An artist’s rendering of AeroMINES along the edge of a roof and combined with solar arrays. Sandia National Laboratories By Andrea Thompson Solar panels perched on the roofs of houses and other buildings are an increasingly common sight in the U.S., but rooftop wind systems have never caught on. Past efforts to scale down the towering turbines that generate wind power to something that might sit on a home have been plagued by too many technical problems to make such devices practical. Now, however, a new design could circumvent those issues by harnessing the same principle that creates lift for airplane wings. Overall, electricity generated by renewable sources has grown in the U.S. in recent years, and wind power has been a major driver of that trend. It accounts for more than 40 percent of electricity from renewables in the U.S. (though only 7 percent of all electricity production). Unlike solar energy cells, which are limited to collecting energy during daylight hours, wind turbines can run all night in any place with the right conditions—namely, in open plains or gentle hills with consistently sufficient wind speeds. But in addition to those requirements, large turbines need open space, which is […]
Reading Time: < 1 minute
