Eddy GT Wind Turbine Is Sleek, Silent and Designed for the City

by Cameron Scott

If you launch a clean energy business in Manhattan it’s almost a given you’ll be inspired to start designing products specifically for the urban environment. Urban Green Energy has just launched a new, one-kilowatt wind turbine designed specifically for city rooftop use! A machine certainly made for the modern dweller, the near silent Eddy GT turbine is a chic piece of wind technology that rotates on a vertical axis, optimizing wind capture, even as the air stream shifts within the dynamic city landscape.

The Eddy GT takes up just 40 square feet to generate its kilowatt — to get that much juice from a solar array, you would need up to 400 square feet, which is a tough sell in major cities like New York and San Francisco. While not a light investment at $7,000 per turbine, Urban Green Energy CEO Nick Blitterswyk estimates that in California, which offers a rebate, you could break even in 10 years, and without the $3,000 rebate, it could take 20 years.
If you’re in San Francisco, look for some turbines in action atop Blitterswyk’s company, amongst other products like the Sanya Solar- and Wind-Powered Streetlamp, in front of Civc Center come mid-October. The turbines have scored some other less predictable placements as well, including a position atop the National Guard building in Cleveland, Ohio, and just about every house in a new middle-class subdivision outside St. Louis!

 

Sleek Solar and Wind Powered Hybrid Street Lamps

by Bridgette Meinhold

As designers strive to create a more sustainable future, we’re thrilled to see designs that integrate a variety of renewable energy technologies into objects we encounter in everyday life. This innovative hybrid wind and solar powered street lamp is just such a solution – not only does it use renewable energy to provide light, it’s a stylish update to an everyday object that is capable of operating completely off-grid. The hybrid streetlamps consist of a solar array topped with a wind turbine, and they are capable of generating up to 380 W of power.

 

Designed and manufactured by Urban Green Energy, these solar/wind powered street lamps are mounted to a standard galvanized steel pole that can be made locally and easily swapped with older street lamps. The turbine on top can be either a 300 W 2nd Generation vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) or a horizontal axis wind turbine. Mounted on the side of the pole are 2 solar panels made by F3 Solar that are capable of generating up to 80 W of power.
The street lamp is capable of producing up to 380 W of power if the sun was shining and the wind were blowing, and the street lamps save excess energy generated in a battery that powers their high efficiency LEDs through the night. Since every location and project is different, Urban Green Energy is taking a component-focused approach to the street lamps’ design – the LED lights, solar panels, wind turbine, tower height, and battery storage are all easily scaled to best fit a particular project.
Decorations on the pole compliment the sweeping lines of the wind turbine and can be customized to whatever color the buyer wants. The hybrid LED lamps seem more like an commissioned art piece rather than a standard industrial looking street lamp.
Urban Green Energy’s Hybrid Wind/Solar Lamps are already gaining attention around the world – they just signed an agreement with an undisclosed city in China to outfit their streets with these street lamps. The company also offers wind turbines ranging from 300 W up to 10 kW, and we recently got a sneak peak at their new 2nd generation 4kW VAWT. We think this new company is on the right track, and we can’t wait to see their hybrid turbines hit the streets.