Now is your turn

OK, let's imagine that you have followed this blog on its short life and you are craving to set off your own Distributed Generation source, business or whatever. This are the steps to follow if you live in the Community of Madrid (and Leganés?) and you need some financing, or visit them here:

First of all you have to be sure that you know enough about the source you want to start with or instead you will need some help (that is not free). If you are more positioned in the second option you will need to contact the Energetic Service Company, or ESCO in Spanish.

If you are thinking of doing it all by yourself, think twice and call IDAE (Instituto para la diversificación y ahorro de la energía) which is an institute for advising and consulting. Also, and most important, they are the ones to give you the money.

Main building of IDAE

There are two ways of financing: The "modest" way for those demanding between 2M and 42M€, where a group of enterprises unite together temporarily. If you have a masterplan and you need more than 42M€ then an agroupation of economic interest will be bound to help you.

Also, depending on the effect it has over the region, the regional government will provide you with part of the money, as it happened years ago with the solar panels in Navarra. Sadly, in this very case the owners are going to stop receiving helps.

But this is another story.

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¿Un invento que sustituirá a los convencionales generadores de energía eólica?

En ello esta el inventor Heath Evdemon, de Derbyshire con ayuda de la Universidad de Nottingham Trent y su programa Future Factory.

Un modelo a escala de la WInd Haervester

Su invento, el Wind Harvester no tiene nada que ver con los actuales generadores de energía eólica, ya que a primera vista no parece ningún generador, más bien una escultura. El caso es que Wind Harvester es capaz de generar energía a partir de una amplia gama de velocidades de viento. Es decir, los actuales molinos eólicos no pueden empezar a generar energía si el viento no tiene una velocidad mínima de 13,5 metros por segundo y lo peor de todo es que solo puede soportar una velocidad máxima de viento de 22,5 metros por segundo, provocando una menor eficiencia de algunas turbinas y limitando el uso de los actuales generadores.

Heath Evdemon demostrando el movimiento alternativo de la Wind Harvester

La Wind Harvester tiene un movimiento alternativo que utiliza superficies sustentadoras horizontales similares a las alas de un avión. No obstante, es prácticamente libre de ruidos lo que permite su instalación en medios protegidos y urbanos.

Una similitud con los generadores eólicos actuales es que se puede fabricar de distintos tamaños siendo su longitud máxima de 15 metros de longitud pero, hay que dejándolo a 0.5 metros del suelo para poder colocarlo en lugares expuestos y elevados como edificios. Su instalación se puede hacer por partes por los que facilita el montaje y no requiere de maquinaria pesada.

En definitiva, este invento puede ser el futuro de los generadores eólicos y sustituir a los actuales ya que tiene muchas mas ventajas que los actuales.

Fuente:

http://www.ntu.ac.uk/apps/news/117321-15/New_style_turbine_to_harvest_wind_energy.aspx

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Smart ideas people that are not us have

Stop to think for once how many movements we do on a daily basis that go nowhere.

(25 minutes later...)

Now try and design a device that makes the most of that lost energy, which could be kinetic, potential,...

(Some time in the future...)

Well... let me introduce to you some very interesting and original ideas to generate energy by using "wasted" energy:

A revolving door that produces 4600kWh per year has been installed in Holland. This happened in the Natuurcafe of La Port Train Station and thanks to the door's kinetic energy of rotation several LEDs can be lit.

Source: Inhabitat.com - The World’s First Energy-Generating Revolving Door

In Sweden, they are planning to submerge so-called "sea kites" to take advantage of tidal energy (energy from sea waves). This system designed by Minesto consists of a turbine-equipped kite attached to the bottom of the sea. It starts thanks to the impulse of the tidal energy and manages to converse it into kinetic energy which, provided water density, it generates 1000 times more energy than eolic energy systems do, the company says.

No, they are not planes of World War I

Source: "Sea Kites" Could Harness Tidal Energy For Future Power Plants


I have came across a good idea. While I was writing, I was constantly spinning over the office chair I'm sat in, you know, those that have wheels and armrests. I just thought of putting a dynamo in the juncture between the two halves that spin so that I could produce energy, even more than the 4600kWh of the not-so-good idea of the revolving door.

Source: Me.

Now it's your turn to demonstrate that you have ideas to make the most of that "wasted" energy. Send us your comments!

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