Hawaii has always been the leader in green energy out of necessity, and it recently made the bold claim that it will be using 100 percent renewable energy by the year 2045. Not an easy thing for a state with so much need, but relatively little land for building on. However, one of the wind-based projects Hawaii has decided to fund for reducing its carbon footprint has garnered attention because of its unusual approach to using low-power wind to generate high-powered results.

SheerWind and The Venturi Effect

This is where the story takes an unexpected turn. Hawaii has been giving money to green energy firms who are developing methods of power generation the island state could make good use of. According to Triple Pundit, one of the companies Hawaii gave money to was SheerWind, a Minnesota-based green energy firm. SheerWind is working on an unusual wind turbine that is designed to catch relatively low-powered breezes, and multiply their power.

Here’s how the system works. A 360-degree turbine with a cap sits on top of a funnel. As the turbine spins, the wind is pushed down into the funnel. As the funnel narrows, the pressure increases, and the wind pushes harder. At the narrowest point, when the wind has reached maximum force, it pushes against turbines to create power. Then the wind is diffused, and blown out of the base.

The Venturi effect, the name for the phenomena of how gases or liquids increase in pressure when a pipe narrows, has been used more and more frequently in green energy designs. Whether it will become a standard of future designs remains to be seen, but Hawaii’s government, at least, seems to think it can be used as a way to capture wind that’s too weak for traditional turbines, and to turn it into a steady source of power.