Just drop the Power Pontoon in a river – it’s that simple.
The Vurbine™ blade is one directional and has a leading, and trailing edge which again allows for high water to wire performance and efficiency characteristics.
Since 100% of the energy in a flowing river is located at the surface declining incrementally by subsurface depth, the machine therefore harvests energy from the most dense energy field vs. less dense subsurface energy fields harvested by vertical axis submerged machines such as Darrieus, Gorlov, etc.
While it is true that more material is used in the fabrication of Horizontal Axis Hydrokinetic Turbines in general, in the case of the Vurbine™ blade in particular there is more material to harvest energy with and consequently more material to withstand the hydrokinetic energy forces, resulting in a feasibly scalable machine to utility standards which is improbable for other technologies to achieve.
Electrical Configuration
The generators are variable speed Permanent Magnet Generators from which the 3‐phase, variable voltage, variable frequency output will be cabled from the barge to an onshore based control panel trailer or weather proof housing unit where it can be fed into a 3‐phase rectifier. (Rectified DC power can be fed into an inverter, which can provide output to match the grid interconnection parameters and criteria.)
Deployment
A fundamental unique characteristic of all hydro-kinetic installations is that all are by inherent design intended for installation in hostile terrain and under difficult conditions. Other than dry rainfall seasons during which a river’s flow may have reduced volumes, there are no slack times where the river is not flowing and various important safety precautions need to be taken prior to any attempted installation.One needs to ensure that the barge and any personnel on board remain secure throughout the installation procedure. Working in a fast‐moving river, this means that the barge should be securely controlled in the flow while being maneuvered from shore to the target location. A fundamental principle at all times is maintaining redundancy of the barge moorings. During deployment, this can be achieved by running a secondary safety rope to a shore anchor point on the downstream side of the mooring, or anchor point. In the event of a primary mooring failure (outboard motor(s), winch cables, anchor system or shore based tractors), the barge would drift downstream and swing on the safety rope into still(er) water near shore.
Several mooring or anchoring alternatives are available depending on site conditions such as terrain, traffic (in the case of navigable water ways) industrial resources and equipment available, and could be as simple as mooring to an anchor, columns of existing bridges, trees on shore etc., to complicated and expensive anchor pylons inserted into bedrock by barge mounted drilling rigs on large rivers.