Dragonfly Wind Turbine

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Phillip Ridings on October 23, 2008 at 11:38pm

The "Art" does not stop there... Im hoping that once people see the new design... and review the entire website... it will leave them speechless. Because this one design is the only one that is scalable - meaning it can to from your back yard all the way up to a full Wind Farm - and much more!

Thanks for taking the time to look... I think you'll like it also. If not, its ok just let me know.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Phillip Ridings on November 1, 2008 at 11:06am

The website has been launched...

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Paul Streicher on November 2, 2008 at 11:17pm

I checked out the web site. It's a fan jet design. Might just work. I especially like the 'tree' of turbines. I am now envisioning these built right into the roof of a house where a ridge vent should go.
All this new technology is just way too expensive for the average Joe.
I'm working pay day to pay day now just to make ends meet. When I was single over a year ago I was putting away $1k a year. Now, with a ready made family with two teenage kids and the wife's income at the poverty level, there is no way I want to get into debt for any of this.
Those that can affored this initially will be the ones to bring the prices down for the rest of us I've heard say. But, I doubt that will happen for me. I've calculated an installed solar energy system where the excess energy goes back into the grid. It would take over 20 years to pay off this system. More when you figure in the ongoing expenses of maintaining a systerm. You will have batteries to replace, controllers to replace, everything wears out and you have to keep putting money out to keep the system running.
Now, maybe a community system would be a better way to do this. I'd like to see a calculation of what it would cost X amount of residents in a community to put together and invest in their own windfarm and live off of it. Would it pay off?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Phillip Ridings on November 3, 2008 at 2:03am

First let me thank you for your comments... You're right the average Joe has, in my opinion, been denied access to what should be affordable for any home! A solution would be to add it to the cost of any home when you first purchase the house. You can't spend $12 -$15,000 and expect it to pay for itself the next day. With as little as the average home uses it will take 5 - 10 years. However on a 30 year loan... it wouldn't hurt so bad...and after the first 5, 6 or 7 years... you no longer have an electric bill? Nice!

I caught a special the other day where a doctor had 4 different systems on his ranch... he was burning 5400 kws and his wind generators could only bring that down to a manageable 2000 kws. I don't think he researched like he needed too. Personally, my usage averages less then 1000 kws and peeks at about 1600 kws per month, and I have a very average home. The biggest problem thus far is none of the current wind generating systems will never actually kill your electric bill or make money until it was paid for... but your right... a community system would. IF, even a neighbor hood of families, or city out in the middle of USA decided they wanted their own power system... this could fix that problem in a heart beat... and not only would all the local houses have as much as they needed but under Federal law the current electric companies would be paying those investors for the excess power the station produced. So... how much would that idea be worth to you or your community - receiving money instead of spending it?

I think you also see why Dragonfly may be the best solution for anyone once they think beyond their own needs. As for a "Tree" Station as you called it... 2.4 Mega Watts is enough to power 420 homes... the "Tree" is rated between 36 - 60 Mega Watts (depending on the configuration)... you do the math! It replaces 20 or more wind turbines on a pole and consolidates the power, space and transfers the electricity to the main grid from a central hub. Its made to be a redundant system... if one unit is down you have 4 others still producing power. Something a single unit on a pole can't make up for. But just so you know... i would love to create an affordable system for the average joe... who knows.. the answer may not be in you buying one as much as it would be in allowing a system to be installed and sell you the electricity while paying for the unit kinda of a lease to own operation... and take you and you and your community OFF the grid. Because if the figures are right one Dragonfly on a pole creating 9.6 Mega Watts of power - that would take care of a lot of homes. How much energy does your city use in a year? The next time your community is without power... tell them there is a solution. A 3 MegaWatt Turbine with todays market would cost about 4.5 million. A "Tree" system is nothing short of building the power of a Nuclear Power Plant so it would cost a lot more. Yet it would perform the same function without the dangers associated with the handling, use and storage of radiation or anything else that would bring harm to anyone. Your community or city could be making electricity and money in a few years... with just such an investment. I really don't care where you buy your solution... as long as works and you take the steps now to secure a better life for you and your community.

Thanks for taking the time to look... You've hit this project in its early stages and I built the website to share this new vision in a solution with everyone... as you said... it just might work! Because the more you think about the design of Dragonfly and the scope of its function... the better this one solution looks.

Stay in Touch...

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by David Gallagher on December 10, 2008 at 4:48pm

I've looked at your website and think your design is very interesting. However, the thing that strikes me the most is the complexity of your system and what I believe will be a high cost. Have you done any costing? Do you have an idea about the cost on a per megawatt basis? And yes, I understand that if you were to build one your pyramids that you'd probably get some economies of scale, but that's obviously years down the road before you would be able to do anything like that. I'm curious what your design would cost to implement in your phase 1 rollout.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Phillip Ridings on December 14, 2008 at 7:32pm

In a Phase 1 Roll out... it would not cost anymore then a standard Wind Generator of equal size... Today GE will let you have one of there 2.5 Mega Watt systems for about $4.5 million... So lets look at what you’re buying...

With GE (or any other wind company) 2.5 MegaWatt WindTurbine, 2) Producing Energy 33% of the time over a years time, 3) Will not function in winds below 8 mph or above 55 mph, 4) Will break in winds above a level 3 Hurricane!

With Dragonfly 1) a 2.5 MegWatt WindTurbine and 3 to 4 Times the power, depending on the configuration, 2) 100% Wind Energy 24 / 7 virtually a power station on a poll. 3) Works in "No Wind" or in any wind speed because its build like a jet engine... 4) Will survive a level 5 Hurricane.

The basic idea here is free market... when you design a better mouse trap for a the same price, which one do you buy?

I've already contacted Vestas (The number 1 Manufacture of Wind Turbines) - and Mr. Han who is charge of development - he in turned pasted me over to a Mr. Gupta who is currently looking at the design. This week I will be contacting the other 10 Major Wind companies who also make large Wind Turbine... but as you've seen on the website... Dragonfly is Scaleable - from a 20 meter pole to a 312 meter pole. The price for the unit described above is for a Phase 4 unit, the most powerful. To put it mildly... This entire design was build for the fastest winds possible... working non stop in the production of electrical energy. So the market exposure is really unlimited... as you already know. Dragonfly may seem like a complicated system in a Phase 1 configuration but the solutions are there... its nothing more then a Generator turned inside out allowing for a more fluid dynamic freedom with airflow... When I look at all the other sciences that could be applied... this is nothing more then an spinning pinwheel on a body ring hub.

I don’t know it this really answers your question... but then again which one would you like to put your money in after reading the specs? In a week or two you MAY get that very chance as Dragonfly Industries LLC may actually raffle off 35% of its ownership to 35 lucky Americans in a one time shot at becoming part owner in the fastest growing industry. The funds will be used to build a Phase 4 system with one of the 11 companies who CAN build it and make it happen - How much would you be willing to give up for 1% of what will become a Multi-Billion dollar business ? $1000, $5000, 10,000? So take another serious look... do you want one in your back yard... or making YOU money each and every day its working?

Let me know what you think.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Mehul Kamdar on December 17, 2008 at 12:11pm

Phillip,

Many of the European Wind Energy businesses have been bought up either fully or to some extent by businesses in India. REI are fully owned by Suzlon and Vestas by several investors - Gupta is an Indian name and I am presuming that the company's Indian investors would have put him in there.

My suggestion is not geared towards manufacturing but if you are looking at exporting your turbines, then it would help to get funding from the Exim Bank which has huge amounts available as packing credits and export incentives for US businesses exporting renewable energy products. The amount available for India alone in 2008 was $ 2 billion and I am certain that not even 10% of that was tapped by American businesses to do business in that country.

Also, there are several countries especially in Asia which allow businesses to set up powerplants on what they call Build, Own and Operate plans with Power Purchase Agreements where local utilities buy the electricity generated from these plants at some negotiated rates. If this is done properly, there could be a lot of money that could be made by someone with a high tech, efficient and cost-effective product. I worked for a business that was looking at leasing barge mounted diesel powerplants to India and if they could make money with their creaky old tech bangers, if your turbines are really efficient, there is no reason why you should not be able to make a lot of money getting funding from the Federal Government and making money selling power in other countries.

Good luck, and if you have a subscribers' list, do let me know. I would like to hear more about your company and also write about it on my blog if I have your permission to do this.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Phillip Ridings on December 17, 2008 at 6:38pm

Thank you for the great information... you sound like you have your fingers on the pulse of this industry. You have my permission to use or blog any part of this information or the Dragonfly Website to help launch this new design in Wind Turbine Technology. Additionally if you have any any contact points or names of these Asian Companies that my be interested please let me know. As it stand right now, Im currently looking into Grant money but I don't know how long that will take... what department I can contact or the knowledge to actually draft a successful Grant. So any thing you do at this point would be a big help... but like I said... I may end up pushing the company ownership to raise enough capital to build the first production model... the side benefit being that 35 other Americans will reap the profits with me. Stay in touch - you can reach me at... dragonflywindturbine@yahoo.com. Until then...

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sam Guzman on December 25, 2008 at 7:20pm

Hello,

The concept looks very promising...............one aspect that is vague at this point is the power generation in "no wind" conditions...................could you explain it in more detail?

Regards and wish you an excellent 009 and beyond...

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Phillip Ridings on December 25, 2008 at 11:34pm

Thank you... for your comments.

The vague reference to "No Wind" isn't really that vague if you look again.... In the design stage as a "full" power station... there is a batter transfer system where the stored energy is capture by solar panels attached to the station or pole (See Future Power Station at the web site).

How is it transfered back into this system? The 3 "Body Ring Props" come into play as the "Wind creator", forcing a flow of air through the rest of the system and over the tail blades. But they can also create energy as well - in general the body rings are dual systems. When they are not used to create electrical energy by natural wind they are busy creating wind. Either way... very little power is used to make "body rings" spin up to create wind power for the rest of the unit.

Solar panels are used to capture and store energy. So what happens when the solar powered batteries are drained... well that's the beauty... as new advances have just been made in solar technology to capture energy from simple light bulbs or very little light now - not just the sun... aside from this new technology which will be used... a small part of the energy created by the body ring systems or the Nacelle unit is used to re-charge the primary battery system. This entire design was built with redundant systems in the creation of electrical power to make sure this wind turbine is operating 24 / 7.

After talking with some specialist... it was discovered that in this unique design "Betz Law" doesn't apply as Bernoulli Equation is repeated throughout the system, and the "Fluid Velocity Profile" creates a stable Laminar Air Flow. Using todays Physics indicates that the air flow should actually speed up within this layered design. Dragonfly is in the concept stage however, computer simulation tests that are going to take place soon will help work out the bugs ... but as you can see - Dragonfly was built for speed, power and a redundant power generating system. There is nothing else out there like this - Hope this helps!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by RWC1972 on December 18, 2008 at 11:50pm

Has anyone gotten back to you about your turbine design? I await the industry professional's opinions with baited breath.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Phillip Ridings on December 24, 2008 at 4:41pm

Yes... I could tell you who they are but that may be violating National Security at this point! Good luck in your career - and have a happy holiday. I know I will! :)

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next ›
• Page