NEW USE FOR WINDMILLS.

Waipa Post, Volume XX, Issue 1127, 11 August 1921, Page 2

NEW USE FOR WINDMILLS.

GENERATION OF ELECTRICITY. Many attempts have been made to solve the problem of efficiently utilising the winds as a means of generating electricity. The difficulties arise from the extreme variations in the force of the wind and from the liability, even in windy regions, to periods of calm during which no power at all can be obtained. These conditions suggest that wind powek" should be used only as an auxiliary to some other source of energy, such as the burning of coal or oil. Now that fuel of all sorts has multiplied in price, there is all the more reason for considering the possibility of turning the wind to account. Hitherto the usual plan has been to use a large slow-speed windmill to drive a dynamo at a high speed through a gearing—a rather wasteful arrangement. During the war, however, there was in Great Britain a remarkable development in the design and construction of small high-speed dynamos on aeroplanes. These dynamos were direct-coupled to propellers, or rather "impellers," driven by the wind created by the aeroplane in flight. A British firm has devised a scheme for fitting three or more of these wind-dynamos on the swivelling top of a verticle pole; with a vane to keep them in position against the wind. Each equipment gives 60 watst and the arrangement forms a. cheap and efficient auxiliary to the ordinary country-house lighting installation. The energy produced is, of course, stored in accumulators in the usual way. The operation of the plant is entirely automatic, and it is so light and simple that it presents no obstacles in erection or maintenance.