A Canadian wind turbine company called True North Power NG has developed a much more intelligent, more efficient kind of wind turbine that will potentially allow wind turbines to generate far more power than they otherwise do.
The problem with conventional wind turbines is that they are not able to operate past a certain speed. If the wind becomes too powerful, the turbine can potentially begin to rotate too fast, and damage can be done to the turbine blades as well as the turbine itself, which can become overworked and will consequently overheat.
The solution for this has always been wind turbine furling; which is a kind of mechanical brake with slows the rotation of the blades down. The blades are turned in to the wind, so that more wind spills through and less force is put on the blades. The problem with this system has always been that the system is slow, and it does not adequately protect the turbine from damage. But this new system developed by True North Power NG, which is called Wind Arrow, has something better than a furling system, it has a microprocessor.
True North Power NG's new and improved wind turbine uses an intelligent microprocessor to regulate its rotation with a braking system. It immediately regulates the speed of the turbine, and minimizes any potential damage. This also means that there are less moving parts, and consequently less accumulated damage on the entire wind turbine system. The new system is also far more efficient and produces more power because even in strong gusts of wind, the Wind Arrow is still producing substantial amounts of power, unlike the wind turbines that we are using today.
The new system even has an automatic braking system that is activated when a particularly bad storm with sustained high gusts of wind comes along. When the microprocessor senses this kind of weather, it turns on an electromagnetic braking system, which will help the entire wind turbine weather the storm with minimal damage done to the blades or the turbine.