PRESS RELEASE
14 June 2007
A revolutionary new design for personal wind turbines wins top prize at the BSI Sustainability Design Awards 2007.
Ben Storan, a student graduating with an MA in Industrial Design Engineering from the Royal College of Art (RCA), has been working for the past year in conjunction with Imperial College to design an affordable personal wind turbine suited to the urban environment.
The result is a unique design which uses vertical, rather than traditional horizontal, rotation. This feature gives a slower rotational speed, which allows the turbine to capture more energy from turbulent air flow, common to urban environments. It also means quieter operation.
As a result, it is able to generate more energy than domestic models currently on the market. Similarly sized existing personal wind turbines claim to generate 1kW at a wind speed of 12 m/s, but typically produce just 40% of what is claimed. Ben’s design should realistically produce 3 times that (1.2kW) of those currently on the market.
The clever vertical rotation design uses lightweight materials, which means Ben’s turbine is more stable than other personal turbines leading to better energy capture and making it is easier to install.
Speaking of winning the award and £3,000 first prize, Ben says “I’m delighted to win such a prestigious award. Growing up in the windy west of Ireland I’ve always been acutely aware of the huge potential in harnessing such a free, clean and renewable source of energy which, along with a spinning clothes line, gave me the idea in the first place.”
Whilst still at the early stages of development, Ben hopes that his design will be in production in the not too distant future.
Runners-up in the BSI Sustainability Design Awards 2007 are Joe Wentworth for his retrofit folding handlebars which encourages cycling in urban environments where space for bike storage is at a premium, and Andreas Zachariah for his “Carbon Hero™" personal carbon calculator.
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NOTES TO EDITORS
For further information please email Ben Storan.
• Ben Storan is from Galway, Ireland and is a final year student at the Royal College of Art (RCA), London, studying Industrial Design Engineering.
• To interview Ben Storan or other winners please contact Marc Edney, BSI Group Press Office on +44 (0)20 8996 6330 (24 hours).
• Press are invited to pre-view all winning designs on 14 June 2007, at the Great Exhibition 2007: The RCA Summer Show.
About the BSI Sustainability Design Awards
The BSI Sustainability Design Awards support design projects that promote awareness of sustainability issues or provide sustainable solutions. Now in their 13th year, the Awards are open to all students studying at the Royal College of Art.
The Awards help students find out more about their chosen subjects while learning about the relevance of sustainability issues to design. Prize money is used to help research and realise projects.
Past winners include: Peter Brewin for his high performance water-saving shower – The El Nino – which uses 70 per cent less water and 40 per cent less energy than a conventional shower; and Will Crawford and Peter Brewin for “The Concrete Canvas” – a rapidly deployable hardened shelter for use by aid agencies in disaster regions. This ‘building in a bag’ won the $100,000 first prize in the Saatchi & Saatchi 2005 Award for World Changing Ideas.
About The Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, specialising in teaching and research and offering the degrees of MA, MPhil and PhD across the disciplines of fine art, applied art, design, communications and humanities. There are over 850 masters and doctoral students and more than a hundred professionals interacting with them – including scholars, leading art and design practitioners, along with specialists, advisors and distinguished visitors. Alumni include Tracey Emin, David Hockney, Peter Blake and James Dyson. Read more.
The Great Exhibition 2007: The RCA Summer Show
Friday 15 June – Thursday 28 June. Free Admission
To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Exhibition Road area, which was created following the Great Exhibition of 1851, the RCA will be holding an even more spectacular Summer Show than usual in a huge tent in Kensington Gardens, running simultaneously with an exhibition in the College galleries. Supported by generous sponsorship from The Conran Foundation and located near the site of the original Great Exhibition of 1851, the extra space will enable the RCA to show the work of the entire College’s graduates at the same time. The show will feature the work of over 400 students from the Schools of Fine & Applied Art, Architecture & Design, Communications, Fashion & Textiles and Humanities.
Opening Hours: 12 noon - 9pm daily except for Tuesday 26 June when the exhibition will close at 5pm. Read more.
Innovation Night, Tuesday 26 June 2007, at the Royal College of Art gives business and research partners the opportunity to meet the innovators of the future. On show will be the work of graduating RCA students from the Schools of Architecture and Design, Communications, Fashion and Textiles, and Humanities. In addition there are prestigious award events to attend, including the BSI Sustainability Design Awards 2007, and a review of InnovationRCA. At the heart of the evening is the Innovation Lecture which this year is being given by Bruce Nussbaum, Managing Editor of Business Week, speaking on global innovation trends. Read more.
About BSI
Having pioneered the environmental management system ISO 14001, BSI Group has increasingly developed a leading role in the environment and sustainability fields. BSI undertakes work in environmental data verification including Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG), waste and discharges as well as offering assessments of Social Accountability management systems which assure working conditions in the supply chain.
In May 2007 BSI announced it was working with Carbon Trust and Defra to develop a standard method for measuring the embodied GHG emissions in products and services which will enable companies to measure the GHG related impacts of their products and services and reduce them accordingly. The standard will ensure a consistent and comparable approach to supply chain measurement of embodied GHGs across markets. Read more.
In 2006 BSI published the standard BS 8900 Guidance for managing sustainable development which will assist organisations in developing an enduring balanced approach to economic activity, environmental responsibility and social progress. The standard will enable organisations to develop an approach to sustainable development that will continue to evolve and adapt to meet new challenges and demands. Read more.
BSI Group is a global independent business services organisation that inspires confidence and delivers assurance to customers with standards-based solutions. Originating as the world’s first national standards body, the Group has over 2,250 staff operating in over 100 countries through more than 50 global offices. The Group’s key offerings are:
• The development and sale of private, national and international standards and supporting information
• Second and third-party management systems assessment and certification
• Product testing and certification of services and products
• Performance management software solutions
• Training services in support of standards implementation and business best practice.
