vol. 8

08 February 2023

GEVI’S FIRST TURBINE

By Edoardo Simonelli, Eleonora Cacchio

Last Jan. 20, at the DEMO DAY of ZERO, the Italian Cleantech Accelerator by CDP, the GEVI team presented the small-scale model of its intelligent wind turbine, and it was a remarkable success. 

Entirely designed and built by the three founders, GEVI’s first 600 W turbine combines lightweight materials, such as ecoPLA and fibreglass in its blades, along with aluminum in its internal frame, to create an optimal fast development solution. 

It is equipped with the team-designed custom blade pitch control and load management systems, as well as the first Artificial Intelligence software (version 0.1) that ensures the turbine adaptability to any wind condition. Specifically, based on the wind parameters recorded continuously by the anemometer, the AI provides real-time guidance to the blade pitch control system to angle the blade pitch, to maximise the torque throughout the all rotation and thus extract as much energy as possible while resolving turbulences issues. 

GEVI’s smallest model measures 1.7 m in height and 1.8 m in diameter and can produce 1 MWh of clean energy per year with an average wind speed of 5.5 m/s.

As a result, this turbine is suitable for domestic and off-grid applications, as it can meet 1/3 of a household’s average annual energy demand. It can also be easily integrated with a photovoltaic system to increase the share of clean energy produced and intended for self-consumption.   

The installed turbine is undergoing comprehensive field testing to collect data and assess its performance prior to the POC installation at the University of Pisa‘s Department of Economics and Management. The data gathered from these tests will provide valuable insights into the turbine’s behavior and performances, and help to optimise its design and functionality. 

The next step for GEVI is to manufacture the turbine using fully recycled and recyclable materials, to make its turbines completely sustainable.

L'articolo GEVI’S FIRST TURBINE proviene da GEVI.

vol. 7

26 January 2023

NEWEST GEVI OPPORTUNITIES

By Edoardo Simonelli, Eleonora Cacchio

The adaptability of the GEVI turbine enables its efficient installation at numerous sites, within a variety of industry fields, allowing to reduce energy costs and increase the share of clean energy. 

GEVI turbines can be a fundamental resource to provide power to many industrial and remote sites where a stable power source is necessary and grid electricity is not always available.  For example, Off-grid sites that they’re not physically connected to the power grid or any other type of utility, so they must use only energy that comes from their own sources. 

Such off-grid and semi-off-grid sites would benefit from a source of clean electricity capable of cutting down the electricity transport cost or eliminating the complexity of expanding the grid. That losses are not negligible in fact they are estimated to be about 20% of the production in India as well as most African countries, more than 50% in Haiti and Libya, and more than 15% on average in South America. Nevertheless, even in the most advanced transmission infrastructures such as in the United States or China, the average transport loss accounts for about 6 % of the total produced electricity.

When integrated with storage systems, GEVI turbines can provide an efficient and reliable solution to provide power to: 

• Telecommunication towers and sensor stations installed in areas where the power grid is not always present. Those areas may be characterized by extreme weather conditions and deteriorated power lines or by high power transmission losses related to the long distance covered by power lines.  
• Eco-sustainable greenhouses, factories, and buildings, including those that are part of a renewable energy community.  These so-called prosumers, produce electricity from renewable sources for shared self-consumption through the smart grid that connects them with the aim of lowering energy costs, promoting clean energy consumption and social cohesion. 

The nautical industry is another highly polluting sector whose environmental impact can be sharply reduced by exploiting wind power. In 2020, ship transport was the source of about 2.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but these percentages are set to increase significantly as international ship traffic grows. Moreover, numerous studies on emissions from port activities reveal that ships at berth and during maneuvers are extremely polluting and they are responsible for 80% of total port emissions. 

GEVI’s turbines can effectively power ship subsystems during navigation and when they are docked in port (Cold Ironing), saving tons of dangerous emissions. Moreover, the structure of the GEVI turbine can be adapted to a wide variety of ships, up to the largest merchant ships or cruise ships, taking advantage of the strong marine wind intensity.  

Even today, the installation of renewable energy systems in the nautical environment represents a difficult challenge to tackle. These systems have never been implemented before in a real-world application, but they could greatly help decarbonizing this hard-to-brake-down sector.

GEVI team intends to approach this challenge rapidly to take a first step towards its offshore project.

L'articolo NEWEST GEVI OPPORTUNITIES proviene da GEVI.

vol. 4

13 October 2022

SUSTAINING THE ENVIRONMENT WITH GEVI

By Edoardo Simonelli, Eleonora Cacchio

According to a conservative LCA study, a 1 kW vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) emits 2846 kg CO2eq during its entire life cycle, taking into account material acquisition, transportation, manufacturing, maintenance, and the impact of end-of-life treatments.

GEVI’s 1 kW turbine saves 1900 kg CO2eq per year compared to the global energy mix (EPA), with a CO2eq payback time of 18 months, providing energy production of almost 2700 kWh per year in average wind conditions of 5.5 m/s.

For the same amount of energy produced, a diesel generator emits 2500 kg of CO2eq per year, not counting that emitted in the phases of the generator’s production, transportation and maintenance.

Therefore, the environmental impact of the GEVI turbine is extremely positive: the GEVI wind turbine saves 35.1 tons of CO2eq during its estimated operational life of 20 years, compared with about 50 tons of CO2eq emitted by a diesel generator over the same time frame.

In addition, the artificial intelligence (AI) loads management module allows for the use of light and sustainable materials. In fact, the commercial 3 kW version of GEVI’s turbine (available in 2024) will be almost completely recyclable. The structural frame is already made of aluminium tubes while the lifting blades will be manufactured with a composite material using an easily recyclable thermoplastic resin.

In this way, GEVI turbines are helping to achieve 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations 2030 Agenda:

• SDG 7 of “affordable and clean energy” which aims to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”;
• SDG 12 of “responsible consumption and production” which aims to “ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns”;
• SDG 13 of “climate action” which aims to “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”.

Taking action to cut our emissions is extremely urgent.
GEVI helps providing fast and effective solutions to this huge problem, and accelerate the transition towards a sustainable future.

L'articolo SUSTAINING THE ENVIRONMENT WITH GEVI proviene da GEVI.

vol. 3

27 September 2022

TOWARDS THE FUTURE OF WIND ENERGY

By Edoardo Simonelli, Eleonora Cacchio

GEVI is an Italian startup that develops and builds intelligent vertical wind turbines (VAWT), using flexible hardware and artificial intelligence (AI) software selfspecializing in multiple locations and wind conditions.

The turbines developed by GEVI are characterised by an actively controlled blade pitch angle, in order to adapt the vertical blade position to the incoming wind direction and intensity. In this way, it is possible to predict the wind and its recurrent patterns and maximise the extracted power. The resulting turbine efficiency will be higher than 45%.

The blade control system also elaborates real-time structural integrity and fatigue data, to actively reduce vibrations and dynamic loads on the blades and tower structure. This extends the blade operating life while making it lighter and simplifying the installation.

The first self-training wind turbines, constantly learning from the wind.

Moreover, the turbine (including electronics and controllers) is easily integrable with “Internet of Things” (IoT) systems, enabling the exchange of data with the external world. In this way, it will be possible to optimize the synergy between nearby turbines in a wind farm; introduce predictive maintenance, real-time performance monitoring and alert systems.

GEVI has already built and tested a demonstrator prototype of 30 W nominal power, which is 50 cm in diameter and 60 cm in height.

On-field tests on this demonstrator proved a 2x increase in power extracted when the pitch control system was activated.

The first pilot of 1 kW is under construction and will be 2.5 m in diameter and 1.8 m in height. Our scaled 1 kW turbine will be capable of obtaining great results targeting a 50% increase in energy produced per year compared to a standard VAWT (vertical axis wind turbine) of the same size.

The architecture of the turbine makes it highly scalable and installable in many different locations, from urban areas (such as on high roofs and telecommunication towers) to the open sea (off-shore).

Adaptability, reliability and efficiency are the main points for our turbines, which will be able to solve the problems that have limited the spread of distributed wind energy until the present day.

L'articolo TOWARDS THE FUTURE OF WIND ENERGY proviene da GEVI.

L'articolo WIND POWER MARKET TRENDS proviene da GEVI.