Quiet Revolution - vertical axis wind turbine manufacturer 🌍

Quiet Revolution

Quiet Revolution (often styled as quietrevolution) is a company that produced a 3-bladed helical design of vertical axis wind turbine. They had some high profile installations, including at the Olympic Park in Stratford, on the Welsh government offices in Aberystwyth, and at least 15 turbines across a number of Network Rail owned car parks, but these are not always good publicity - by being installed at prestigious but unsuitably winded sites the inevitable under performance hurts the overall story. The original company went into administration in 2014, and another company bought the IP, but it sounds as if existing installations were left without access to spare parts, software updates, and maintenance services. (Amusingly the official notice of the insolvency manages to replace "axis" with "access" in describing the company product.)

Number of installations

The following reports have been pulled from the various sources given:

Company launched in 2005 - take that as 0 installations
FAQ - March 2007 "The first turbine was installed at Dagenham"
CNNMoney article, March 2007 - "2 units have been installed in commercial development projects around London, with 70 to 80 planned for the coming year"
Mercedes-Benz pioneers vertical axis wind turbine - Dec 2007 "Mercedes-Benz installs Quiet Revolution's innovative urban wind turbine at its sites in Milton Keynes. ... one of only six in operation in the UK"
FAQ - June 2008 "we had 25 turbines installed at locations around the UK"
At the time of the £6m investment by RWE in Sept 2008 - "About 30 of the turbines have been produced and installed around Britain, and a further 45 have been sold and are at the manufacturing or installation stages."
FAQ - "By the end of 2008 we had completed our first international pilot project and installed over 70 turbines in the UK"
Wind turbines suspended after flaw discovered - Oct 2009 report that the entire fleet of around 100 'urban' wind turbines has been remotely shut down by manufacturer Quiet Revolution after the discovery of a design fault. "The QR5s have been installed on 55 sites for clients including Network Rail, Sainsbury's and self-storage firm Big Yellow."
Conference presentation, July 2010 - "More than 100 turbines have been installed in the UK, The Netherlands, Germany and Australia"
quietrevolution announces new pricing proposition for customers - Aug 2010 also quotes "The company has over one hundred turbines in its fleet and is expanding."
email newsletter - Sept 2010: Fleet numbers are currently at 120 turbines in the UK.
RWE-Innogy pre release - Nov 2010 "Around 120 qr5 wind turbines have been installed at sites in the UK, and a further 40 are due to be installed over the next 12 months. Two qr5 turbines have been commissioned in Essen, Germany."
quietrevolution wins £5m in project financing from Hazel Capital - Feb 2011 "The wind company expects to more than double its UK wind turbine installations with the new funding, which provides for at least 150 turbines."
UKHarbour Masters' Association press release - May 2011 "Around 150 qr5 wind turbines have been installed at sites in the UK"
FAQ - (crawled) Sept 2013 "At present we have over 150 turbines installed across the world"
Review of the company when it collapsed in April 2014 - "less than 200 of the QR5 had been installed worldwide"

Installations - UK

count	installed	removed	location
2	2011	2013	Olympic Park, Stratford	map
5	2011		Olympic Park, Stratford	map	Power-hungry Olympic wind park a triumph of spin over substance
2			Portland Marina	map
1	2008	2021	Bristol Beacon	map
1	2012	2014	Government office, Aberystwyth	map	removal
5			Promenade Restaurant, Cleveleys	map
2			Sainsbury's Gateway, Greenwich	map
2			Sainsbury's Dartmouth	map
1	2011		North Warwickshire and Hinckley college campus	map
8	c2010		City House, Croydon	map	Redevelopment
1		2022	Aston University student accommodation	map
2	c2008	2021	Preston station parking	map
1		2020	Heartlands, Pool, Cornwall	map	South Crofty, Cornwall's last working tin mine, being converted into a museum, Redruth, Cornwall, UK.
3	2010	2020	Station car park, Luton	map
2		2022	Priory Park, Hull	map
2	2009	c2022	Wigan railway station car park	map
5	2009	c2017	Echo Arena, Albert Docks, Liverpool	map
1			Washington Primary Care Centre	map
1			The Boathouse, Wisbech	map
1			Evesham retail park	map
2		2020	Kennington, London	map
1	2011		Space Station, Brentford	map
1			Blackpool promenade	map
1	c2009	by 2017	Essex Energy Village, Colchester Barracks	map	Case Study
4	c2008		Hamilton House, Wolverton, Milton Keynes	map
1	2009	c2019	Northumbria University, Newcastle	map
3			Madeley Academy, Telford	map
1	2010	c2022	Rogiet primary school, Wales	map	lowered
1	2010	2014	Ashdene House, Elephant and Castle	map
3	c2010		Leyland	map
1			Kings College, Wimbledon	map
1	2009	2021	John Hope Gateway, Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh	map
1	2009	by 2023	Runcorn station	map
1	2007	c2020	Mercedes-Benz, Tongwell, Milton Keynes	map
1	2009	2020	Llangefni, Anglesey	map
1	before 2009		The Peninsula, Manchester	map
1	2012		Merton Abbey Mills	map
1			Porth Eirias, Colwyn Bay, North Wales	map
3			Quiet Revolution factory, Pembroke Docks	map
1	2010	c2022	Bristol Airport	map
1	2010	c2011	Myres Hill wind turbine test site, Scotland	map
4	2009		Kinetica building, Dalston	map
1			WPA, Taunton	map
1	2011		The Kettleby Cross, Melton Mowbray	map
1			Maryport Activity Centre	map
2	2008	c2020	Giltbrook retail park, Nottingham	map
1	2008		Big Yellow self storage, Merton	map
1	2008		Tindale Towers, Bishop Auckland	map
2			Birmingham International station car park	map
2	2010		Rugby station car park	map
1	2008	c2023	Caroline Haslett School, Milton Keynes	map
2	2010		Stafford station parking	map
1	2007		Borough Community Centre, Southwark	map	New lease of life for Borough Community Centre
1	c2005	c2008	Prototype device - Membury airfield	map
2	2021		McDonalds, Market Drayton	map
101

Installations - foreign

count	installed	removed	location
2		2015	ETEC building, a test plant of RWE Innogy, Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany	map
1			GLS Bank, Bochum, Germany	map
1			Heligoland, Germany	map
1			Gillbachschule, Nettesheimer Weg, Rommerskirchen, Germany	map	German report
6	c2010	2015	The ANZ building, Melbourne, Australia	map
2			Abbeyfearle Community College, Ireland	map
2			SGS Search, Amsterdam, The Netherlands	map
2			Helmond, The Netherlands	map
17

Installations - unidentified

count	location
1	A Maserati car dealership
1	A Porsche car dealership	RapidRoot piles
1	Scottish borders
2	A wave shaped wooden building
2	unidentified installations by environMental
1	Easter Developments, Dagenham
1	school in Bantry (Cork)
1	school near Wicklow Town
10

Installations - proposals that may have never been installed

count	installed	removed	location
1			Temple Circus, Bristol
5			Dongtang eco-city, Shanghai
1			Buckingham Palace
5			City Hall, London
3			Renewable energy study, Liverpool City Region, Dec 2009
1			Sainsbury's, East Kilbride - used as worked example in Evaluating Wind Resource presentation
1			Sainsbury's, Chapel Park, Kilcaldy, Fife - used as worked example in Evaluating Wind Resource presentation
1			Huntingdon water tower
1			TEDA Towers, Tianjin, China
1			Corby Cube
20

There is very much a pattern to these installations - the company encouraged architects to include their wind turbine in their designs to enhance the green credentials, and the result often failed to live up to expectations, being far to small to achieve meaningful power generation (and indeed in many cases being a net negative since the installation needed power to operate). It's also the case that since the original manufacturer went bust, maintenance of the installed turbines was generally neglected, and Government policy towards onshore wind turbines changed in the period.

Conference presentation, July 2010

This conference presentation has some useful information, but also contains many photoshopped images that are not real installations. Judging by the filename, this presentation was prepared for SEAWORK 2010, which happened in July of that year. SeaWork is an exhibition about European commercial marine and workboats. It is an expanded version of the general company introductory presentation, that was available on the company website. The info given by the presentation includes

Guardian 100 Cleantech 2008
Winner of D&AD Product Design Award 2007 (Yellow Pencil)
Royal Academy of Engineering MacRoberts shortlist 2007
More than 100 turbines have been installed in the UK, The Netherlands, Germany and Australia
Actual installations illustrated
- a unidentified wooden wave roofed building
- Promenade restaurant, Cleveleys
- Sainsbury's, Greenwich
- Sainsbury's, Dartmouth
- City House, Croydon (and many of the other unidentified images of turbines being installed are of this location as well)
- unlabelled Network Rail site, now identified as Preston
- ANZ Melbourne
- Blackpool, by the Pleasure Beach
A map of 2009 installations shows 1 Australian location [ANZ], 1 Dutch [Amsterdam - probably SGS], and 1 German [presumably at RWE, who had invested in the company], though it's hard to count (or identify) the UK ones due to overlapping icons, but I make it about 40 in the UK.
The section on coastal opportunities is as far as I can see largely photoshopped (often badly - having 3 turbines with identical rotation of their sails is a bit of a giveaway). Locations given the treatment include
- Brighton, UK
- Dubrovnik, Croatia
- Southend on Sea, UK
The section on the developed environment also consists of photoshopped mockups
- Ripley service station on the M3 (using this photo from Geograph).
- an unidentified electric vehicle charging point
- an unidentified ship pontoon
- Hackney Wick DLR station
- (given earlier in the presentation) a motorway in the Netherlands (signs say Eindhoven and Maastricht)

Big Yellow

Big Yellow (self storage) was referenced by Quiet Revolution as an installation site. Big Yellow noted that they had invested in wind turbines

we for example invested in 2 wind turbines that unfortunately did not deliver on return on investment

The original planning application for the site that includes their Merton facility included wind turbines, which were built as part of the London Fire Brigade Control Centre also on the site, but these are standard horizontal axis turbines. Big Yellow further noted

Performance data emerging for micro urban wind (less than 6kW) suggests very poor generating performance as well as significant reliability issues. Therefore a presumption will be made against micro wind solutions for this development unless robust performance data can be presented that challenges current available data. The site is located adjacent two 15-metre high wind turbines associated with the Fire Control Centre currently under construction, which may limit the possibility of further wind turbines of this kind in this location.

Testing

LOW CARBON BUILDING PROGRAMME 2006-2011 FINAL REPORT records that Quiet Revolution was one of 15 micro wind turbines which were installed at Myers Hill, and tested against the MCS micro wind turbine standard. It passed, so received a payout of £7,750 for testing and £1,800 for certification.

Cost of turbine

When introduced, the price of the QR5 was set as £25,000, with about the same in installation costs.

The Elephant and Castle trial carefully noted its costs, which were at the upper end.
Towards zero carbon development in Ealing in September 2010 noted a £25,000 capital cost, with just £250 annual maintenance (which seems very low).
Aberystwyth was quoted in the press as costing £48,000
A display version of the turbine, which showed video on the spinning blades was quoted as £30,000
5 turbines for Liverpool costing £300,000

In August 2010, Quiet Revolution announces new pricing proposition for customers reduced the price to £20,000 plus installation. The reduction was put down to passing on savings the company had made by improving the design, and also a desire to help customers make the most of the then recent introduction of Feed-in-tariffs.

Company funding

The company was spun out of XCO2, possibly receiving some initial investment from them. It received 2 significant rounds of funding:

Sept 2008: £6m from RWE Innogy, a German energy company and £1m from private investors
Feb 2011: £5m in product financing from Hazel Capital

It also received

£9550 from the UK government for completing micro wind engine testing at Myers Hill
£1.2m funding package from from Finance Wales, the Welsh Assembly Government, HSBC and Quiet Revolution in order to help establish a world class manufacturing and distribution in Pembroke Dock, South Wales.
two DTI grants which part funded initial feasibility studies and development of the prototype 6kW model
funding from Renew Transnet towards R&D

See also: Quiet Revolution - Company Profile.

Products

QR5

The product offered from 2006-2014 when the company went bust.

Prototype - installed at manufacturing base at Membury airfield
Mark 1.1 - initial commercial installs, with centre spar
Mark 1.2 - first version to dispense with centre spar
Mark 1.3
Mark 1.4 - certification
Mark 1.5 - certification

QR5 General Design and Mounting Info

QR6

The version available via the current incarnation of the company.

QR2.5

"The Half Pint" - proposed smaller turbine, never put into production.

The Beacon

A conceptual product, never made, that combined 5 QR5s together.

The Raywaver

The Raywaver was announced as a system that consisted of the quietrevolution rotor, a composite mast, solar panels, streetlights and an optional energy storage system. The press release of 19th May 2011 stated that 500 rotors would be supplied to the Dutch consortium of Enicon Energie Conception BV, Trebuchet BV and Ricochet to build these.

hy5

A horizontal axis wind turbine, made by the Chinese firm Zhejiang Huaying Wind Power Generator Co. Ltd, offered for a while to bulk up the product line. The web site pages for this product were very much cloned from the QR5 pages, and not always adequately adjusted. I could only find 2 installations of this turbine that Quiet Revolution were involved with - one in Norwich and one in Ireland (as given in their Flickr hy5 album).

Patents

Apparently they had 3 patents in progress in May 2007

worldwide patent granted for many aspects of the aerodynamic design - WO2005010355A1 EP1649163B1, GB2404227B
patent application for a control system that actively responds to gusts, learning about gust patterns on a particular site in order to optimise output - WO2008119994A3
patented a spinning LED lighting effect integrated in the turbine - GB2415750A, WO2005010355A1

All 3 patents have been allowed to expire, apparently through not paying renewal fees.

Company locations

1-5 Offord Street, London, N1 1DH (from 2006 website)
1.12, Clerkenwell Workshops, 31 Clerkenwell Close, London, EC1R 0AU (from 2007 website)
1.11, Clerkenwell Workshops, 31 Clerkenwell Close, London, EC1R 0AT (from Nov 2010 press release)
Membury airfield - initial manufacturing base
11-13 Thomas Court, London Road Industrial Estate, Pembroke Docks, SA72 4RZ (manufacturing facility)
23 B&C; Berghem Mews, Blythe Road, London W14 0HN (from 2012 website)
Global Renewable Energy Partners Limited, 11 Edison Road, St.Ives, Cambridgeshire, PE27 3LF (Current owners of the brand name, 2026)

The initial rotor blades were built by AEL (Aviation Enterprises Ltd) of West Berkshire. The facility in Wales was a joint venture between QR and United Aerospace.

People

Robert Webb: Managing director (2006 media factsheet), later Board Chairman (Our Board, 2010)
Julia Groves: Commercial director (2006 media factsheet)
Andrew Cox: Production Director (2008 media release about Pembroke factory funding)
Philippa Rogers: PR & Marketing Manager, ran the company photostream on Flickr, 2010 and YouTube channel
Maeve Hurley: CEO (Our team, 2010)
Richard Cochrane: Chief Technical Officer (Our team, 2010)
Stephen Crosher: Commercial Director (Our team, 2010)
Iain Davidson: Chief Operating Officer (Our team, 2010)
Tamás Bertényi: Innovation and Research Director (Our team, 2010)
Vaughan Griffiths: Manufacturing General Manager (Our team, 2010), later Managing Director (Our Team 2013)
Paul Martin: Engineering Director (Our team, 2010)
Ben Guest: Non-Executive Director - representing Hazel Capital (Our Board, 2010
Crispin Leick: Non-Executive Director - representing RWE Innogy (Our Board, 2010
Jose Carlos Damas: Sales Director (from HAZEL press release, Feb 2011)
Wayne Hurley: Marketing Manager (from UKHMA press release May 2011)