Patent ID: 8167571

Claim:
A wind turbine system for use in an incident windstream, comprising: a wind turbine mounted to rotate about a horizontal axis and connected to drive an energy conversion device, said wind turbine comprising a central hub and a plurality of lifting body rotor blades mounted to and extending radially outwardly from said hub and around said horizontal axis; each of said rotor blades having a closed loop inner aperture passing completely through the blades in an upwind facing surface, said aperture having a surface area which is a substantial portion of an overall area of said upwind facing surface, a root connection point of the rotor blade where it attaches to the central hub, a radial span of each rotor blade being defined by a line segment extending radially outwardly from said hub from the root connection point of the rotor blade to an outside edge of the rotor blade, a chordal width of each rotor blade being defined by a chord line intersecting and perpendicular to the span and intersecting and terminating at opposing outermost edge points of the rotor blade having a greatest width between said edge points, and an aspect ratio of each rotor blade which is a ratio of said span to said chordal width being less than 3:1; and each of said lifting body rotor blades comprising an airfoil shape and which is defined by said upwind facing surface and an opposite downwind curved surface which curves outwardly away from said incident windstream.