Radical designs such as these should start with an evaluation of the insurability of the concept, both during construction / installation, and subsequent operation.

Unless the design can be approved by an insurer’s engineering underwriting experts, coverage for damage to the equipment and resulting lost revenue will be impossible to obtain, and therefore the project will be difficult, if not impossible to finance.

Complicating the situation is that such approvals by insurers are generally not issued for prototype designs, and require that a record of operational and loss history for the design be developed and reviewed before agreeing to issue coverage.

This means the turbine designer must find a way to front the full cost of building, deploying and testing a prototype to prove the concept, without insurance coverage to limit his exposure during this time.

In addition, many insurers and lending institutions will require that the turbine design be reviewed by recognized wind turbine certification agencies such as Germanischer Lloyd in Germany, and will require that a Type Certificate issued by such an agency be produced in order to consider offering insurance / project finance.

We certainly do need to have innovative ideas brought to the renewable energy table, but an integral part of the equation is taking into account the reality of running a profitable power generating plant.