The Alpha 311 vertical axis wind turbine creates power where it’s needed most: locally. Every road, bridge, building or tower can become a wind farm.
The Alpha 311 turbine is smaller, lighter and easier to install than traditional turbines.
Imagine driving down the motorway, passing hundreds of these turbine and knowing that you’re helping to make them spin.
Not only that, but knowing that your journey is helping create renewable electricity that can be used where it’s needed.
The smaller size, lower weight and unique shaftless design means the Alpha 311 turbine can be installed almost anywhere.
The turbine can capture the wind, but it’s intended to harness the air movement of passing vehicles. Thompson says that a small car passing the turbine at 50 miles per hour displaces air at 12 miles per hour, enough for the turbine to rotate.
The turbine is most efficient when placed next to a road or railway where it harvests airflow from passing vehicles and generates electricity even when the wind isn’t blowing.
A sophisticated sensor array collects localised atmospheric data.
At roadsides, our turbines are attached to existing lighting columns close to roads, where they can harvest the massive untapped energy produced by moving vehicles.
Think about the last time a car or truck rushed past you – we’re collecting that airflow.
First test of a full-size turbine mounted to a lighting column
They look nothing like the tall, imposing ones that are increasingly deployed both inland and offshore around the world — at less than six feet (1.8 meters) in height, they’re a fraction of their size, and produce much less energy.
Made of carbon fiber, the same material as an F1 car, each turbine is 5.9 feet (1.8 meters) tall and weighs about 88 pounds (40 kilograms), but the section that actually turns only weighs just over 30 pounds.
On a highway installation, each turbine can produce 30 times the power of a 300W solar panel, on average, and the equivalent of about 14 panels while on a building.