THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE 02

Assignment 6.1: Architectural Concepts toward design efficiency april 20, 2022

SOLID-STATE WIND-ENERGY TRANSFORMER (EWICON)

A "solid-state apparatus" has no moving parts and can
harvest electrical power from the wind. It uses coronal
discharge to create negative air ions, which the wind
carries away from the SWET. The SWET harnesses the
wind-induced currents and voltages to produce electrical
power. One of its concept is EWICON.
SWETs have the potential to produce large amounts of
electrical power at low costs with little negative
environmental impact.
EWICON CONCEPTUALIZATION
Electrostatic Wind energy Dutch researchers have created a
Converter was based on bladeless wind turbine that produces
the principle that the wind electricity using charges water droplets.
transports electrically It's not that different from the ionic air
charged particles or charge purifiers that were all the rage in the
carries in an electric field. It '90s and early 2000s.
converts electrical energy
directly from the wind.
PROCESS
Harvesting potential energy uses
bladeless turbine and lets the wind
move positively charged water
droplets from a nozzle against the MATERALS
direction of an electric field by a EWICON device comprises a stell
process called "Electro spraying. frame holding 40 horizontal rows of
70% water + 30% etenol is used insulated ceramic tubes, which seems
like a large tennis racket. The metal
as charge carrier liquid.
plate consist of battery, inverter,
The traditional approach to producing
HVDC source pump, charging
electrical power from the wind via system & is supported by insulators.
mechanical turbines has well-known The insulated plates acts as
shortcomings. Wind turbines are capacitor, which is charges by
highly visible, generate noise, removal of the charge droplets.
negatively impact some wildlife and
have a high cost.
PROS The turbine is quieter, reduce maintenance cost,
produce less vibration & making it suitable to urban locality.
It varies in shapes and sizes.
CONS It has very less efficiency about 7-10%. It can be
used only at small scale due to low efficiency.
Reference: Epstein, Richard I. “A Solid-State Wind-Energy Transformer: Applied Physics Letters: Vol 115, No 8.” AIP Publishing, aip.scitation.org, 19 Aug.
2019, https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.5109776.
Djairam, Dhiradj. "The Electrostatic Wind Energy Converter: electrical performance of a high voltage prototype." (2008).
Djairam, D., A. N. Hubacz, P. H. F. Morshuis, J. C. M. Marijnisen, and J. J. Smit. "The development of an electrostatic wind energy converter (EWICON)." In
Future Power Systems, 2005 International Conference on, pp. 4-pp. IEEE, 2005. 3/12/2018 15