Micro-Wind Turbines for Home Use

Posted on April 2, 2007 7 Comments

Hong Kong Inventors Unveil New Micro-Wind Turbines Suitable for City Dwellers

“Let’s say if you have good conditions, five, six meters [of wind] per second, if you are a family with one kid you need most probably three, four square meters of that then you can most probably cover at least 60, 70 percent of your [energy] needs.” The technology can also help power bigger buildings. Administrators at Hong Kong’s Sea School, a secondary school offering basic seaman training, will install the new micro wind-turbines on its roof in April.

Gambarota says his biggest dream is to see his invention being used in developing countries. He says energy generated by micro wind turbines can be used to pump water, for example, saving women and girls from having to walk for miles to rivers and lakes to fetch it.

Information from Motorwave. Very cool idea though still early (they are meant only to provide electricity for immediate use at this time – no way to sell excess power to the grid or battery backup yet).

Related: Wind Power: USA Growth – Personal Water Wheel Power – Water and Electricity for All

Gambarota: Riding the clean technology wave, CNN:

“It’s simple enough people can repair it themselves,” he says. While conventional turbines need wind speeds of 10-meters-per-second to operate, his turbine can generate power with wind levels as low as two-meters-per-second. The selling price of the units — which so far have been contracted to be installed at a World Wildlife Federation office and a Hong Kong seaside school — starts at $150.

As mentioned in the article for remote use, repair is a big issue. Having simple, easy to maintain technology solutions is something I have been interested in since traveling with my father as he worked on appropriate technology solutions. Those solutions can make a huge difference in people’s lives (which can be more important than the economic gains). Though I believe solutions that provide significant economic gains are best since they will sustain the expansion of adoption of the technology.

7 thoughts on “Micro-Wind Turbines for Home Use”

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  2. helmac

    This looks like an ideal system for urban areas providing it is as easy to maintain as claimed.

  3. Mark Ford

    From the information posted, I’m concidering procuring one system and begin a qualification/testing cycle on it. We are currently spec’ing several Renewable Energy products for customer product under development. If anyone has more experience with this product, or similar, please advise.

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