Wind Energy Market Challenges

There are two primary challenges in the wind energy market:

• The cost of producing and installing a conventional wind energy system (see how TFC Energy has addressed this)
• The need for developing low speed wind energy technologies to expand the use of wind energy to lower velocity wind regions which account for more than half of the US. (see our low-speed wind turbine solution)

For wind energy, much of the development work, R&D, and commercial activities have focused on Class 6 (high speed) wind resources while much of the US (nominally ½) and most of the Mid-West have Class 4 or lower (low speed) winds.

View comparison table of high-speed wind turbine solutions vs TFC Energy's low-speed turbine solution.

Tower/rotor technologies and generation equipment/electronics have focused on the higher wind speed.  The development of economically feasible power generation for low speed winds will open up a greater portion of the US to the harnessing of wind energy nearer to the point of use. 

In addition, wind energy is optimally suited to the drive toward distributed power generation.

Recognizing these challenges and opportunities, TFC Energy began to investigate Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWT) and Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) wind technologies in conjunction with the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) since 2005 with the specific purpose of developing a wind energy product line. 

UDRI has vetted a number of design concepts for TFC Energy, and performed preliminary design and experimental testing with the purpose of optimizing TFC Energy’s Savonius type VAWT rotor design.

Want to Be Part of the Solution?

For more information, contact us.