Architects in Portland, Oregon are trying to determine whether or not wind turbines placed on the top of buildings in urban areas can generate enough electricity to become a viable alternative energy source.Currently, there are a lot of detractions from roof top wind turbines. As Colin Miner writes for the New York Times’ Green Inc. Blog, issues over the technology range from whether or not the size of the turbines makes them ineffective in generating cost-efficient power, to the vibrations caused by the spinning blades.
Miner reports that in Portland, Oregon, atop Twelve West, are four wind turbines that rise 45-feet above the 22-story building in the city’s West End. Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects’ John Brashears is hopeful the turbines will ‘“provide much needed data on the efficacy of urban rooftop wind farming . . .”’ The architects used data gathered by both NASA and Google Earth to determine where to place the turbines and how high the turbines need to be set. To compensate for the vibrations generated by the turbines the architects used both sand to fill the bottom portion of the masts and installed the turbines on “isolation mounts.”
Some believe the money spent on the turbines would have been better spent focusing on how to make building more efficient. Miner writes that green building consultant Jerry Yudelson told The Oregonian newspaper that ‘“ . . . the real game is to design a super-efficient, comfortable, healthy building.”’
However, the architects argue that, with half the world’s population being urban dwellers, there is a need to explore a number of options to make urban buildings more efficient and capable of getting electricity from clean energy sources. To read the Miner post click here.
Posted: 08/18/09
