Massive Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (“VAWT”) Coming Down

After a second catastrophic failure, Agile Wind Power is removing its giant VAWT from the Grevenbroich test site.

From this:

The dismantlement follows the second failure of the test turbine (see photo).

The Swiss company has been developing the mammoth giromill for the past decade. The prototype has been undergoing tests at Grevenbroich for the past three years.

The turbine previously lost one of its three rotor arms in November 2020. The Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT), one of the largest ever built, was reinstalled in August 2022. Testing began again when the turbine was reconnected to the grid in October 2022.

Here’s some unsolicited advice to the world of renewable energy engineering: Focus on areas where real improvement is at least conceivable.  The horizontal-axis wind turbines we see all around us convert over 90% of the theoretically available kinetic energy in the wind into electricity.  That doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for improvement.