Justin Ngo
Copper Hills High School, West Jordan, UT
As natural resources deplete, renewable green energy is in high demand. Wind energy is an extraordinary source of energy that is both highly sustainable and clean. The only drawback to wind energy is its low benefit (efficiency) to cost ratio, but significantly increasing wind energy`s efficiency would make this sustainable energy source more economically viable. Thanks to the new wind lens system, wind turbine power output can increase 2-5 times, increasing its efficiency. Due to the technological infancy, the wind lens system has not been utilized to its fullest potential. The existing wind lens utilizes one brim diffuser which creates Karman vortices to increase the incoming velocity of the wind that goes through the diffuser. In order to determine which wind lens design increased efficiency the most, the conventional wind turbine, the wind lens wind turbine, and eight other originally innovative designs of the wind lens, were tested with a 17.5 centimeter blade radius wind turbine fifteen times each and recorded with Logger Pro 3.8.4 for average power output over thirty seconds. The original design, reversed wind lens thirteen centimeter diffuser, produced 40% more power than the model wind lens with 51% efficiency. Reversing the wind lens technology to generate the Karman vortices earlier allows the vortices to gain strength, forcing the wind through the diffuser increasing power output. Wind turbines with this innovation will have a higher benefit to cost ratio making wind energy economically attractive and can also provide United States 26.6 billion megawatts energy needs alone.