Bladeless Turbines: What Are They and How Do They Work?

Ask anyone to picture a turbine, and the first thing that will probably come to mind is its blades. Massive white structures with a wingspan the length of a skyscraper, visible from as far as fifteen to twenty miles away, the blades of a turbine are its most defining feature.

A marvel of engineering, wind turbines have remained fundamentally unchanged since the first whirred to power in the 1800s. When farms moved offshore in 1991, much of the machinery remained similar to onshore wind turbines, except the offshore units were built bigger to weather harsher elements and harness stronger winds out at sea.
 

But now new designs of turbines are emerging. These technologies are introducing changes that’ll make the new machines unrecognisable to most people by removing an important feature–the blades.

Behind The Technology

The mechanism behind traditional turbines is elegant in its simplicity. Turbine blades are connected by a shaft to a generator, which produces electricity as the blades turn. Motors help increase the velocity of the blades, generating more electricity while keeping consumption low. Every rotation of a turbine produces enough electricity to power your average home in the UK. 
 

But how can turbines generate power when you take the rotations out of the equation? 
 

Vortex Bladeless’ turbine swaps spins for vibrations. The 3-metre rod-shaped machine stabs straight into the sky, oscillating frantically in the wind. “We have all seen how a soprano singing to a glass can match the tone of their voice to the cup and break the glass. This type of resonance is a great way to transmit energy. What we do is, instead of using sound waves, we use the wind eddies, the vortices that are generated by a structure when the wind hits it,” says David Yáñez, co-founder of Vortex Bladeless.
 

Another redesign drops the blades in favour of flight. Soaring high above the shores of Mauritius is the world’s first fully autonomous airborne turbine. Developed by German company SkySails Group, the system looks more like a giant paragliding sail or kite than a power-generating apparatus. 
 

Whimsical as its design may be compared to the towering presence of traditional turbines, the sail is an innovation that can in the future help meet the demand for offshore wind. Over two months the system has been producing 100KW, which can power up some 50 homes. A minute amount compared to the megawatt capacities of traditional turbines yet still helpful for supplying power to small installations out at sea or remote islands.

Advantages of Bladeless Wind Systems

Comparatively Low Maintenance

The nacelle is a turbine’s nerve centre. It houses the generator, controller, and all the electrical components that turn wind into energy. 
 

As turbines have grown, so have nacelles. This is creating challenges in transportation, installation, and cost efficiency. Larger nacelles need larger covers, increasing the cost of fabrication. But the bigger problem lies in the logistics of hauling a 600-tonne machine high up into the sky. Most of the time, transportation costs more than the cover of the nacelle itself.
 

Redesigned, streamlined turbines like the Vortex Bladeless turbine significantly cuts through manufacturing and maintenance. Output estimates that these blades generate power at 30 to 45 percent cheaper compared to traditional turbines, mostly because it uses inexpensive materials like resin and carbon fibre.

Requires Fewer Materials To Create

Wind turbine blades are subjected to brutal environmental elements. Every structure is multiple thousands of pounds heavy, hoisted hundreds of metres in the air, standing against storms and winds that can reach up to 33.6mph. All the while, perpetually spinning.
 

Turbines are made of a type of glass fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP). GFRP’s lightweight construction and incredible durability makes it the ideal choice for building machines that need to withstand the open ocean. 
 

However, that same strength also creates problems in the industry. More than a thousand turbines are nearing end-of-life. By 2030, an estimated 1,500 will need to be decommissioned. Three hundred of those will be retired before 2025.
 

Currently, those blades have nowhere to go but landfills.There currently is no way to recycle blades. Some parts end up repurposed, as bike sheds or bridges. Yet the vast bulk of the material ends up as waste. Shredding the blades is also a resource intensive process, because of their durability.

Occupies Less Space

The wind industry is growing rapidly, spurred on by an urgency to close the gap between its current size and what it needs to be to meet climate goals. Developments are rising across the globe, in both mature and emerging wind markets. 
 

As more turbines begin to sprout from the ocean floor and on land, the question of how long can we build before running out of space becomes more relevant. This is especially true for offshore wind. Traditional turbines can only be built on shallow seabed. Land-based turbines are often limited by community opposition.
 

New types of turbines like Vortex Bladeless’ turbine and the airborne system from Skysails Group present a way to circumvent space limitations. Supporters of the energy-generating kites imagine hundreds of the sails tethered to barges. Bladeless turbines are less powerful, but can compensate with their slim build. You can fit a lot more units in the same space occupied by a single traditional turbine.

Disadvantages of Bladeless Wind Systems

Most bladeless turbine technologies are in nascent stages of development. Topping or even matching the energy output of traditional turbines is also difficult – if not impossible.
 

The energy output of Vortex Bladeless’ machine is more comparable to those of solar panels than their bladed cousins. Cristina Archer, the director of the Center for Research in Wind (CReW) at the University of Delaware, says that airborne systems are “not going to replace conventional wind”.
 

But perhaps they don’t need to. To meet carbon neutrality goals by 2050, offshore wind needs to ramp up production by up to 50 times its current capacity. The Global Wind Energy Council says staying below the critical 2 degrees Celsius mark requires tripling wind energy growth by 2030.
 

In order to stay the course and shift faster away from oil and gas, every KW from wind energy will count. Bladeless and airborne turbines aren’t replacements for traditional bladed units. They are complementary technologies that offer even more ways for us to harness wind power beyond the constraints of cost, logistics, and space.