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A nearly invisible rooftop wind turbine has won the
€500,000 Postcode Lottery Green Challenge 2009. "It's beyond a
dream,” said English entrepreneur Dean Gregory when Skype founder
Niklas Zennström, a contest juror, announced his name. "This means
we can focus solely on bringing this to market." Gregory entered the
Challenge on behalf of the English company The Power Collective
Limited – after finding out about it two days before the deadline.
Each year, the Dutch Postcode Lottery gives away €500,000 to the
inventor of the best climate-friendly invention.
The RidgeBlade “has great potential to reduce emissions,” said
Greenpeace Netherlands’ executive director Liesbeth van Tongeren,
another juror, who read out the jury report at Friday's award
ceremony. “The adaptation of an existing technology is innovative,
and the production cost makes it affordable and attractive for
consumers.”
RidgeBlade an innovative, affordable
and effective way of harnessing the wind's power to produce
renewable electricity.
RidgeBlade addresses the issues
associated with traditional micro-wind generation technologies. The
unique design means it can reliably produce electricity in low or
variable wind conditions whilst creating very little visual impact.
This means that it is suitable for locations including urban houses,
rural buildings and environmentally-sensitive sites such as National
Parks.
The RidgeBlade is fitted on the ridge
line at the top of a building and uses the existing roof area to
collect and focus the prevailing wind. This is where the wind is
forced to travel over the roof surface, accelerating the airflow
though the turbine.
The RidgeBlade generates electricity
in a wide variety of wind conditions making it a quiet, discrete and
effective way to reduce carbon emissions and cut electricity bills.
We think it is what the world has been waiting for.
The RidgeBlade is produced by the
Power Collective; a team of highly motivated individuals drawn from
the worlds of aeronautic design and engineering, specialist
manufacturing and the environmental industries.
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