The market
The total energy stored in the wind is one hundred times greater than what humanity needs today. It is not surprising that electricity generated from wind power increased worldwide between 2006 and 2010 at an average rate of 21%. In 2009, growth even exceeded 30%. It now accounts for 2% of the total energy supply. At this rate of expansion, global wind power capacity will double every three years. Thanks to annual investments of €11 billion, wind power has gone from being a marginal supplier to a major component of the energy mix. China is the driving force behind wind power development, more than doubling its production capacity every year for four consecutive years.
In addition to increased capacity, over the past 20 years, the size of wind turbines has increased 100-fold, from 25 kW to 2.5 MW. Today, the largest units already reach 7 MW. This 100-fold increase in scale has reduced energy costs by a factor of five. The larger turbine size has slowed rotations, thus significantly reducing the risk of bird mortality. At a rotation speed of 12 strokes per minute, or one complete revolution every 5 seconds, the bird mortality rate has dropped to near zero. While originally the wind blew along the mountains and shorelines, a growing proportion (20%) is now generated offshore. Wind speeds at sea are higher and more consistent.
We are just learning how to harness the wind, and building bigger isn't the only option. Creative solutions include harvesting jet streams with kites and generating piezoelectricity from artificial leaves. As wind power becomes a vital part of our energy portfolio and innovations spread throughout the sector, R&D budgets and employment are growing in parallel. By 2012, more than one million people were expected to be employed by companies related to wind power.
Innovation
The advantages of wind energy compared to fossil fuels like oil and coal are undeniable. However, there are drawbacks. The structures, blades, and turbines rely on rare earth metals. If 30% of the world's energy depends on wind power, then the rare earth metals on which the sector depends will be in short supply. As there is more wind at higher altitudes, the horizon is becoming increasingly dotted, or rather, heavily painted with pylons. The cost of the pylons that place the rotating wind turbine high in the sky can reach a million dollars. It is in this context that three French architects and innovators, Nicola Delon, Raphaël Ménard, and Julien Chopin, created a solution, very much in line with one of the principles of the blue economy: sustainability is the ability to meet basic needs with what you have.
There are millions of pylons available worldwide. The most abundant are used for cellular transmission, many of which are powered by diesel generators. The oldest network of pylons is for high-voltage electricity transmission, often built against the wishes of local residents who feared that proximity to power lines would increase the risk of cancer, particularly leukemia. As the science surrounding these health issues becomes more established and more governments take precautions, the team at Encore Heureux (a boutique architecture firm) and Elioth (the R&D arm of the French engineering firm Iosis) decided to install wind turbines on existing pylons—a groundbreaking design innovation.
Existing towers trace nearly 160,000 miles of power lines crisscrossing the United States. There are approximately 78,000 pylons in the United Kingdom, and the Indian Minister of Environment and Forests estimates that over a million units distribute electricity throughout the country. An added benefit of saving visual pollution and investment costs is that the necessary cabling between the generator and the grid is reduced to a few meters, instead of—at best—a few kilometers. The proposal is so simple and practical that it is difficult to imagine it not becoming a dominant component of the electricity generation mix.
The first cash flow
The small wind turbine market remains a niche, but it grew from $203 million in 2009 to $400 million in 2013. Urban Green Energy (UGE) manufactures small wind turbines that rotate on their vertical axis like a corkscrew. The New York-based American startup has partnered with the French telecommunications giant Alcatel-Lucent to apply this concept to existing cell phone base stations. This eliminates the need for on-site diesel generators. The Alcatel-Lucent wind turbines utilize on-site energy, an excellent option for the mobile phone network. However, most cell towers are located in remote areas where there are no users. The project proposed by the "Wind-It" trio simply involves injecting the additional wind energy into the existing grid. Urban Green Energy's success has been demonstrated and is now being extended to telecommunications masts belonging to Verizon, Raytheon, and the US Air Force. Cost is a significant factor in the decision-making process. A 300-watt turbine costs just over $3,000 without the pole, and $5,300 with the pole, sending a clear message to all telecommunications networks.
The opportunity
The wind, the pylons, and the electrical engineers are still getting used to the idea and are often embarrassed that no one thought of it before. Wind farm developers have begun assessing the potential, and a study by the French grid concluded that if all the pylons were equipped with wind turbines, it could generate an additional 15% of the country's energy needs. This is equivalent to building six nuclear power plants, which take more than a decade to construct and cost about five times as much, not to mention the cost of nuclear waste management and the state guarantee that implies all citizens assume their share of the risk should a major nuclear disaster occur.
The use of existing pylons, with a preference for a series of small, vertical-axis generators that integrate into existing metal structures, can be facilitated by wind guidance systems such as sails, which reinforce and direct the wind into the generators. This can be integrated into existing pylons, and from now on, all new pylons must incorporate the design. It is a system that can easily be installed anywhere in the world. The only missing elements are perhaps the government agencies and power companies that decide to commission it, and the contractors who deliver and maintain this network within the grid.
