At Hong Kong University, they are reporting this design: lightweight, plastic, affordable. At the Sandia National Laboratories, they have come up with a completely different design: larger with curved tips. The Hong Kong design is for individuals and businesses to install thus reducing their own carbon footprint. The Sandia design is intended to open up large low wind areas of the United States to cost-effective wind farms.
The Hong Kong design costs about $250 for 20 10″ diameter turbines. There are no specifications on how much power they could generate since it is all dependent on the speed of the wind, but I bet that $250 would get you enough power for all of the static load at every suburban home: alarm clocks, phone chargers, and maybe even a cable box or two. And the Hong Kong design is configurable in its shape so each home could make its own wind sculpture. And I am sure as demand increases and the price falls, they will come out in different colors. Maybe the black and gold of the Pittsburgh Steelers or of your favorite college team?
There are good pictures and more detail at the following site for the Hong Kong design.
Which way should turbine design go? Smaller, lighter, cheaper? Or heavier and industrial? Leave your comments below.
I think we need to go cheaper to draw more interest in alternative energy. If they were to start selling turbines with basic set up kits at Walmart, this country would start to really wake up to alt. energy. Great post!
I have been wanting to incorporate more wind power into my current energy plan. I was going to buy a vertical turbine, but these are soooooo cool! I think that turbines should go smaller, lighter, and cheaper for residential, and bigger for government/industrial use.
i’ll take the wind turbines in the picture! 🙂
WorldWind Turbine Factory is China NO.1 factory of small wind turbines. Our mission is to demonstrate green energy is a genuinely viable proposition whether on or off the electrical grid, and that renewable energy systems represent sound financial and environmental investments in our future. Our products are not only used in China, but also exported to USA, South East Asia, Germany, Canada, Cuba etc illustrating the rapid global acceptance of our products based on advanced technological design, continuous development and state of the art manufacturing processes.
Do you have info’ on residental use, instalation? Cost? 8922 S 81 W ave Tulsa Ok 74131
There is only one wind turbine in Hong-Kong !