Chinese firm keen on Nautilus wind turbine

MANILA, Philippines — A Chinese group is seriously interested in the revolutionary wind turbine dubbed “Nautilus” of retired general Victor Corpus.

Corpus was recently on a one-week visit to China, where he engaged in talks with a Chinese state-owned equipment firm regarding a collaboration for the development of his Nautilus vertical wind turbine invention.

In an earlier interview, Corpus told The STAR that the Chinese firm had initially expressed serious interest in his invention when he went to China last August as part of a delegation from the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority led by its administrator Raul Lambino. Corpuz is a consultant at the CEZA.

Corpus said the Nautilus happened to be mentioned by the CEZA people in one of the gatherings with a group of Chinese executives, and there was keen interest in it. He was asked to make a presentation, after which a representative of a Chinese firm approached him to exchange contact details.

The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is currently extending technical and funding assistance to Corpus to help him develop a commercial scale prototype of the Nautilus.

The department, through the DOST-National Capital Region headed by its director, engineer Jose Patalinjug III, had tapped De La Salle University-Manila and the Technological University of the Philippines in the prototype development effort, for which a P1-million funding assistance was allocated.

Francisco Pagayon, president of the Filipino Inventors Society Producers Cooperative (FISPC) where Corpus is an active member, said that while there were definitely intellectual property concerns on Corpus presenting his Nautilus turbine concept to a Chinese audience, there were real benefits to a collaboration when marketed on a commercial scale.

“It can be mass-produced in China in a short period of time and you will have no problem with manufacturing capabilities. Of course, it’s preferable if a Filipino-invented technology can be manufactured here so we can generate local employment and develop capability to manufacture such equipment here in our country,” Pagayon told The STAR.

Pagayon pointed out that Corpus was in a hurry to develop and bring to market the Nautilus technology, since the retired general was not getting younger at 73 years of age.

Corpus earlier described the Nautilus design as a vertical axis wind turbine that solved the technical flaws of both the horizontal axis wind turbine – the technology behind the giant windmills seen in wind farms all over the world – as well as the standard vertical axis wind turbine long considered not viable for commercial wind energy generation.

The Nautilus wind turbine basically has an enclosing structure that makes use of the principle of “weirs” built in rivers to redirect water flow either for hydropower or to trap fish, to achieve multiple maximum areas of “wind” attack to generate energy.