APPLE INC. Invests in a U.S. Patent to Develop a Wind Energy Storage Solution

Do you own an iPhone, iPad, or Macbook? Well, millions of people around the world are owners of these Apple products. Because of that, when you think of Apple the company, instantly it is associated with cool new gadgets. Apple has decided to change their game up a bit and invest money, time, and intelligence into developing a way to store electricity generated from wind energy. In 2011, Apple filed with the United States for a patent design entitled “On-Demand Generation of Electricity from Stored Wind Energy.” The patent design that Apple has described to the United States is as follows:

The disclosed embodiments provide a system that generates electricity. During operation, the system uses a set of rotating blades to convert rotational energy from a wind turbine into heat in a low-heat-capacity fluid. Next, the system selectively transfers the heat from the low-heat-capacity fluid to a working fluid. Finally, the system uses the transferred heat in the working fluid to generate electricity.”

One of the biggest issues wind energy faces is that wind blows strongest at different times of the day, which might not be when energy is most needed. Because of that, Apple has decided to invest in this area of renewable energy with hopes to create a workable storage solution so wind energy can become the energy source the world needs.

Source: Treehugger Apple’s New Wind Tech Design Generates and Stores Heat