention ever since the Bloomberg video was aired. 5-10 e-mail arrive in the inbox every day and people follow the company both on mailing list and facebook.
During this period Icewind has put a lot of effort into market research, found companies that would like to fabricate, made a new website for H2020 and are also working on a new overall website to be released in 2019.
We have attended and participated in different fairs and conferences related to the new efficient energy. In some cases, we went to find parts that we needed, talk to technicians and explore new technologies in the energy sector. In Charge-Energy Branding we went to get inspired on how companies were marketing themselves and branding the product since there is a big job ahead of Icewind when it comes to all marketing material and the image of the company. One of the fairs in Iceland we had a product to show where we interacted with the guests.
We have not been pushing ourselves to make dissemination material since we don’t want to show the design before we have fully made the final design and then patented the design so it can be protected. We made one exemption to this rule but that was when we went to the Power-Gen. Before that conference we decided to make few brochures with technical information so we could strike up a conversation with people and talk about the product with them having a better image about it.

Final results

Many of the interested parties that Icewind has spoken to would like to opt for a testing phase of 1-2 years before purchasing units. This is a wonderful opportunity for Icewind to work with customers, test the units and collect data as well. However, this comes with the added complexity that Icewind will not be making sales during these testing periods. From a financial stand point, Icewind will be increasing manufacturing and material costs to produce these test units but will not have sales generated and therefore, will not have revenue during these testing years.
Another area that could be of potential concern is the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) produced by the Icewind turbines may not be cost effective however, this depends entirely on the average wind speeds in the installation location. The Icewind turbine is a high efficiency energy generation unit and therefore this should not be a concern however, it is worth noting and considering the annual kWh generation depending on location. As a result, feasibility studies and wind data will be collection on location before installations occur to ensure location is being optimized to reduce the LCOE.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.njordturbines.eu/.