Tunisian start-up introduces blade-free wind turbine

ANSAmed) - TUNIS, APRIL 27 - The Tunisian start-up Saphon Energy has created a bladeless wind turbine that is more efficient than traditional ones. Inventors say that it produces twice as much energy at a much lower cost, is safer for birds and is ideal for developing countries. About fifty will provide enough energy for a village with a population of about 1,000 and are ''extremely quiet''.

Called Saphonian, the turbine was inspired by the sails of ancient Carthaginian ships that competed for dominance in the Mediterranean Sea during the Roman Empire. The disc, similar to a pot cover, is mounted on top of a pole reminiscent of the mast of ship and serves to collect wind energy through a wave-motion converter.

All wind turbines are subject to the Bertz's Law, which indicates that the maximum power that can be extracted from the wind is 59%. However, the developers of the Saphonian say that their product can surpass this limit due to not having blades and manage to convert up to 80% of the wind hitting its surface into electricity.

Saphon Energy won the Gulfstream Navigator Award 2015, opening it up to large investors. Its project is also financed by such market giants as Microsoft, which is seeking sustainable ways to feed its huge cloud-computing systems across the world. However, the best application of it - given its lower costs - may be in developing countries, which will use Saphonian as an intelligent and economic solution for providing off-grid energy.

The Tunisian start-up already has a partnership with India, where it would like to set up a wind park with 50 turbines having a 20-KW capacity each, for a total of 1 MW, which would provide electricity for about a thousand inhabitants of a small community. Its creators hope to build a 'maxi' version of the Saphonian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=37&v=b3aBPDTDtx8 (ANSAmed).

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