Country: Luxemburg

Category: Green

Name: SWIRL

Project Aim: Why do we still pollute, using fossil instead of renewable energies?

Why did you create SWIRL?

Looking at the world energy situation and the social cost of CO₂, this question strikes because of the tremendous, locally distributed impacts of combustion engines applied in human activities like communication and mobility.

Looking at these communication and mobility markets, one finds a complex, noisy bazaar, many players, immature products, sustainability threats, consultancy in renewable energies and efficiency. Established players in the energy markets try to keep up the status quo by means of barriers to a widespread adoption of decentralized sustainability.

All human activities needing energy, SWIRL opted for a different approach.

What do you do?

We concentrate on non-polluting energy conversion, thus improving local air quality in developed and emerging economies. We act on energy supply for two everyday local human activities, communication and mobility. We convert wind energy into non-polluting electric energy for both. Kinetic wind energy converters return the airflow without pollution. Our objective is local, smart, clean, sustainable energy supply and inclusive business services.

What is you main idea?

We at SWIRL believe there can be no resilience in supplying renewable energy globally without local technology transfer, local capacity building and networking.

Millions of communication towers rise off the grid worldwide, attracting human settlements like new beacons of our civilizations, but:

• 1 diesel powered, single tenant GSM tower uses 12’000 l diesel/year, producing 35’000 kWh/year and 32.16 local tons of CO₂/year.
• A SWIRL smart wind turbine cluster (2-3 turbines) provides up to 70-80% of this, avoiding > 20 tons CO₂ /tower/year.
• 2016: up to 2’000’000 off grid GSM towers worldwide produce 64’320’000 tons CO₂/year. There is room for sustainable SWIRL growth, addressing thousands of accessible towers/country globally.

Worldwide, there are 1.2 billion vehicles of which 251 million cars in Europe 2015.

• EU, 2014, average CO₂ emissions of new cars: 123g/km. For 10’000km/ year & car, this means some 309 million tons CO₂/year for 251 million cars.
• An average electrical car (16kWh for 100km), avoids 1’230 kg CO₂ every 10’000km
• One of SWIRL’s energy converters providing between 8-12’000 kWh/year (50’000-75’000 km/ year), avoids between 6’150 and 9’225 kg CO₂. There is room for sustainable SWIRL growth, addressing thousands of accessible e-mobility stations globally.

How to deliver an inclusive resilient business model with smart decentralized wind energy conversion?

International standards for vertical axis wind energy technology (VAWTs) give the context of SWIRL’s technology and activities. Installation, commissioning and maintenance knowledge are implemented locally.

Our inclusive business model implements local capacity building for manufacturing, assembly and services to create resilient local jobs. By means of European technology, local CO₂ impacts in two global off-grid activities are reduced.

Our self-monitoring, communicating turbines are “Things on Internet” and networked for preventive maintenance. This creates opportunities for hosting additional e-services (health, learning, commerce, money).

Our products and intellectual property are ready for local implementation anywhere. Discussions with global customers are taking place.