By Tibi Puiu
The number of wind turbines (click here) across the world has grown exponentially thanks to plummeting costs. By now, people have grown accustomed to huge wind turbine farms that dot some landscapes, either onshore or offshore. But unlike solar panels, residential wind turbines are less affordable and accessible, being seen as too cumbersome and wind-dependent, and this is most evident in urban areas. You’ll be hard-pressed to find wind turbines in Manhattan, whereas rooftop solar installations abound.
It’s this predicament that inspired designer and entrepreneur Joe Doucet to fill the gap in our renewable energy generation toolkit with an out-of-the-box solution: rather than harnessing the wind with huge blades suspended on tall towers, Doucet invented a flat wind turbine that can be incorporated into walls.
The turbine wall is made up of a grid of square panes that spin along 25 axes. The first prototype consists of 25 wind turbine generators that are already commercially available, which are attached to 25 corresponding vertical rods with square panels attached alongside them to capture wind pressure....
