Comments on: Bringing Wind Power to Off-Grid Guatemalan Villages

By: Inhabitat » SWIFT: Ultra Quiet Rooftop Wind Turbine

Inhabitat » SWIFT: Ultra Quiet Rooftop Wind Turbine — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:05:56 +0000

[...] by whisper conversation. With the capability to generate up to 2,000 kWh annually, Swift is making small scale wind power more aesthetically and acoustically [...]

By: cat_laine

cat_laine — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:55:15 +0000

To avoid having the turbine be called vaporware, I would say that it’s not quite in the final stages of development. Rather it’s still firmly in the prototyping stage.

That said Heather Fleming, Tyler Valiquette and Jesse Wodin from EWB-SF’s Appropriate Technology Design Team came down to AIDG-Guatemala & XelaTeco this past April and built a mighty fine prototype. Here is an update of the Wired story on our NGO’s blog with photos and video:
http://www.aidg.org/component/option,com_jd-wp/Itemid,34/p,1048/

By: Brian Lang

Brian Lang — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:46:46 +0000

Now this looks interesting. Imagine lining the roof of every house in the world with a micro wind turbine like this. 10-15 watts per turbine, $100 per turbine, Let’s say 10 of these per house. For $1000, you could have 100-150 watts of extra power. Now that’s not a bad idea. And if they work even in light breezes, that would be better.

My only concern is how well these turbines will hold up in high winds. It does look fairly flimsy.