If you launch a clean energy business in Manhattan it’s almost a given you’ll be inspired to start designing products specifically for the urban environment. Urban Green Energy has just launched a new, one-kilowatt wind turbine designed specifically for city rooftop use! A machine certainly made for the modern dweller, the near silent Eddy GT turbine is a chic piece of wind technology that rotates on a vertical axis, optimizing wind capture, even as the air stream shifts within the dynamic city landscape.
The Eddy GT takes up just 40 square feet to generate its kilowatt — to get that much juice from a solar array, you would need up to 400 square feet, which is a tough sell in major cities like New York and San Francisco. While not a light investment at $7,000 per turbine, Urban Green Energy CEO Nick Blitterswyk estimates that in California, which offers a rebate, you could break even in 10 years, and without the $3,000 rebate, it could take 20 years.
If you’re in San Francisco, look for some turbines in action atop Blitterswyk’s company, amongst other products like the Sanya Solar- and Wind-Powered Streetlamp, in front of Civc Center come mid-October. The turbines have scored some other less predictable placements as well, including a position atop the National Guard building in Cleveland, Ohio, and just about every house in a new middle-class subdivision outside St. Louis!
+ Urban Green Energy
Photos © Urban Green Energy
A beautiful windturbine, achieving around 35-40% absolute efficiency. But you need a big windmill to generate impactful power. According to their spec sheet, under realistic wind conditions (5 m/s, or 11 mph on a high tower) the turbine generates 1250 KWHr/year, or an average of 140 Watts. Worth about $200/yr, and enough to run a few CCFLs. But if you are not on a high tower or in a windy area, a waste of money. Might be useful in a few exceptional situations. Still, very pretty.
Just great!
Look forward to hearing from you folks
Yours truly,
Jorgen
What’s the windturbine in front of the store of the Best Buy Halo Reach adds?
hello, am interested in the helix wind tubine, wondering where I can purchase just the turbine itself in large quanities.
Great small wind turbine from a great company!
You can check out more of these wind turbines at http://www.allsmallwindturbines.com.
Nice product but wait to judge until yours arrives and is working. We ordered our UGE 4kW in February and its now October an it has yet to arrive… well in the correct color. There are two turbine options size and color and they got color wrong. Good thing too. We sent our first one to a distributor in CA. It turned out to be a bad unit. They had to have another made to replace it. The company is not very customer friendly. Your distributor will have to pay in full before your unit will ship. Be carful because they tend to just ship what they think you want as far as tower, electronics and the load resistors are also quite pricy we found the actually company Milwaukee Resistor Co. and bought direct saving lots of $$. Use caution. Also their device are not UL listed so check in your area.
I need to replace my 2kw wind turbine which has just died on me. Your vertical axis turbine looks ideal for my location on a justy hilltop in the Yorkshire Dales, UK. I do not want anything bigger than 2kw. I only need the turbine itself as my mast is 10 metres high and very substantial. All grid-tie and electrical equipment is in place and fully working. What is the price of just a 1.5 – 2kw vertical axis turbine?
Roger Bush
Not exactly a new idea – look at the date of this article from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/5042154.stm
The manufacturers: http://www.quietrevolution.com/