A donQi turbine was recently spotted in a home featured in September's issue of Dwell magazine, and it looks great. The donQi Urban Windmill is an attractive option for home energy generation, with the potential to recoup your investment in as few as 10 years without subsidies.
The donQi Urban Windmill is a product from Denmark, where they've been creating quite the buzz. Found at a number of online distributors, the donQi comes in a number of colors, and can be completely customized.
According to donQi, their windmill is safe and does not create annoying vibrations or noise. However, the home featured in Dwell did experience some vibrations from their Windmill which was mounted direction to their home. The turbine is designed to operate maintenance-free for a period of 15 years, with components designed to last 20 years.
- Find it: DonQi at DonQi
Via Jetson Green
(Images: 1+3. donQi; 2. Flickr member Floris Looijesteijn licensed for use under Creative Commons)
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Useful technology but unfortunately can't agree that it looks great. Unfortunately its just an eyesore above the house.
I look at that and think about all the birds I'd find on my lawn... pre-butchered.
I was thinking the same thing as Ima - but being that they're smaller, I wonder what would be their effects on birds and bats. Some are considering using color (purple) uv spectrums to help birds and bats get around windmills; for bats just getting near the big ones can kill them. But sonar and maybe even streamers for the smaller ones might help save critters. I love the ideas for smaller ones because we don't have to use up land, Native American sacred grounds etc to use them.
The shroud around the blades may make it more efficient, but it makes the whole thing look like some kind of sci-fi death ray.
So you recoup your investment after 10 years, then in another 10 you might have to start over because the components fail
bird shredders...
I love the clever name of the product :)