PhD Student Massoud Rezvand Wants to Build a Hybrid Wind Turbine System
There is a growing need for energy throughout the world. This insatiable demand is being driven by an ever-expanding growth from the middle class of people in emerging economies looking to avail themselves of conveniences and tools that are normally taken for granted.
Additionally, the worldwide explosion of technologies of all types, including personal electronics, mobile devices, and “quality of life” conveniences, place a greater demand on traditional grid or utility-supplied fossil fuel energy sources.
Wind energy is nature’s free energy that can be harnessed irrespective of time and location.



Hybrid Wind Turbine System (Images source: Kickstarter)
Massoud Rezvand, a Ph.D. student at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, is currently running a crowdfunding campaign for ‘Hybrid Wind Turbine’ at Kickstarter for a goal of €200,000.

Founder and CEO, Massoud Rezvand
His research interests include numerical simulation of physical phenomena and renewable energy.
The basic principle of wind flow is, it blows due to differences in air pressure from one point having high pressure to another point where pressure is relatively low.
If the high-pressure area, or if the pressure difference is very high, the wind can blow very fast.
How does Hybrid Wind Turbine work?
In Massoud Rezvand’s hybrid wind tower having a height of 15 m, the pressure difference causes the wind flow in the vertical and horizontal turbines.

Image source: Kickstarter
A vertical turbine is located at the top which is driven by the direct impact of the wind. When the wind gets sucked down by the pressure difference, in height of 10 m and 5 m two horizontal turbines are also participating in the turbine’s efficiency.
Due to the difference in the air pressure at the top and bottom of the tower, the air is sucked into the tower and makes optimal use of the wind power.
Wind towers facilitate the cooling and ventilation of hot and arid climate areas of the buildings.


The world’s loftiest wind tower is 34m high and is located in Dolat Abad Garden in Yazd, Iran, which is included in the list of UNESCO world heritage sites.
Wind towers normally consist of a channel with a polygon cross-section and a vent at the top. The vent is located at a position higher than the other parts of the building.
Wind tower performance is based on the wet cooling concept, where the channeled wind is directed on a water pond or flowing water so that the wind is cooled by convection and evaporation.
Massoud Rezvand and team need funds to produce the first large-scale prototypes and they are doing simulation studies to understand the physical phenomena.
The experimental studies will be started initially on lab-scale towers and then on real-scale configurations on completion of the funding.