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Patrick Richter, Managing Director "Agile Wind Power"
"It is a special moment. Now the system is finally up and running after a long, long time."
Martin Jäschke, DER SPIEGEL
"Everyone thinks clean energy from wind power is good at first - but then many prefer not to live near wind power plants.
Although there are strict limits, some residents complain of annoying noises and shadows that cause stress - and often residents do not want new wind turbines out of concern about birds or bats that could be killed by the rotor blades. Almost everywhere where there are wind turbines, there are also citizens' initiatives against it. "
"A start-up from Switzerland has now developed a new wind turbine in which the rotor blades are aligned vertically, and many of the problems should be significantly smaller. Here, on a test field for wind turbines in Frimmersdorf near Mönchengladbach, is currently the first prototype of this system was erected and put into operation. We asked ourselves whether this vertical construction could help against the stagnant expansion of wind energy in Germany. "
The Swiss start-up's system is a so-called "vertical axis". This means that the rotor axis is built vertically and the three rotor blades are also mounted vertically. In the case of known wind turbines, the rotor axis is horizontal - and the rotor blades must always face the wind while the vertical axis is always correctly positioned, regardless of the direction of the wind.
In principle, vertical construction has been around for a long time, but mostly only on a much smaller scale, for example on house roofs.
Vertical systems on a larger scale were built in the eighties and nineties, but so far it has not been possible to construct durable systems of this size with efficient power generation.
The company founder Patrick Richter from near Zurich claims to have made it now.
After ten years of development, there is now a prototype.
The system, called "Vertical Sky", is 105 meters high and is supposed to deliver 750 kilowatts of electricity.
For comparison: modern, common wind turbines are now usually one and a half to twice as high and deliver four to five times the amount of electricity.
The project has cost 30 million euros from investors to date.
The unusual design should have several advantages: According to the company, the vertical alignment of the rotor blades should be less dangerous for animals, citing bird experts, because they recognize them as an obstacle and avoid them.
The lower height and slower rotation should create significantly fewer annoying cast shadows.
Above all, however, the system should produce much less noise during operation because the rotors turn much more slowly.
Patrick Richter, Managing Director "Agile Wind Power"
"Our system is audibly three times quieter. With conventional systems, an attempt is made to reduce the noise level by one to two decibels, which is a lot because it is a logarithmic scale, and we are 15 decibels including - without any loss of efficiency. "
Richter's vertical wind turbines could theoretically be located much closer to residential areas than conventional wind turbines.
According to the World Health Organization, permanent exposure to sound must be below 45 decibels, as the noise can otherwise be harmful to health.
Patrick Richter, Managing Director "Agile Wind Power"
"In order to achieve this noise level, a conventional system has to be about 300 meters away. And if we were to compare that with our system, it would be possible to achieve the same sound pressure level Set up the system after 54 meters. Of course, that is not the intention to get that close to the building. But that simply shows how dramatically closer you can go with our system. "
That could help with the expansion of wind energy in Germany.
In 2019, their share of gross electricity generation was around 21 percent, and around 30,000 wind turbines are already in place.
In 2019, the share of renewable energies in electricity generation was 43 percent.
The grand coalition wants to increase this proportion to 65 percent by 2030.
In order to achieve this goal, wind turbines with an output of 4700 megawatts would have to be installed on land every year, along with other regenerative energy sources.
But the expansion is stalling: In 2017, the expansion of around 5000 megawatts was still on schedule.
In 2019, however, the increase was only less than 1,000 megawatts.
This is an opportunity for Patrick Richter's start-up.
At the beginning of the year, the Swiss company relocated the production of the individual parts to Lemwerder near Bremen - close to many suppliers from the industry and with a good transport infrastructure.
Patrick Richter, Managing Director "Agile Wind Power"
"At the moment 15 people are working here in production, in Switzerland we are still just under twenty people in engineering. Here we use ultrasound to check the quality of the production of our rotor blades. That is very important there are no air pockets. That's glass and carbon fiber. It's the same material as we know it in conventional systems. It is also the same manufacturing method. What is different is the composition, the coating. The forces act on ours Rotor blades completely different from conventional systems. "
The forces that such a system has to withstand are precisely the reason why the vertical construction method has so far remained rather unsuccessful.
Patrick Richter, Managing Director "Agile Wind Power"
"Vertical axis rotors have a big problem: that they have to turn relatively quickly to prevent the flow from breaking off the rotor blades. If you turn fast, there are high centrifugal forces and the rotor blades want to bend outwards. It would be different if you turn slowly. But if you turn slowly, there is a risk that the flow will break off at the individual rotor blades. That is why we have developed a pitch unit - a computing unit that is in the middle of the hub, which controls the rotor blades individually. Each rotor blade is permanently optimally aligned. And that is now the key element, the door opener, in order to be able to dimension systems in large dimensions for the first time. "
Does Richter's technical concept have any chance of success?
We ask Peter Dalhoff, who researches the efficiency of wind turbines.
Peter Dalhoff, wind energy researcher, HAW Hamburg
"The idea of cyclical pitching, ie blade adjustment via the rotation, is not new. Only to implement it well is the challenge. You can generate more income, you can handle the loads But it is not available for free. That means, of course, you also have to install the blade adjustment systems accordingly. And they have to function as low-maintenance as possible or, even better, maintenance-free for over 20 or 30 years, during the life of the systems. "
In their own wind farm, the scientists carry out detailed measurements of the efficiency of the systems - that is, the maximum amount of energy that can be “harvested” from the wind. Up until now, conventional wind turbines are significantly more efficient than systems with vertical rotors.
Peter Dalhoff, wind energy researcher, HAW Hamburg
"Now perhaps a system with a somewhat poorer level of efficiency could also, if it can be built much cheaper, it could lead to electricity production costs that are below those of today's systems. But that is a hell of a challenge. "
Currently, the production of one kilowatt hour of electricity would be even more expensive than with large, conventional wind turbines.
For Patrick Richter that is of secondary importance at the moment.
Patrick Richter, Managing Director "Agile Wind Power"
"The advantages come primarily in the decentralization. There the business case is completely different. We do not produce electricity for a feed-in tariff, but we really want to supply an application on site with electricity. For example, for sewage treatment plants, 24 hours a day, as well as cold stores, data centers, all elements that are located somewhere in the populated area and the amount of electricity that is produced there then does not have to be purchased from the grid. "
Patrick Richter sees a place for his systems wherever a large wind farm is not sensible or possible.
They can also be erected in areas that are difficult to access, as the individual parts are significantly smaller.
In the long term, Richter can also envisage larger variants with up to 4 megawatts.
At 750 kilowatts, the prototype still produces comparatively little electricity - about as much as conventional wind turbines on land, as they were built five to ten years ago.
Peter Dalhoff, wind energy researcher, HAW Hamburg
"The development in the onshore market has just continued to two, three, four, five megawatts, so that the major manufacturers no longer offer systems in the range of 750 kilowatts to one and a half megawatts. This is why this company would actually be service a gap. "
Martin Jäschke, DER SPIEGEL
"The state with the strictest distance rule for wind turbines is Bavaria: The so-called" 10H rule "has been in effect there for about six years, and it says that the distance to the next housing estate must be at least ten times the height of the wind turbine .
Modern systems are often around 200 meters high, which means that they are 2 kilometers apart.
The expansion of wind power in Bavaria has also been at a standstill for about six years.
For a while now, the federal government had also discussed introducing a blanket distance from housing estates.
1000 meters were discussed in order to further increase the acceptance of wind farms.
But that would have left hardly any space for new wind turbines nationwide.
The grand coalition recently agreed that this rule should not be binding.
The federal states and municipalities can therefore decide for themselves whether the 1000 meters should apply to them or whether the distance can also be less. "
Good for Patrick Richter - but no guarantee that his vertical wind turbines will be able to fill the gaps closer to inhabited areas.
Because when it comes to the acceptance of wind turbines, not only the objectively measurable noise emission plays a role, say environmental psychologists.
Gundula Hübner, Environmental Psychologist, University of Halle-Wittenberg
"The idea that you can find simple solutions through a different design or through just a few noises is not enough, because we see again and again that it is much more decisive, in fact when it comes to the question of whether People also suffer from noise or not - because sometimes one neighbor suffers and the other doesn't - the decisive factor here seems to be the planning process, namely whether the people have been taken along, whether they have the opportunity to participate also to influence how the systems are set up, whether they also experience profits from these systems - for example through participation opportunities for the community - or whether the local people only bear the burden and the profits go elsewhere. "
Before we can address such questions, however, it must first be shown whether the new design works technically.
The prototype has to prove itself on the test field.
It should turn for the first time shortly.
Patrick Richter, Managing Director "Agile Wind Power"
"It has a measuring system on it that records wind data. At the same time, our system is full of sensors and measuring instruments, which then measure all the loads that affect the system on the various elements . And there is still a lot to adjust in the control, to play around with the software, that will come in the next few weeks. "
Should the vertical wind turbine keep what it promises in theory, Patrick Richter is planning further development and possibly series production from 2022. His company, he says, is already receiving inquiries from all over the world.
