The Possibility of Embracing Typhoons for Ultimate Wind Power

The stronger the wind, the more power can be generated. If you wonder when the wind is the strongest, you can find out at ……

The forecast for the number of typhoons this year was slightly below normal. However, on August 12, typhoon No. 5 hit the Tohoku region. Iwate Prefecture recorded more than 400 mm of total rainfall, more than twice the amount of rainfall in August. On August 16, Typhoon No. 7 approached the Kanto region, causing the Shinkansen bullet train service between Nagoya and Tokyo to be suspended for the entire day, and many flights to be cancelled.

Typhoons cause tremendous damage in various regions. Now, research is being conducted to generate electricity by harnessing the energy of typhoons.

A child might come up with the idea of using typhoon winds to generate electricity, but no one has tried it. But the reason no one has tried it is because we don’t know much about typhoons.

Associate Professor Mitsuyuki Taiga is the head of the Typhoon Power Generation Development Lab at the Typhoon Science and Technology Research Center (TSTRC).

The Research Center for Typhoon Science and Technology was established in 2009 at Yokohama National University’s School of Advanced Science and Technology to reduce the risk of typhoon disasters and their threats, and to utilize typhoon energy. The center is divided into the Typhoon Observation Research Laboratory and the Typhoon Prediction Research Laboratory, where research on typhoons is being conducted from various perspectives.

Wind power generation is a renewable energy source that makes use of wind. The stronger the wind, the higher the power generation capacity. When we think about when the wind is the strongest, we think of typhoons. That is why we came up with the idea of typhoon power generation, which is being developed to be carbon neutral by 2050.

In Japan, wind turbines for wind power generation are currently located on land, and offshore wind power generation is being promoted by putting wind turbines on the ocean where the wind is stronger.

But the windmills don’t move. I thought it would be best if they could move to where the wind is stronger, so I made the model shown in the photo.

One type of windmill has sails and moves with the wind. The other type has a propeller inside a tube that catches the wind and moves forward. Both types of boats generate electricity by rotating a screw as they move forward.

One 200 to 250 meter-long boat can generate 3.3 billion kWh of electricity per year, assuming that it can track 20 typhoons for five days a year. This is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of about 77,000 ordinary households.

Typhoons are a mystery: …… Design begins with knowing the typhoon.

It’s kind of simple. It’s simple and easy to make.

Once the design is decided, it is not technically difficult to make it. But if you don’t know what a typhoon is, you can’t decide on a design.

Every typhoon is unique, he says. Some move slowly, such as Typhoon No. 7 this time, while others pass through in a flash. Some have a short life span, while others disappear quickly. Although the path and force of typhoons can now be predicted with a certain degree of accuracy, there is still much that is unknown.

To operate a ship properly, you have to know not only the winds but also the waves,” he says. But we have almost no data on what the conditions are like below the sea surface during a typhoon.

Typhoon power generation vessels operate outside the storm zone of a typhoon. We need data on how and where to run the vessels to efficiently catch the wind. But even if we know the central pressure and force of the typhoon, we know very little about the state of that part of the typhoon, he said.

We need to know how much the wind blows and how it blows, and what the sea level is like,” he said. If we don’t know these things, we don’t know what kind of ship we should build. If you don’t know about typhoons, you can’t design them.

Associate Professor Mitsuyuki specializes in ship system design. From the point of view of ship experts, it is natural for ships to flee when a typhoon hits. It is unbelievable that they would go toward a typhoon, he says. He was fortunate enough to be involved in the Typhoon Power Generation Development Lab, but otherwise he would never have thought of running a ship through a typhoon to generate electricity.

The Typhoon Science and Technology Research Center is now conducting various studies on typhoons, such as the relationship between where typhoons are born and their paths, and where typhoons are born with longer life spans.

We hope to build a prototype ship in the next 10 years so that it can be ready for social implementation in 2050.

Because it is a ship, it can deliver electricity to areas hit by typhoons.

A typhoon-powered ship that can run anywhere depending on its operation. Associate Professor Mitsuyuki has an idea of where he would like to see this technology used. He envisions a place where typhoons can deliver electricity to areas that have been hit by blackouts.

The most important feature of typhoon power boats is that they can move. I think the best way to take advantage of this is to have them used in disaster-stricken areas.

Electricity can be supplied by connecting cables from the ship’s power accumulators. If there are no disaster-stricken areas, the power can be stored at offshore wind farms and other facilities. The time has already come when we have to make use of the environment to make a living. I hope this will be one of the options,” says Associate Professor Mitsuyuki.

The dream is expanding even further,

I am thinking that we could go to the coast of the Philippines, where typhoons occur, and supply electricity produced there to countries that need it. I don’t think about national borders, but rather delivering electricity to those in need. I believe that is the way it should be.”

Yasukawa Mitsuyuki is the Director of the Typhoon Power Generation Development Laboratory, Typhoon Science and Technology Research Center, Yokohama National University. In addition to ship design and system development, he is researching concrete floating offshore wind power generation systems and working toward the realization of typhoon power generation vessels.