EEVblog #1321 - SunPlower - DUMBEST IDEA Since Solar Roadways!

The SunPlower is supposed to be able to power mobile phone towers, propel boats and submarines, and fly you around in an Air-Taxi!
Let's turn flat solar panels into wind turbine blades!
The laws of physics and engineering might have a lot to say about that...

#Debunking #SolarPower #WindPower

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[EEVblog]

He's serious:
"Siva has 19 years of industry experience including 13 years in Texas Instruments in Germany and 6 years in Infineon Technologies Germany - have more than 30 patents."

[steverobbins]

Hey, I've got a great idea. Wireless wind power! We'll just attach magnets to birds and train them to fly through big coils of wire. If you make the coils big enough you can capture flux from entire flocks as they migrate seasonally. Disruptive!!!

[trcostan]

I own a RF service and Tower Climbing company. Everytime we add antennas to a tower we have to calculate the wind load and make sure we don’t overload the tower. Most tower companies rent space rather then service providers owning the tower they could give a crap about tenants power costs!!!! Most of the time coverage is much more important then anything so $ wise your only going to see antennas on towers in a populated area! Stupid idea and I don’t want service the stupid thing! If you put the solar panels on the ground and a wind turbine in the same tower foot print on a separate pole sure that’s fine but on the tower no!

[CuentaSpam]

The solar MPPT controller: OH GOD WHAT'S GOING ON
The solar module:

[DltaLabs]

Sounds more like a school project, when the student has been asked to use their imagination to create some future product.

[donepearce]

I bet the antenna designers will be delighted with the modulation that results when this thing is rotating in the near field.

[cup_and_cone]

We laugh, but projects like these get millions in EU development funds to build them in places like Bulgaria.

[foo]

According to their Google map, they're located in the "Valentin Musäum" (sic), a museum dedicated to the famous Munich comedian and jokester Karl Valentin.

[johnuferbach]

Genius dude from a company I was doing an internship at had the great idea to outfit cars and trucks with propellers to generate power from the Fahrtwind (German for the wind you feel when driving... which is ofc actually drag, but the German word makes it seen like it is a kind of actual wind) engineers had a good laugh about it xD

[markpitt]

I used to make parts for helicopter swash plates and the linkages, they are very complex and maintenance intensive systems. You would need at least something like that to get the blades to continually pitch to the wind, that’s without all the supporting mechanisms to make it happen. So for all this trouble what problem does it solve? There is a reason why it hasn’t been done yet.

[uKcvPAq]

This is the sort of thing my local city council would put on their HQ building so they can boast about going green.

[crazymotionride]

The blades were actively pitching at 5:15, they are feathered at the top of the cycle and side onto the fan at the bottom.

[redsquirrelftw]

Even if it did work, it's way too complicated for nothing. Simple is better. Think of all the moving parts that need to be involved to make this work, and imagine trying to maintain this thing from the top of a cell tower! It makes way more sense to put a normal wind turbine on the ground, along with a solar array. People have to stop finding weird ways to use solar and wind.

[Damien.D]

Can't wait to see these drones and things flapping around in the breeze.

[JamesUKE]

You can’t power a 5kw BTS from a 5kw wind turbine. You need at least 20kw and a pile of battery storage. Not to mention a diesel generator for when the turbine blows up during a storm. Worked in the industry controlling and monitoring renewable power on cell sites in remote areas. One of our colleagues was nicknamed ‘the Turbinator’ as they frequently seemed to blow up when he was involved!

[foobar]

It retains the problems of both horizontal and vertical wind turbines and adds some new ones. True innovation.

[FlyingDismount]

The business model is to sell a marginally plausible idea to some dumb VC who has more dollars than sense. You take the millions, file for a few bogus patents and then go out of business because you were unable to sell your bogus idea to anyone, but the VC is still satisfied as money well spent as they believe they made out with a portfolio of patents. Then you go on to start another business with another half-brained idea, lather, rinse, repeat..

This is why you should never work for a startup... Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and the crap-ton of non-tradeable "stock options" (as the company never went public)... Never again..

[ciarfah]

This looked like a high school science project at first

[deelkar]

Red flags: (other than the obvious): Maps plugin in french, centered on the Valentin Museum in Munich, (Famous Troll) Voith Schneider spelt wrong (unusual error for a German)

[shansoley]

In the video you show with smaller unit being driven by fan, the blades are in fact actively rotating. Unless I am missing something? Surely this sort of design is more efficient than static horizontal blades? The blade facing the wind direction is flat whilst the blade returning against the wind has turned allowing less resistance to the wind travelling along the blade. I am not an engineer in any way and definitely agree about the solar gimmick! Just interesting how the blades change direction to suit path of minimal resistance.