Maglev wind turbine - is this the future of wind power?

Levitating vertical axis wind turbines might become the solution for the ever growing demand for electricity. Let’s revisit the concept in a few lines.

Levitation is achieved by using permanent magnets placed in strategic locations to provide “lift” for the vertical axis turbine. This allows the turbine to hover above the ground (levitate), and thus produce no friction while it spins. Friction is one of the most influencing forces that reduce the power output of any machine with moving parts. Eliminating this reduction factor can greatly improve a machines efficiency.

This is the Maglev turbine’s advantage (Maglev = magnetic levitation). According to some sources, a single large Maglev turbine can output as much as a gigawatt of power (enough for about 750,000 homes), which is an enormous increase over the largest conventional wind turbine capacity today of about 6 MW. Operating wind speeds range from low (1.5 m/s or ) to very high (40 m/s), making this wind turbine an efficient power generator across a wide range of wind speeds. Once commercialized, Maglev turbines could increase power generation by 20% compared to conventional turbines, while reducing operating costs by as much as 50%!

Currently, there are projects being developed in Northern China by ZK Energy, where Maglev turbines are to be used for rural area electrification. There is now news whether anything has been completed yet.

Full Permanent Magnetic Suspension Wind Power Generators, as they are also called, represent a very promising future for wind power generation. It remains to be seen how the machines actually perform in actual installations. Requiring a relatively small area of land for operations, about 100 acres, these wind power generators have another advantage over conventional wind turbines - they take up less space, so there is less negative impact on the surrounding landscape.