Pair design wind turbine to give cities electricity

TWO UNIVERSITY students have designed a wind turbine to generate electricity in large cities.

Nicolas Orellana, 36, and Yaseen Noorani, 24, have created the O-Wind Turbine to harness renewable energy from urban areas.

Mr Orellana and Mr Noorani, who are students at Lancaster University, have now been announced as the UK winner of this year’s James Dyson Award.

Traditional wind turbines only capture wind travelling in one direction, but are very inefficient in cities where the wind is unpredictable and multi-directional.

When wind blows through cities it becomes trapped between buildings, is dragged down to the street and is pushed up into the sky.

This catapults wind into chaos, which renders conventional turbines unusable.

Using a simple geometric shape, O-Wind Turbine is designed to use this powerful untapped resource, generating energy even on the windiest of days.

Mr Orellana and Mr Noorani came up with the design after studying Nasa’s Mars Tumbleweed rover.

The turbine is a 10in (25cm) sphere with geometric vents and sits on a fixed axis and spins when wind hits it from any direction.

Mr Orellana and Mr Noorani will now go forward to compete against other international entrants with the winner chosen by billionaire inventor Sir James Dyson, who founded the Wiltshirebased company in 1991.