An artist rendering of how the MARS system is designed to work. (Source: Magenn Power)
The MARS system is fully built and undergoing testing, on the road to commercial deployment. (Source: Magenn CEO Pierre Rivard)
It's a blimp, It's a dirigible!
While interest in solar power is picking up, another technology is also gaining a lot of attention. The chief problems with wind power are consistency and strength of the winds. Some areas simply do not get strong winds regularly and even areas that do can go days without experiencing strong winds. One solution is to build turbines at higher altitudes land areas.
Another decidedly more novel idea is to ditch the ground altogether and attach windmills to airships or kites. Makani Power is already receiving funding from Google to float kites into the jet stream in an attempt to harness its power. Now another company is looking to deploy a massive tethered blimp, which will continuous turn in the wind, generating power. While such a device may sound like fodder for a science fiction novel, it's precisely what Magenn Power is looking to market. The Canadian startup is looking to take wind power to the air in a big way.
The culmination of its work is the Magenn Air Rotor System (MARS) prototype. This massive helium filled blimp looks like a giant sausage with "riverboat blades" as Pierre Rivard CEO of Magenn Power states. The airship is ground tethered, and the blades catch the wind, turning it on a horizontal axis and generating power.
Magenn Power is currently testing the finished prototype at the TCOM flight-test facility in North Carolina. The center, “the Mecca of big airships" according to Rivard, has seen little use since World War II. But it's the only facility large enough to conduct an indoor test of the massive MARS prototype.
The company aims to deploy its finished products at a height of around 600 to 1,000 feet, significantly increasing the amount of wind it receives. Magenn claims a fully commercialized version will produce anywhere from 10 kW to several megawatts, depending on the model.
Rivard says, Magenn's design is making history. He states, "This is a world’s first, there has never been a rotating airship test done before."
A seasoned veteran of the fuel cell industry, Rivard left fuel-cell developer Hydrogenics to join Magenn in August, excited by the company's big dreams. And he can't contain his enthusiasm for the device. As the MARS prototype inflates, he enthuses, "As I talk to you, this whole envelope in the past 20 minutes has formed. It’s almost totally formed now, like the birth of a new child."
While Rivard revels in seeing his work in action, he also has been hard at work raising funding for the startup. Last year he secured $5M USD in funding from California-based Quercus Trust. The Quercus Trust is an alternative energy investment firm founded by mathematician-turned-philanthropist David Gelbaum. It invested heavily in other promising startups, including solar-hydrogen producer Nanoptek and algae-to-biofuel LiveFuels.
This year Rivard and Magenn hope to secure even larger funding, in preparation for commercialization. After testing at TCOM, they look to showcase the prototype in an outdoor test, which they hope will raise $12M USD in funding. Rivard states, "We would like to bring in customers and investors who have already expressed an interest in seeing it."
After the initial demo, Magenn plans to offer four more unique demos. One will be an industrial site, such as a mine, and the blimp will replace the power generation of the diesel used in the plant. Other sites will be a Caribbean island, a farm and a national park.
Rivard's initial system will be pricier than traditional wind turbines, but should produce more power. He states, "With a conventional turbine, you typically have a utilization ratio of 20 to 25 percent, but with us, because we go higher, you have more constant and stronger winds, so the utilization ratio is more like 50 percent."
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