Who says that wind turbines have to be thirty feet tall and extremely expensive? Last year Google hosted a wind turbine design contest and the winner was Clarian’s Jellyfish.
The Jellyfish is a 36 inch vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) that can be plugged in directly into your electrical sockets and can generate roughly 40kWh a month on a moderately windy day. There is no fancy setup necessary and with only one moving part, maintaining the turbine is easy enough for regular home owners. It is also comes equipped with WiFi and WiMax in order to create a point-to-grid system.
The power that these small turbines generate is not much (40kWh a month can power a room that contains CFL bulbs), but harnessed collectively and tied interactively with the local utility grid there can be significant environmental and system reliability benefits. Chad Maglaque, the creative genius behind Jellyfish, states that these turbines are the PC of renewable energy stating “We could have 10,000 of these sitting in a city, networked—it’s like a virtual utility…”
Unfortunately, the Jellyfish cannot be used on its own. Should there be a power outage, the turbine will not provide energy due to safety features built in that prohibits the turbines from operating on their own nor can it be used to charge battery banks for off-grid systems. In fact, the product is more of a way to supplement your existing power grid and eventually, with enough of these little guys, create a virtual utility network.
The turbines is currently not ready for distribution, but it is expected to retail at $400 eventually reducing to $199 at higher production volumes with rebates, discounts or tax credits available from your local power utility. It will typically cost 7 years to recoup the cost of the Jellyfish.
