New Direction for Wind Power?
Mollee Francisco

Dr. Daryoush Allaei didn’t set out to revolutionize the wind industry, but he may have stumbled on an idea that could become a major game changer, not only in the wind market, but the entire field of energy production.

In a non-descript office in an unremarkable building on the north side of Chaska’s Jonathan Industrial Park, sits a pair of rudi-mentary prototypes ready to show the world a different way of thinking.

The models illustrate the idea behind Invelox – a wind generation system designed to capture, accelerate and concentrate wind power. Life-size counterparts will be rolled out in the next few months for testing. And if Allaei can convince the world that his idea works, he can envision a day when his wind generation systems are atop every building and every home all around the world.

“Once people taste something that can coexist with nature and harvest wind, there’s no stopping us,” he said.

SheerWind was recently awarded the Cleantech Open’s North Central Region Sustainability Award for the Invelox.

HARVESTING WRONG

Born in Iran, Allaei came to the United States at the age of 20 to study mechanics and earn his doctorate in structural and system dynamics at Purdue University. Since graduating, he has founded a number of companies, including the Chaska-based QRDC – a research and development company specializing in energy flow control and energy efficiency.

It was mid-2008 when Allaei was working on a proposal for the U.S. Department of Energy regarding wind turbine vibration that he realized people were going about wind harvesting all wrong.

“Hold the breaks, let’s relook at this,” he said.

Allaei noted a number of problems with traditional wind turbines and wind farms. “Birds don’t like it, humans don’t like it, we’re going to a dead end,” he said.

He developed a tower shaped like a giant old phonograph horn lying on its back that could collect wind closer to the ground than traditional turbines, thereby reducing the cost of construction materials as well as operation and maintenance costs. “Harvest en-ergy closest to the source,” he reasoned.

The company, ShearWind, was created two years later.

In addition to reducing costs, Allaei believes his creation to be more efficient and more versatile than the kinds of windmills peo-ple have used for thousands of years.

“It is based on a concept of elegant simplicity,” states his promotional brochures. “Instead of a pinwheel, you begin with a scoop.”

The Invelox (a combination of “increased” and “velocity”) captures wind moving as slow as 2 mph, funnels it down a tapered passageway designed to increase its speed, and into a ground-level generator. Allaei believes the Invelox can outperform a tradi-tional 300-foot turbine 3-to-1 at half the size and with one-tenth the land needed. In addition, multiple towers could be connected to form a wind farm.

The result is wind power ranging between 2.8 and 4.1 cents per kilowatt hour. “The cost will be below natural gas,” said Allaei. “Our target is below hydro[electric].”

“This will really make a difference in people’s lives,” he said.

GAME-CHANGING

Allaei spent six months working on his initial idea for the Invelox. “All my engineers said it wouldn’t work,” he recalled.

But as they spent two years refining the models, no one could prove to him that the Invelox wouldn’t work.

“A lot of solutions are simpler than you think,” said Allaei.

Now he’s ready to put his invention to the test.

“The designs are complete and authorization to cut steel has been given,” he said.

The first Invelox units will be installed in February or March and will be tested for three months. He already has a number of prospective customers eager to try out the system. He’s not surprised.

Allaei asserts that his design, while being more environmentally friendly, can better blend into natural and residential settings making it a more attractive option than traditional wind turbines. He notes that the Invelox design has the flexibility to be scaled up or down for use in several markets from utilities to residential and commercial to military. He also envisions a mobile unit that could be dispatched during natural disasters to provide ready power.

The Invelox, while initially envisioned for steel, could be made out of a variety of materials at varying price points. “Eventually, I want it to be biodegradable material,” he added.

For now, Allaei remains in the business of convincing people that his invention can and will work. “There’s going to be huge re-sistance,” he said.

“We are not going to be issue-free,” he added. “But there are solutions.”

Allaei’s already received two patents (with several more pending) and successfully lured former Army Corps of Engineers and Xcel Energy bigwigs to join both his management team and the company’s board of directors.

If he’s right about the Invelox, Allaei is poised to jump to the forefront of energy production.

“It will be game changing,” he said. “Absolutely.”

“This could make Minnesota the Silicon Valley of wind.”

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