People often think of wind turbines as noisy, unaesthetic and too big to place in a backyard. However, perceptions are bound to take a turn once everyone sees what this French company, called New World Wind, has in store for all the design conscious people out there!
CEO, Jérôme Michaud-Larivière has developed this highly aesthetic looking ‘Wind Tree’ (or Arbre a Vent) that looks like a tree and stretches out over 26-feet fitted with 72 leaf-like blades that are responsible for generating electricity. These ‘aero leaves’ are vertical-axis turbines, resembling a conical shape, and rotate at wind speeds as low as 4.5 miles per hour. This is a huge contrast in comparison to traditional wind turbine blades, which start turning at wind speeds of 8 to 10 miles. This also means that the Wind Tree will be operational 280 out of 365 days a year unlike regular wind turbines, which run 200 days of the year. How efficient is that?
Image: New World Wind
However, the total power output across all 72 turbines is 3.1 kW. This is lesser than the output produced by larger wind turbines. Luckily, the engineers assured that, it is not an issue as the high turbulence of the Wind Tree enables it to start in slow winds and fulfill the electricity requirements of a small home, fuel lights or even charge an electric car.
The best part about Wind Tree is that it works in complete silence. Hence, no neighbors, offices or even the users will find it a cause of disruption!
Image: New World Wind
With that said these turbines are quite pricey and range from $20,000 to $50,000 depending on the model. However, the payback period will be small and with the world undergoing an energy crisis, these wind turbines might solve someone’s energy problems!
h/t: Curbed