Ton Bos, founding partner and CEO of Mega Wind Force, talks to PES about how curiosity, research and perseverance helped him and his co-founders to launch a new company and develop a new wind turbine …
PES: Welcome to PES Wind magazine. Thanks for taking the time to speak with us. Would you like to begin by explaining a little about the background of your organization and how you currently serve the wind industry?
Ton Bos: The foundation for our organization began in 2015. I was working on a different project with co-founder and inventor Keesjan Klant, a specialist in aerodynamics, when we became intrigued by the wind industry. I noticed that the business model in the wind industry existed due to subsidization. A model that is not affordable in the long term. A major shift was needed in order to reduce CO2 and produce a sound commercial model for energy delivery.
Several years ago Keesjan invented a new viable transmission system, the S-drive. This is a CVT system that provides more than 20% more power, if applied to a car it would go 25% farther and he already had the prototype. Our thinking was this would be attractive to the wind industry.
First of all we delved deeply in to many, many scientific journals, major findings and developments that are out in the field today. At that time it seemed extremely difficult to exceed > 8 MW max power. The enormous power generated by these large turbines resulted in exceeding material tolerances and requiring high maintenance. The solution: lighter materials, cooling and new direct drives but it still proved to be very difficult to reduce cost substantially and increase the efficiency of the generator in such a way that no energy subsidization would be required. Important fact: 80% of the power of a wind turbine is produced by only 20% of the outer side of a blade.
Keesjan wanted to implement the new transmission system to reduce the cost and increase the efficiency. In order to do this it was extremely important to be completely unbiased and open to any new design. Anything should be possible. In this momentum this question sprang to mind: why are all forces in a conventional wind turbine centered at one point? Leaving a very vulnerable spot in the design from where a lot of failures and wear originate. Then Eureka!!! In a flow of inspiration the whole center of the wind turbine was deleted leaving a ring where the generator is housed and the rotor blades are attached. A new model was born and it no longer required the new transmission system at all. We then did a thorough search of existing patents and were able to patent our concept and a new company was born, a company out to contribute and create a major shift in the industry: Mega Wind Force.
In addition to Keesjan and myself there are two other founder members, Woud Vleugel a brilliant engineer and my operational partner Leendert van der Gevel, a highly experienced board member of several large companies. So we have all the necessary skills to be successful.
