Windworks has a New Champion!

Early adopters sharpen early-stage startups like a whetstone, refining our message, focusing on actual pain points, and strengthening product-market fit.

The Windworks team recently visited a forward-thinking farm with big ambitions: gaining independence from the electricity grid with onsite power generation. Like food, electricity should be consumed as close as possible to where it’s produced to dodge hefty distribution fees.

They’d installed solar to cover about 30% of their needs, but winter left them short, so they added a mid-sized vertical-axis wind turbine. For most of its 11-month run, the turbine empowered the farm and, more surprisingly, attracted attention from passersby, however something was off whenever the wind picked up. Instead of boosting production, high wind speeds triggered rattling and vibrations.

Early this year, a strong gust delivered the final blow, causing catastrophic mechanical failure.Vertical-axis turbines have wrestled with structural vibrations for four decades, stalling broader adoption.

Our breakthrough at EPFL flips that script: real-time, automatic control of the turbine blade orientation—driven by on-blade sensors—to stabilize operations and maintain efficiency. We’ll replace the destroyed turbine with our 10kW pilot by Q4 2025, reusing the existing foundation, tower, and electrical components. We’re grateful to early adopters like this farm owner for their pioneering spirit, which pushes innovation forward.

Our mission is to bring them a commercial-scale, smart VAWT—clean, affordable, and on-site where large turbines can’t go.