July 16, 2003—McKenzie Bay International Ltd. and its DERMOND, INC subsidiary has begun marketing its first two commercial products: WindStorsm,, a renewable electricity generation and storage system, and the DERMOND Wind Turbine “DWT” for building rooftop and off-grid, remote access, markets.
WindStor, a turnkey wind-power system that incorporates a DWT and a Vanadium-based battery, is designed to provide onsite-generated power for commercial buildings, multistory residential dwellings, light industrial users, businesses, and off-grid users in remote areas of the world. WindStor provides an uninterruptible power supply that is also suitable for peak shaving and load leveling applications.
DWTs are ideal for rooftop applications because their blades rotate around the mast allowing them to operate in areas of frequently changing wind directions. DWTs offer greater safety as the blades are securely attached at four points, both ends plus safety harnesses, with kill switches to instantly shut down blade rotation to prevent blades and turbine from falling to the ground. Typical horizontal axis turbines resembling an airplane propeller blade have difficulty in performing on rooftops, prone to frequently changing wind directions, and have only a single blade attachment.
WindStor batteries utilize Vanadium, a rare metal that the Company’s Lac Dore operation is planning to mine and purify. Purified Vanadium offers a number of unique characteristics that make it a desirable element in emerging electricity storage devices. McKenzie Bay’s proprietary purification process also significantly reduces the cost of high-purity Vanadium, making it more commercially viable than in the past.
The Michigan based energy-solutions company said it expects to launch commercial production of DWTs and WindStor systems that can be leased or purchased in 2004. McKenzie Bay said it developed the new WindStor system with the objective of becoming an emerging solutions provider in the growing multi- billion dollar global market for alternative energy sources.
For more information, contact McKenzie Bay.
