French award-winning design for wind turbine towers

By Harry Tournemille

Winners of the 2009 Metropolis Next Generation Design Competition, Nicola Delon, Julien Choppin, and Raphael Menard, have come up with an innovative solution for renewable energy called Wind-It. The proposal: inserting wind-turbines into ailing electrical towers to generate and provide additional power to any existing grid.

The design is innovative on two fronts.

First, it utilizes existing structures, thereby reducing the need to further deface the landscape and build more power-structures. The design is also adaptable to different tower styles, and has the potential to be quite efficient. Delon went so far as to suggest if a third of France’s electrical towers were outfitted with these turbines, they could rival the energy production of two nuclear reactors–approximately 5% of the country’s total electrical demand.

The idea first came about as the three designers commuted regularly on the TGV. They would invariably see wind turbines and electrical structures, but never the two together. Thus, the question was raised, can we combine them? …

French Award-Winning Design for Wind Turbine Towers

Technorati Tags: wind power,wind turbine