Small Wind Turbines Enter the Home Improvement Market
Filed Under: Green Technology, Susatainable Living on June 17, 2009
Starting this fall, most homeowners in America will be able to buy a small wind turbine at Ace Hardware stores that comes in a kit and is made to mount on the rooftop. The new turbines from Honeywell are designed to have no vibration, to operate in very low winds (a key point), and will be under $5,000 while producing an average of 10-20% of the average home’s electrical consumption in a year.
That’s pretty awesome, I say.
The units are made by WindTronics in Michigan and are being sold as the Honeywell Wind Turbine. They will appear on the shelves in Ace Hardware stores nationwide in October.
The turbines are shaped like a fan (see picture above) and generate about 2,000 kilowatt hours per year in winds averaging class 4. The turbines are unique in that instead of turning a shaft that goes into a generator, the fan itself is a generator.
The fan blades are have metal connectors and the housing around them (at the edge) is magnetic, gathering the power generated by the turning blades. Very innovative and part of the reason the fans can operate at such low wind speeds. They can operate in winds up to 45mph, however, so they aren’t lightweights in durability.
The turbines weigh about 95 pounds, are six feet in diameter, are made to mount on rooftops, chimneys, or on a pole. The units have springs and hardware to absorb the vibratory energy created by the turbines in the wind, so there is no vibration transmitted to the structure it’s attached to.
Very cool stuff. For more information on these Honeywell Wind Turbines, visit the WindTronics site at this link.
And watch the video:
