Wind Turbine Uses 3D-Printed Parts to Provide Portable Power

As the technology evolves, wind turbines are beginning to come in all shapes and sizes. We’ve told you recently about the design of turbines as large as a football field for offshore wind farms, but there also is new research on the other extreme -- in the form of small, portable turbines that can be set up in remote areas that lack service by the electrical grid.

On that end of the design spectrum, a former engineering student named Kyle Bassett, from Canada’s University of Windsor, was inspired by time spent living in an impoverished area of Nicaragua to design a wind turbine to provide power to the people there. He has since formed a company called RMRD Tech based in Ontario, Canada, to develop and mass market these turbines to help bring power to undeveloped regions of the world.

To get the company up and running, Bassett and his business partner Lucas Semple launched a Kickstarter campaign, which successfully raised $45,575.

While the original design erected in Venecia, Nicaragua, was quite basic and made with the limited resources available locally, the version of the turbine sold and distributed by RMRD Tech has evolved into a portable micro wind turbine comprised of 3D-printed parts that people can buy via a maker’s kit and assemble themselves. Assembly requires a 3D printer, with the 10 necessary 3D-printed turbine parts needing about two hours to print, according to Bassett.

Kyle Bassett was inspired by time spent living in an impoverished area of Nicaragua to design a wind turbine to provide portable power to the people there.
(Source: Kyle Bassett, RMRD Tech)

The turbine is capable of producing renewable and clean 5V USB power and has its own carrying case, so it can be assembled and used not only in remote communities but also on camping trips and other off-grid situations, Bassett said.

He kept a blog of his time in Venecia and documented the work done there to provide wind energy to the region. At first he and Semple built and erected three turbines to power Bassett’s home. But then he also began charging phones and other devices for locals living in the region, demonstrating how portable turbines could change the lives of people not only in Venecia but in similar places.

Bassett also worked with locals to build and develop more turbines to provide electricity to the area -- the first the region ever had except for rechargeable batteries locals used to light their homes. These early designs are what eventually led to the formation of RMRD with Semple and like-minded engineers and entrepreneurs.

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After the completion of the RMRD Kickstarter campaign, the first thing the fledgling company did was return to Nicaragua as part of the company’s Rural Deployment Initiative to deploy some of the first turbines produced using the funds to provide energy to communities there.

This video shows one of the RMRD turbines being deployed in Nicaragua:

To make it easy for people to have access to the technology and even develop their own, RMRD also offers an open-source design release that includes the 3D-print files for the wind turbine’s 3D-printed parts.

Elizabeth Montalbano is a freelance writer who has written about technology and culture for more than 15 years. She has lived and worked as a professional journalist in Phoenix, San Francisco, and New York City. In her free time she enjoys surfing, traveling, music, yoga, and cooking. She currently resides in a village on the southwest coast of Portugal.