Turbine type · HAWT

Horizontal axis wind turbine

Three blades, upwind rotor, passive furling on the small frames and IEC II engineering on the large ones. The configuration that produces the most energy per square metre of swept area — built here in twelve frame sizes from 300 W to 200 kW.

A horizontal axis machine keeps its rotor facing the wind on a yaw bearing, with a tail vane doing the steering on the smaller frames and a passive yaw system on the 50–200 kW machines. Three blades give the best balance between starting torque and tip-speed efficiency, and an upwind rotor avoids the tower shadow that makes downwind machines pulse once per revolution.

The trade-off is that the yaw bearing and the blade pitch (or furling hinge) are moving parts in the weather. On the 300 W–10 kW frames we keep the count low: one yaw bearing, three blade roots, one furling hinge, and nothing else that needs grease. Above 20 kW the machine gains a designed foundation, three independent braking systems and an IEC II design class, because at that size the tower is a structure rather than a pole.

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Models in this family

Full parameter tables, 1–200 kW · Commercial 20–200 kW: cost and payback

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