november 2013: New technology - wind towers instead of turbines. A company called SheerWind, Inc. is developing a wind technology that purportedly can generate 25MW without having to build a mega-size turbine. One of its INVELOX towers produces four times the energy of the biggest offshore turbine and six times that of the largest onshore turbine. If the technology gets off the ground, one tower would supply 25,000 US homes at a fraction of the size and cost of traditional wind turbines, according to SheerWind. It works in a somewhat analogous way to concentrating solar. It captures, accelerates and concentrates wind in a tower, increasing the velocity of wind. The technology has been reviewed and validated by experts at major research universities and prototypes have been tested under controlled laboratory conditions. link
January 2013: Apple re-inventing the wind turbine. Apple patent suggests using wind turbines that converts rotational energy from turbine blades into heat, which is then stored and used to generate electricity when necessary. Today’s turbines often turn kinetic energy from turbine blade rotation directly into mechanical energy or electricity