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How do Small Wind Turbines Work?
Fortis Wind Energy developed its wind turbines in such a way that they can be used anywhere in the world. In order to achieve this, we use fail safe maintenance free techniques.
Our turbines are the product of years of development and testing. As a result they have become efficient and reliable. On this page we guide you through the most important design aspects.
Rotor blades
The Espada has a two-bladed rotor. All other models have three blades. These blades are made of glass and carbon-fibre-reinforced epoxy. The leading edge is protected with a special Araldite coating for long life. These are the old and the new profile of the Passaat blade. 
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Hinged vane
The wind turbines have upwind rotors, and use a tail vane for alignment into the wind. The rotor axis is offset to one side of the yaw axis, so that rotor thrust has the tendency to turn the rotor out of the wind. The tail vane restricts movement of the rotor away from the wind (furling). This hinging vane system will turn the turbine into the wind at low wind speeds, and out of the wind at higher speeds to protect the turbine. But even at higher wind speeds, the turbine will keep on producing electricity.
The picture shows the hinging of the vane resulting from a change in wind direction.
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The generator
The stator of the turbine is shown in the picture.
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The masts
Three types of masts are available. As standard, our turbines come with a guy-wired pole. For the Espada and the Passaat lattice towers are also available; and all turbines can be supplied with a free-standing pole. Depending on the type of turbine and mast, we can deliver masts in lengths of 6 to 36 metres. See our Profit & Costs page for the different combinations. All masts are made of galvanised steel and can be painted.
In these pictures the three different masts types are shown. In general, guy-wired poles and lattice towers are less visible than free standing poles.
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Mast hinges and foundation
The foundations of the turbines are made of steel-reinforced concrete. These foundations are built on site. For the free standing pole and the lattice tower, one big block is sufficient. The guy-wired towers need five smaller blocks. The horizontal distance between the opposite blocks that hold the wires for the guy-wired pole is the same as the height of the pole, so if you have a 12 metre pole, each wire will be anchored 6 metres from the pole. Hinges in the pole make raising and lowering easy. This can be done manually with a gin pole and a hinge, or with a small crane. 
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Electronics
There are three different electronic devices that we deliver with our turbines, depending on the application.
Every turbine needs a voltage controller. This device makes a DC voltage out of the three face AC voltage of the turbine. At the same time the voltage controller acts as a safety device, making sure that the voltage will never exceed the maximum. Surplus energy is send to a dump load (for example if the batteries are fully charged and there is no other use for the electricity). This dump load will turn the electricity into heat.
If you will use the turbine in a stand alone application, you will need batteries to store the energy for times when the wind doesn’t blow. Therefore the second electronic device is a battery charger.
The third is the inverter, making 220 or 380 V which can be used for normal appliances. We deliver both inverters that can work stand alone, or connected to the grid.
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