Like Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs), shrouded and ducted wind turbines can be both small and large. However, they are not the mainstay of the wind industry and for that reason they are assigned a category under Small Wind Turbines on this site. Shrouded turbines are also sometimes called Diffuser-Augmented Wind Turbines (DAWTs).
There is also a collection of archival and recent photographs on the Photos section of this site. There you can find photos of Ducted Wind Turbines (DAWTs).
Sheerwind-Invelox, a ducted-turbine fiasco, officially went bust in early 2018. Incredibly, there are a number of promotional videos still on line at youtube.com and on vimeo. The latter is even more...[more]
While poking around on the Internet to see if anything new had popped up on some of my favorite ducted turbine projects I came across some videos of FloDesign-Ogin that I hadn't seen before.[more]
Daryoush Allaei extolling the wonders of his device in his native land. Note the location of the device--down below the ridge on which they are standing. Also notice that there are some real wind...
The Nature Conservancy (TNC), one of the nation's premier land preservation trusts, isn't talking about its failed investment in a ducted wind turbine debacle 1,000 miles from Hawaii.[more]
The following are comments to Another Ducted Device Dead: SheerWind-Invelox Bankrupt. They were so insightful I decided to repost them here where they are more easily archived.[more]
My inbox saw a flurry of emails 4 January 2018 to inform me that ducted turbine darling SheerWind-Invelox was bankrupt. While the event wasn't much of a surprise, it did take much longer than I'd...[more]
The Chaska, Minnesota promoter of a ducted wind turbine appears to have fallen on hard times. The fabric covering of the intake duct for their demonstration turbine is torn and in disrepair and the...[more]
Ogin raised more than $150 million in funding — even attracting the attention of former Vice President Al Gore, now a senior partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, one of the company’s earliest...
Among all those who lost money in the FloDesign-Ogin fiasco is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Compared to others the state lost a relatively modest amount of $3 million.[more]
New Zealand’s Superannuation Fund has written down its $47.5 million (NZ) investment in ducted turbine promoter Ogin. [more]
In June 2016 the Ogin Board of Directors and management mutually agreed to separate. At that point we wrote the Fund’s NZ$47.5 million investment down to nil, and that was included in our annual...
Is the end near for SheerWind’s Invelox ducted wind turbine? The problems with SheerWind’s design are coming to a head as its signature clients lose faith.[more]
Despite its previous association with a questionable wind turbine and its promoter, Clarkson University announced that the school in upstate New York has transferred ducted wind turbine technology...[more]
FloDesign’s prototype ducted wind turbine on Deer Island in Boston Harbor is being removed, according the agency that operates the nearby sewage treatment plant.[more]
Former employees of the erstwhile ducted turbine manufacturer Ogin have posted comments about their jobs on a public web site.[more]
More photos of the Ogin ducted wind turbine dismantlement have been “thrown over my transom.” These close-up photos show far more detail of the disassembly and scrapping process than before.[more]
The highly hyped ducted wind turbines near Palm Springs have been removed. The Ogin turbines were removed sometime this summer.[more]
It went by various incarnations, but it was founded as Windtamer by one Gerald Brock and it finally and officially is gone.[more]
I am writing this now to close the book on this sad little turbine and the whole “let’s put them on the roof” phenomenon. Stumbling across an obscure NREL field test report from long ago (see Power...[more]
Ogin, the Massachusetts-based ducted turbine company, has installed six of seven turbines in the San Gorgonio Pass near Palm Springs, California.[more]
What the photos clearly show is that the prototype has abandoned the lobed mixer-ejector feature that was the hallmark of the design—and the justification for the hype that this turbine would be the...[more]
Sheerwind makes radically inappropriate comparisons between their long-disproven approach to wind generation and actually useful wind generation. The numbers show that they are likely about eighteen...
A wind energy firms' claims it will revolutionise wind power have been questioned by critics following a US$55 million investment in it by the New Zealand Superannuation Fund.
The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming book, Wind Energy for the Rest of Us. It is provided here in the public interest because of recent controversy surrounding FloDesign and...[more]
This summary reflects my view at the time. Key participants were acknowledging the technical failure of Vortec 7, but they couched their failure in arcane technical language at arcane conferences. [more]
Is this another example of Federal capital subsidies driving exceptionally overpriced "wind turbines"?[more]
WARNING: There’s an attempt to rebrand Diffuser-Augmented Wind Turbines (DAWT), also known as Shrouded Wind Turbines as Compact wind acceleration turbine. Why this is so isn’t clear. It is possible...[more]
In the past I’ve singled out what are variously called Diffuser Augmented Wind Turbines (DAWT) or Shrouded Rotors for derision. Wind turbine engineers, manufacturers of commercial wind turbines,...[more]
Gerald Brock, the "inventor" of Windtamer is back at it with a new company using the same Windtamer design.
The Windtamer turbine was still being promoted on Arista Power's web site.
Ducted or shrouded wind turbines have been invented and reinvented throughout the 20th century. Ducted turbines are often wrapped in mysterious, technical babble, such as diffuser augmentation, that...
Zero, Null, Nada Generation in One Year--After one full year of operation, the Elena DAWT has produced zero net electricity.
In retrospect, a little more skepticism would have been in order, because this is exactly the kind of thing you see constantly in hot markets. Revolutionary technology, lots of interest that will...
William A. Schmitz, Chief Executive Officer of WindTamer Corporation, said that, “The decision of the Board of Directors and me to no longer have Mr. Brock head the research and development of the...
Have Parisians Drunk the Kool-Aid?[more]
Poor Albert Betz, the German physicist must be turning over in his grave. He's been beaten yet again.[more]
Ducted or shrouded wind turbines have been invented and reinvented throughout the 20th century.[more]
Scams, Frauds, & Flakes--Tell-Tale Signs[more]
Your claims cannot be substantiated by the data made available to the public and it is likely they cannot be verified in the field. [more]
Doubts about an unusual approach to turbine design have been proven right with the demise of Vortec Energy, launched in 1994 with strong hopes for its diffuser augmented wind turbine (DAWT) design....
Simplified one-dimensional arguments lead to predictions of speed-ups of about 2 and power augmentations of about 4, but such power levels have not been observed to date.
Vortec Energy - after spending $5 million on what its chief describes as New Zealand's most expensive "sculpture" - has emerged with new wind-harnessing technology and made its first licensing deal....
I was critical of the development of this wind turbine for several reasons: excessive hype, questionable sales of stock, and the aggressive style of the company's promoter. [more]
AS WIND turbine generator Vortec Energy gets ready for a 10-city roadshow: to promote its $10m public offering an overseas expert has warned small investors to steer clear, saying the company's...[more]
Despite the questions and scepticism, hopes for the new machine remain high, with Vortec predicting that the full-scale machines will produce electricity at about 4 cents/kWhr, or about half that of...
Since 1996 we have a "new" old, huge, new-fangled saurian, a device erected in New Zealand. . .
