In fact, the inspiration for the Windancer’s™ unique wind blades comes from the beauty and efficiency of the maple tree’s winged seed, the Samara. It’s just one aspect of the turbine’s design that makes it efficient, compact and noise-free.

Where there are adequate wind resources there are significant environmental, security, political, cultural and social advantages of decentralising the power supply by having smaller wind turbines closer to users. This includes reducing electricity loss via its transmission over long distances as generated renewable electricity is used first onsite.

Greenpeace estimates 67 per cent of primary energy input is wasted in the current global centralised model and promotes a decentralised model as the best way to dramatically reduce global CO2 emissions from power generation. Smaller wind turbines also have the added benefit of reducing land use because buildings like high rises can be used as towers.

Smaller wind turbines provide users with independence in a power outage, lower installation, maintenance and transport costs, as well as easier transportation to communities without road infrastructure. Spreading power production over multiple turbines also minimises total electricity supply interruptions.

When my father, Dr Alfred Mathieu, and I explored designing a wind turbine we had to solve problems common to some other turbines such as noise, vibration, size and weight. Having wind turbines closer to people and property also required safety features. We wanted to design a durable wind turbine for all seasons, including harsh Canadian winter conditions, made mainly of off-the-shelf parts that could be easily replaced. Finally, the turbine had to look good. By following our guiding principle of putting nature first, and nature does look good, we came up with the Windancer horizontal wind turbine in 2006.

Our investigations showed that many wind turbines are noisy mainly because they have gears and transmissions. It makes sense to have direct drive alternators and a direct drive system, and by treating the wind as the engine we stringently applied the principles of wind dynamics to the design of all components.

The Windancer’s eight balanced wind blades increase blade surface area. When the wind touches the blades, they turn as one unit on the shaft, which is turned by the direct drive Alxion brushless permanent magnet (radial flux) variable speed AC synchronous alternator. The wind tail ensures immediate response to the constantly changing wind direction. The Windancer has a 1 metre per second (m/s) start-up speed – compared to 3 m/s for the average small turbine – that starts without needing electricity.

All the turbine’s features co-operate to maximise wind efficiency, allowing for a smaller footprint, with negligible noise and vibration. A wind turbine that has negligible vibration and few points of contact with a structure is very important as vibration increases wear and tear on the turbine and any attached structure. The Windancer can be mounted on wallmounted towers, free-standing towers, mobile towers and non-penetrating towers on load-bearing roofs without guy wires.

A portable asset that is lightweight yet strong, the Windancer3 (3 kilowatt turbine) weighs only around 100 kg. Like the slightly larger Windancer7, it is transportable by ute and is effective on a 10 metre tower or on a 4 metre tower on a high rise building, facilitating municipal approval. The Windancer23 has a blade diameter of only 4.5 metres. The turbines are adaptable to urban, residential, rural, remote community and industrial/ commercial use as well as other uses, including mechanical, water pumping and purification applications.

The Windancer’s nine safety features include lassoed blades and cabled wind tail. The permanently-fixed lightning arrestor is at the highest tip instead of in the blades because lightning can pass between the blades and destroy the generator. There is a remote emergency brake, an automatic high-wind cut off device and optional back-up device, two lockout controls on the blades and yaw bearing for safe/easy installation and maintenance. The turbine can be painted different colours to complement surrounding architecture and its multicoloured broader blades are visible to birds.

Last year, a group of leading business executives, designers and community leaders selected by Canada’s museum and centre for design research and education, awarded the Windancer a Gold Design Exchange Award in Engineering. My father and I could not be more encouraged by that.