Windfair.Net - Special Online Editorial - The Japanese Hexagonal Wind Energy GenerationTower

Since approx. 1000 BC, humans have regarded wind as an important source of energy. These days, more and more people are interested in wind as a clean, non-polluting and unlimited source of energy.

The trend towards building larger and larger wind energy turbines to reach stronger and more consistent wind levels has now also caught up with Japanese wind energy developers. Until now, wind power generation systems have predominantly been considered inefficient, as efficiency depends on variable factors linked to the nature of wind - inefficiency in terms of receiving irregular wind from only one direction, blowing from any direction and at any strength. And, due to this inefficiency, current wind energy collection is therefore deemed by many to be far from being cost-efficient.

A new efficient way to capture wind has now given birth to a new energy source. ZENA Systems - a Japanese wind energy development company - is working on developing a new type of wind energy generator that will dwarf anything before it. Zena System's research was based on how to collect wind energy efficiently. The answer is a system that collects wind from every direction, at any time and at any speed (the so-called Zena WIND TOWER theory). Zena's Wind Tower is hexagonal and collects wind from any of its six faces, at any height and at any speed. Once inside the Wind Tower, collected wind is compressed and accelerated through the installation.

The 50 meter-tall hexagonal building essentially acts as a huge scoop that compresses wind from all directions and then runs the rushing air through a series of ground-based generators. The ambitious project is the first of its kind, and it includes a desalination plant, on-site energy storage and a visitors center. Details are sketchy on the viability of the design, but if it works out this wind concept could someday reach high into the sky to power electricity grids across the globe.

The company explains the operation as a three-point compression technique that takes wind from any direction and compresses and accelerates it through a wind tunnel in the middle of the hexagonal tower. The air flows downward to a series of turbines, which convert the wind’s energy to electricity. The company claims that the system is not constrained by the Betz limit value theory, which states that the maximum theoretical harvestable energy from the wind is 59.3 percent.

To stir the industry up even more, the design calls for on-site energy storage, which ZENA explains on their website: “The E.A.S. is a new energy storage system used to stock the energy generated by the Wind Tower system. This system uses a vanadium concentrated solution diluted with nano water and pure water.” Zena has chosen a location in Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan for a first pilot project.

It will nevertheless be most interesting to review the results of this initial trial installation.

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