British start-up Alpha 311 has developed special mini wind turbines that can generate electricity even in no or very weak wind conditions
Wind energy is the kinetic energy produced by a moving mass of air. In Great Britain, however, there is a start-up company that manages to produce wind energy even without wind. It is Alpha 311, a London-based company that has designed special mini wind turbines capable of generating energy even without air movement. The devices are very small (just 68 centimetres high and weighing 4 kilograms) and made entirely of recycled plastic. Their unique vertical design is designed to capture and exploit even the slightest air movement. They can, for example, capture a gust of wind and even the air displaced by a car passing at moderate speed, turning it into green and 100% renewable energy. “We are already negotiating with customers all over the world,” Barry Thompson, managing director of Alpha 311, tells the Guardian. “We were born in Britain but we have global aspirations.”
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Mini wind turbines that produce energy even without wind
The mini turbines designed by Alpha 311 are just over half a metre high, but can be enlarged to a height of two metres if necessary. In this way, each individual unit would be able to produce the same amount of electricity as 20 square metres of solar panels. And all this in an environmentally sustainable way. The project is still in the testing phase and, in the coming months, 10 ‘exemplars’ of vertical generators will be installed on the roof of London’s O2 Arena. Alpha 311 aims to expand into the field of large public infrastructures – stadiums but also arenas, concert halls, cinemas and theatres – in order to achieve zero emissions. Another field of application could be motorways and highways. The special design of the mini turbines captures the kinetic energy produced by the movement of vehicles. The engineers at Alpha 311 have decided to install their generators on lampposts along roads in the UK. In this way, the mini turbines would be able to produce 8 times more renewable energy than is currently produced in the UK: a true green revolution!
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