Aeromine Rooftop Wind. Static. Silent. 50% more power than Solar PV. What's not to like? 

The kinetic energy flux in a streamtube of air is given by 1/2 x density x velocity^3. If we assume that the capture area is 1m^2 and the generation efficiency is 40% then we can conclude that to generate 5kW this turbine requires air speeds approaching 65mph. That's a violent storm (force 11) on the Beaufort scale. Under more normal conditions I would expect the output to be a few hundred watts at most. I'm sorry to say that, yet again, we're being supplied with extremely misleading performance figures.

I did this 30 years ago in an apartment building in Poland. We had a basement under the building where there was access to the bottom of the exhaust air ducts. When you opened the little door there was a constant strong draft of air going from the bottom to the top of the building. I had a small DC motor which I used as a generator. I have installed a small plastic propeller and connected the wires to the 6-volt light bulb that came from the flashlight. Worked like a charm....it was a fun project. Glad to see the same concept on a larger scale👍

I can see this getting nicely incorporated into a building design if brought to the architect early in the process. I can also imagine a simple mechanism that turns into the wind being added over time.

Hi Dave. I'm been working with solar energy since 1991. I hve been installer, own company, ceo, superwiser, board member in large solar associations in Sweden. Developer of large thermal solar panels 5,3m- almost 209 inches. The picture you have at the top right of the video about producing both heat and solar electricity at the same time and in the same place is not the best solution. But it is a solution that can be accepted if you have poor space in which to build. Solar cells must have as cold an environment as possible for best efficiency - If it is hot, their efficiency decreases. If the solar cells get hotter, the effect drops by about 0.4 percent per degree. A solar collector can reach up to 200° and with such a high temperature the effect from the solar cells is reduced by about 80%. If the power from the solar cells is 22%, the net power becomes 22*0.8=17.6%, It is better to build the two technologies separately. Thanks for a great and informative video on rooftop wind, something I had in my mind 20 years ago. BR Petri

Several points: 1) The fan blade is a moving part. 2) Looks like it will not kill birds 3) It is a good canadate for onshore wind. 4) Rather than rooftop addons, integrate it into the building structure. 5) A great alternative to NIMBYism.

This is another flavour of diffuser augmented wind turbine (DAWT). Many have been tried, none have succeeded. Diffusers (the additional non rotating structure to modify wind flow) generally add to the cost and to the drag forces (which in turn adds to the cost of structure/fixings/foundations) while not providing sufficient additional energy capture to offset those extra costs. The Aeromine example might take advantage of a building structure to augment production, but are the additional forces compatible with the building structure or does it need to be reinforced at extra cost. The Aeromine device is dependent on harvesting wind from one direction only and there are few locations where this would not be a disadvantage vs a traditional HAWT or VAWT which can adapt to wind from any direction. I wish them luck but this is a well trodden path to failure. At least they don't seem to be claiming that they can beat the Betz limit.

I'm glad this video popped up on my recommendations, I've seen bits and bobs about these new generators but never really looked into them. Your video explained very clearly how they work without all the technical jargon, looks like these could be great to supplement solar power to give decent consistent power. Thanks for the information.

Snow and wind. I'd be interested to see how this holds up in an area that gets snow and wind annually. We've run regular windmills and as soon as you get a driving snow storm, it builds up on the propellers, and puts it out of balance, and shortly thereafter, it tears itself apart. This design is definitely intriguing, but I'd definitely want to see how it holds up in the aforementioned environment. Looks promising though.

More than anything I feel we should come up with multiple integrated methods of mass producing power, strength in diversity so to speak. If one method fails the others are still there. Like some kind of synergistic co-op. Sorry if that sounds weird.

Just like all the other VAWTs, it carefully avoids discussing the garbage wind resource available at building height. Yes wind speed is increased on top of a building, into a turbulent mess that still offers a fraction of what you could get a couple hundred meters up. "At this early stage" is the only time any VAWT gets talked about because the moment they have an operational prototype the output makes it clear that they're wasting money and materials. Oh, and putting turbines next to solar panels is brilliant if you want to reduce the output of the panels with shading or inefficient use of surface area.

Another tool, in the tool chest, used to repair the damage done! Great video, can hardly wait to see them, on every other rooftop!

I currently have solar with a Tesla Powerwall 2, so adding this will circle the square and get my home off the grid 100% of the time here in the UK. Will be keeping an eye on this company as the wind never stops blowing here.

Thank you! Brilliant as always and I am a great fan of your channel. To the Aeromine: As always with a new product in energy generation, you know exactly where the problem by looking for what is not being stated: Price and productivity. That is not David's fault - it has not been published anywhere. I had to ask. For those of us interested in the financial returns in terms of IRR: A single unit cost c. €10K in hardware only, turnkey installed c. €15K, depending on labour costs. Output is stated at 10-15 MWh per unit per annum, depending on location and wind conditions. In company presentations, output for a 40 unit array is shown at 400-600 MWh total p.a. That comes to the 10-15 MWh per unit per annum, although there are no long term studies to underpin this. O&M is claimed to be practically nil but generator unit needs to be changed out every 6-8 years, so call it 7. That makes it c.€140 p.a. and that is if nothing else happens (not my life experience). Wind speed needs to be 4-5 m/s (3.7 to start up), so 14-18 km/h, which is not an unreasonable speed in suitable locations (not all are). At a more reasonable 1.5% O&M costs, an assumed price of "saved energy" of €120 per MWh i.e. what you pay your provider as a commercial user the IRR is 4-9% (unlevered, equity only) on 10-15 MWh productivity p.a. per unit. No guarantees though ("depending on wind conditions"). That does not make this bankable. This certainly does not beat solar PV (static, angled, on flat rooftops with imperfect locations) in Southern Europe, but it might in W France, Benelux and Scandi and may be SCO. Boxes need to become cheaper. But an interesting concept. Vibrations and torsion stress seems to be less of a problem than with HAWT or VAWT. Turning into the wind will make this much more expensive and kill IRR, even if there is a bit more productivity. Let us see whether they can lower prices with a ramped up production. These things are not complicated to make. The R&D is the clever bit. Please remember that the prop is not directly driven by the wind but rather by a vacuum effect caused by the foils. This does not work with normal HAWT or VAWT calculations.

5KW? Damn, that is a substantial amount of electricity. For locations with consistent wintertime winds from one direction, this is brilliant.

Fascinating!! I must say I am very impressed.

So true, remote rural off grid here just installed a wind generator to complement my solar, still gauging the results but it is keeping the batteries 24V system topped up overnight will watch this company with interest hope they get it down to the off grid house level at a reasonable price

This is one of the best channels. World needs more... decent people to just have think👍

Love the Idea and possibilities, bring one down to NM and set one up on my roof(am sure the landlord will ok it)....

Looks very interesting. I live on a coast so this kind of energy generation would be a good choice to consider once the wiggles are worked out.

Thanks I'll just have a think. Interesting topic. Thanks for sharing

I always enjoy videos about ideas that are in the later stages of development. I tend to think that the solutions to our problems will be multifaceted and very decentralized---alongside grid-scale energy production. Thanks, from Denver, Colorado.

I think this is a brilliant addition to the options available for corporate-sized buildings. Home units should also become available to augment existing solar. Good stuff, nice report.

This is a great find Dave, this is very interesting, specially if you live close to the shore or where wind is a daily occurrence ta decent speeds. I hope they design also a smaller unit for residential use.

Had to resubscribe, sounds like youve been onto topics that are important

That's awesome. The fact that they are complementary to solar installations is a huge advantage. If they can be mass produced cheaply, and integrated seamlessly into building design and electrical circuits then this could be as normal as seeing a cooling tower or AC units on top of a building.

I remember me and my dad building a vertical ventury out of two model plane wings to drive a toy turbine. It was a fantastic life experience for both of us, but we had to conclude that there's one issue with wind driven generators. If it ain't huge, don't bother.

It appears to be exciting and useful

That looks awesome!

Glider pilots, model glider enthusiasts, hang gliders and para gliders will all recognise this as ridge lift. In other words a similar effect is found on the brow of hills facing the oncoming wind. Frequently found near seaside cliffs and inland on some hills. I.e. you do not need a building although putting these on buildings does make a lot of sense. As with all these good ideas I would like to see people deploying a few hundred to see if they can work at a worthwhile scale. Around the UK I would guess there will be hundreds of miles of potential sites.

Thank you for a great informative video.

This sounds very good!!

I would love to see something like this work and will also be keeping a keen eye on it. What I see as another opportunity is integrating systems like this much more into the building structure, so they won't stand out. By creating aerodynamic AND architectural units like this, they would become even more attractive. Imagine a building designed to take the rooftop wind from all directions and run it through Aeromine type units increasing yield in areas where wind is more variable.

As the owner of a grade II listed house, I won't be fitting one on my roof but seeing the visual impressions of the units positioned along the roofline of industrial or multi occupancy dwelling buildings, they have an appearance which is quite appealing. It's footprint could be adapted to the structure of pitched roof houses but the carefully designed flow dynamics would probably need to be changed to suit the pitch of the roof behind it🤔 I'm sure it will have a big role in developing domestic scale wind generation and I can't wait to see more.

Thank you, this is great info and well presented

Very well explained. Thank you for your work. Regards from Barcelona

It would be nice to have a special segment "Pros and Cons" in each video. For this one it's obvious that wind direction could drastically reduce the efficiency of the generator and it's not clear whether this was accounted in those nice advertised numbers by the company.

It appears there is a rotating blade electric generation system in the updraft channel. Does that qualify as "no moving parts"? Wouldn't it still have the same wear and tear and maintenance issues as any other rotating micro wind generator? I also notice they compare the cost and output to solar panels but not to other micro wind generation systems. Is this significantly better?

I'm glad youtube introduced me to you. Very, very nice video.

Brilliant solution. Great video.

Here in Canada ice and snow are issues for wind turbines and solar panels, this unit looks to overcome that problem since the fan is inside and most snow would just get blown thru it. If it's as efficient as they claim then it could be a game changer.

Interesting video, thanks! To determine if competitive, need to know initial cost, cost per kWh, power generated per kph (wind speed), dB noise rating (contrary to your report it does have moving parts - just not readily visible). Once known, it can be more readily assessed whether it is a better option to existing wind generators.

Very exciting! It strikes me that one great potential for this system is in environments where wind is feasible and solar is less productive. Add in the complication of harsh environments that are so tough on exposed moving parts, and you have a winning solution.

Makes a solid improvement

Yes I would be very keen to see the real costs and savings with this. In my area the wind is usually from the north west but regularly swings around to south which is usually a gale. I would have space to build a square structure to get the edge of the building effect in pretty much any direction so a steerable version sounds good. Keep me posted.

Love your dedication to educating us! It gives me hope.

Excellent! 👍🏻

Innovative excellence

I've looked at building something like this and I think it holds a lot of promise. One of the problems of putting a turbine on a structure like a house is the vibration. Anything that spins will create some noise and vibration and I'm willing to buy Aeromine's assertion that their design produces far less than an open turbine blade. Clearly the Aeromine blade would be smaller and spin much more quickly and, being enclosed and suspended by a well damped system, (that you can't employ if your turbine is at the top of a rigid pole) could minimize noise and vibration. A typical 5kW wind turbine might have a swept area of 15 to 20 sq. m and the catchment area of the Aeromine looks to be nowhere near that. I would also think the capacity factor of the unit would be less since it appears to be fixed in place. If its orientation could change by putting the whole thing on a bearing allowing it to rotate with wind direction, the capacity factor would increase substantially I would think. Allowing it to rotate would not be a huge challenge as the bearing would be on the ground and could be quite large, again, easier to do than if the who thing is on the top of a tall pole. Anyway, an interesting approach and one of several attempts to bring wind energy generation right to the buildings where it will be used. Good stuff!

This is an exciting advancement. Another video I saw indicated that its performance doesn't drop off much when the wind is as much as 45 degrees of optimal because of the airfoil physics, so it doesn't even have to rotate into the wind, simplifying design incredibly.

Interesting concept, over many years I have toyed with/ used all kinds of homemade water, wind, and solar items from passive heat, water heat, and electric generation on a small scale, however, an airfoil never really crossed my mind. I would be interested in a couple one meter size for my home if we had more wind in the central USA. We don't get much more than a gentle breeze except during storms.

Ive been a design build renewable energy contractor for 3 decades. About 15 yrs ago I installed a vertical axis wind turbine under a pilot program for the US military. At the time I was asked to select the product to be installed. I could find no product at the time that I could stand behind for performance or reliability criteria. The govt selected and purchased a product rated at 5kW. The location we installed the vertical axis wind turbine was a Hawaii military base apprrox 1000 ft above sea level with constant prevailing winds of 10-20 mph. The turbine though rated at 5kW never produced more than 500 watts. Also the inverter paired with the turbine minimum voltage was the lowest available at the time but the turbine only produced power at around 15 mph wind speed. The turbine was supposed to have a built in brake for high wind. Unfortunately the turbine failed within 1 yr and actually blew apart embedding pieces into surrounding buildings. Fortunately nobody was injured. Ever since I've been skeptical of vertical axis wind turbine technology.....

The most important consideration when dealing with a rooftop installation is how it will impact the structure it sits on. Solar panels and racking are light enough to be suitable for most rooftops. These machines look heavier and apoear to concentrate a lot more weight over a smaller footprint, which could drastically limit their suitability to sit on top of many buildings not designed with them in mind. Another concern is that the edge of a roof is often going to be reserved to allow access to technicians or firefighters. This company should be reaching out to any of the hundreds of structural engineers and commercial solar project developers who have dealt with these issues thousands of times so they can determine if these problems won’t severely limit their addressable market size.

The space between two of these installations is quite large. For normal wind turbines this is important because one turbine could mess with the flow of nearby turbines. I wonder if placing them next to each other will affect performance because the fact that it uses negative pressure might make them particularly resilient against this. This would greatly increase the number of units you could place in a certain area

Had to give a like for informing us about something new and important.

I once put forward a concept to a facade company about utilising the air pressure differences around corners on High Rise buildings by creating a venturi through the corners and using a small turbine, several of them.

Three thoughts/questions: 1. For coastal locations (beach), how would the unit handle long term exposure to sand blast and accumulation? 2. Would a rotating base be a useful addition to always have the unit facing the wind, rather than just the prevalent wind? 3. Is there a max wind rating? I am thinking of cyclone/typhoon.hurricane conditions. Thank you for your great videos. I often put RU-vid on my second screen and split my attention between primary work and secondary viewing. With yours, I stop and watch 100%.

This would be the perfect supplement to a solar power + battery system at my house. I live on a bluff overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca with a roof line that faces north/south. Winter days are short and often cloudy, making it impossible to completely power the house from rooftop solar despite plenty of unobstructed southern exposure. But the winds routinely pick up around sunset and are often much stronger in the winter, making wind power ideal in those months. I suspect one of these and an array of panels along the southern roof exposure as well as a battery backup would make us completely off-grid or at least resilient against the outages that are pretty frequent here.

A nice development but it has a couple of issues that need to be addressed. The first issue is one you already mentioned; it doesn't rotate so has to be installed facing the prevailing wind direction. It effectively catches the wind at a 45 degree angle on both sides so only captures wind from a 90 degree angle. Any wind outside that angle is lost (the other 270 degrees). The next issue is how efficiently it can use the wind's energy. Normal windturbines get up to about 50%, pretty close to the Betz limit, but this one only gets up to 25%. Another issue is the claimed power of 5kW. This number was obtained in a free field situation with no obstacles around. However, in a urban environment you have other buildings that impact the wind speed at rooftop level due to the so-called surface roughness. Even in a rural setting you have trees and hedges and other vegetation that have an impact on the wind speed. In order to "beat" solar panels this turbine needs wind speeds of more than 6 m/s (close to 7 m/s) but in urban and rural environments those wind speeds on average don't come above 4 to 4,5 m/s. So this turbine is only more efficient than solar panels in an open field situation.

At my work at NASA I ran across a micro wind turbine design that was being researched first in the wind tunnels on site and then using the super computers, the design was so elegant and simple i tried my hand at building one for an off grid homesteader friend. It consisted of a round plywood base 1 mtr dia with a spiral groove 5cm deep and 10 turns to a 20cm hole, into the groove a piece of sheet metal 1mtr wide was cut to make a 1mtr full hight turn in the outside spiral groove, then tapering down to end at the hole in the middle, under the hole was a car alternator on end with a squirrel cage type fan so that the upper edge of the fan was just inside the hole in the base but not touching,.The assembly of a 1mtr high open stand to allow airflow up through the fan setup to turn clockwise taking advantage of the coriolis effect. The front gap was oriented to the prevailing wind that followed the spiral path, it causes a low pressure at the hole in the base spinning the fan and alternator unit, a auto regulator was used to charge batteries in the base to supply lighting and small appliances, radio, cel phones, etc. Even though the unit's orientation was fixed the effective wind direction was up to 120 deg's. I read the Israelis built an enhanced version burning trash underneath, no data on that. Only issue reported was in variable, strong winds the unit emitted kind of moaning sound downwind. NASA dropped the program when it was found not to be up scalable. Also reminded of the Altamont Pass egg beater windmills, long gone.

As a member of a community energy group here in Ireland, I emailed Aeromine to look for a quotation a couple of months ago. To my disappointment, they never replied so my first impressions with this company are not good☹️

It would be much more interesting if you can work with other independent experts to assess in more detail - even if the company doesn’t divulge any numbers- to do some back of the napkin calculations to get some tangible numbers to play with. We are all very skeptical and the lack of figures doesn’t help 🌷🤷‍♀️ still fan of you channel!

Brilliant video! And a fine solution. Can work as a LISA. Locally integrated solutions.

I hope this innovation fulfills its promise. My first thought was what temperature range the kit could operate within.

Obviously a super radical design. The only future issue that i can forsee is the upper structural integrity of existing buildings, as there will be generated forces within each unit to the anchor points. Whereas any new builds can have this problem designed in. I hope they do really well i have been watching this particular company through their design stages for a while now. Oh just subbed also mate.

Great report ! Interesting tech .

This is so interesting especially for the UK.

I lived in a 16 story condo tower in San Juan, Puerto Rico and in 2008 I proposed a solar array with horizontal wind turbines mounted at the edge of the roof facing the ocean. I measured the winds there to average above 17 MPH, an ideal location for such equipment.

I saw another video on this one and what I was missing in your video was the mentioning of the angle in which the installation is capturing the wind! Unfortunately, I can’t recall this quickly, so maybe good if you could check this for us! I think this also is actually the only drawback of the system: it is great if the wind direction is actually quite consistent. It might be worthwhile for a second generation or an alternative design to offer the possibility to turn the installation. That would increase the number of viable locations! Also it would be more robust to the more variable wind conditions we have to deal with thanks to climate change…

I’m in Australia and have a fully off grid power system for my home. I would love to integrate something like this to cover the winter months. The problem with winter is the number of hours of sunlight combined with overcast makes it hard to fully charge the batteries. I m very interested in the aero mine

Love you channel ❤️

Yes, looks very promising even for residential Dwelling.

Very interesting. We have a Santa Fe style flat top roof in Arizona (also lots of sun) where I wonder what impact the ambient temperature might have? Thanks for this great news!

Needs a dominant wind direction +/- 45 degrees. Not all locations have this but otherwise very promising!

Just found this channel and a 1:45 seconds in I already like it

Great applications to buildings along the coast which can count on an abundance of wind.

Great video as usual, really nice overview of how it works! My only issue with the system, which I discussed on my channel, is the slow wind speeds on rooftops (and how this is glossed over by Aeromine). This is a problem for all rooftop/micro wind, not just Aeromine, but it is quite a big one! I have had some interesting comments on my channel though at possible applications for this technology, especially in areas too extreme for standard wind turbines and solar panels (e.g., Antarctica). I'm sure it could have other interesting applications to possibly compliment solar panels, as it may be more space efficient at generating power, but it is likely to be more expensive in terms of LCOE!

1930s Tiger Moth artificial horizon uses this principle in an entirely mechanical way 2 venturis suck air through the unit spinning up a gyroscope that provides the source of reference. Neat like this idea. Turning the blades to optimise flow would be a simple step. Cheers, love the vids

Would like to add to inquire about buying one of these units. Because I have a flat roof and I’m interested in Wendover solar because it much better for me than solar power. Keep up the good work on the channel.

Excellent contents as always and fascinating technology! One small note: If we assume the solar panel is active during the day time (say 12h a day on average), and this system has 50% more const efficiency, it means it generated only 75% electricity equivalent to the solar panels during day (ie when electricity demand is high) and 75% during night (when the demand and tariff is low). Overall, given the peak electricity is 50-100% more expensive than the off peak rate, this system hardly likely to have any commercial advantage other than smaller footprint, especially in a larger commercial set up.

Really interesting, ideal for commercial buildings which tend to have flat roof’s. I would love to see this miniaturised with all parts being 3D printed to bring it down to the housing end of the spectrum, even if it only produced 0.5Kw overnight it would top up a solar systems battery pack to keep things ticking over so there’s enough ‘free’ energy available when the home owners wake up and flash up the kitchens.

It's a fascinating and on the face of it quite feasible idea, though sadly only applicable in areas that have predominant wind directions. Living in a place with constantly shifting, yet quite good wind, I'd like to see more focus on omnidirectional wind generators.

Great video 👍

Cool idea, it's basically an air siphon and you could probably come up with multiple design variations and make your own at home.

It looks a bit industrial, I couldn't see it on older house roofs, but industrial roofs would be a no brainer

Seems like a vertical pivot with rate buffer to allow rotation 360 degrees would be beneficial for any wind direction . I like it .

Brilliant

Amazing

interesting way to arrange a venturi

Given low wind speeds in most urban locations (due to height and friction) I'd like to see some capacity factor numbers from real world deployment.

I love this,

More good stuff. Thumbs up

I still like the small, vertical wind turbines along freeways & highways. I love to hear that entrepreneurs are coming up with a variety of solutions for producing energy.

I'd like to see a residential version of this.

As you said, "the cold hard numbers", will ultimately determine if they succeed. It looks like something that can be relatively cheap to manufacture once they get production cranked up.

been around for a bit I heard about this smaller green pod thing is a great one for homes boats etc

It does have a moving rotor so I might expect some vibration at some windspeed's. I wonder if residential installations ever are felt in the building? Cool idea. Seems like little birds could get sucked into these things unless there is a screen to prevent entrance to the rotor. In the north East icing could be an issue. We get some transitional storms where everything gets coated with ice. many traditional wind turbines up here are shut down because of ice.

Loved the video. Finally something we can use and expand on that has a contained area for the moving parts. However I do see the updraft intake at the generator being a problem around leaves and birds and insects. Birds use the updraft for lift over buildings. Would an animal protective mesh limit the airflow to much? Also when they upsize the overall dimensions do they upsize the internal generator as well or do they simply add more of the same sized generators? I can picture one of these the size of a very large building in the deserts and in communities where brownouts are usual. I have more but everyone in here is smart so you figure out the rest of the ideas. Have a great day or else.

Good idea

Venturi systems has been used in the gas heating industry for decades for example fan prooving in gas boilers and the movement of water through hydraulics. It is amazing that the principle of this technology discovered 100s of year ago is now transitioning from fossil fuel created energy to renewable. All good stuff 👍

A lot of roofs in my country are peaked instead of flat. There is some difference in the angle as well. I wonder how easy it would be to compensate for this. Should be easy enough to make a mutable support structure to install it, but I'm guessing you would need a very special wind-tunnel-designed scoop at the bottom intake if you wanted a one-size-fits-all solution for these roofs?