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Cascade Engineering’s SWIFT wind turbine now available for sale in the U.S.
By MB-BigB | October 27, 2008
Cascade Engineering today launched their SWIFT Wind Turbine for sale in the US and Canada. The SWIFT, which was originally designed by Scotland based Renewable Devices, is a unique small five bladed wind turbine that is designed to reduce noise. The five blades are surrounded by a “diffuser ring” that lowers the sound produced by the turbine to a measly 35 decibels.
The SWIFT design also helps to reduces vibration, which allows the wind power turbine to be mounted directly to a house, rather than to a free-standing pole or tower. The Swift also has two fins to turn it into the wind – it can turn 360 degrees to take advantage of any wind direction. The Swift generates about 1.5 kilowatts with a 14 mph wind; Cascade says that in typical use it will generate about 2,000 kilowatt hours over a year, which is about a quarter of the amount of electricity a typical household consumes in a year.
The Swift’s installed cost is about $10,000, but that’s before any state rebates and federal tax credits ($1,000 for residential systems and $4,000 for commercial buildings). Cascade says that the payback cost of the Swift Turbine can be as low as three years.
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Topics: Wind power | 3 Comments »
February 15th, 2009 at 11:00 am
[...] article on some of the latest wind turbines available for home use. They specifically mention Cascade International’s Swift Wind Turbine and Home Energy’s Energy Ball. In the article, they mention that you can check out the [...]
November 1st, 2009 at 8:24 am
Is there a device available to test wind speed and consistancy. This will help to know if it will be cost effective for me.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:28 am
It looks like you can buy what’s known as an anemometer (a device to measure wind speed) at various sites (including amazon), but I don’t know if that’s what you’re looking for since the low priced ones only measure wind speed at a point in time, and you would want to measure average speed over a long time period.
A couple of sites are out there that might help. Try
http://www.swiftwindturbine.com/wind_estimator_residential.php
and
http://www.solar-estimate.org/index.php?verifycookie=1&page=wind-calculator&subpage=
and
These sites let you put in your address and will display some interesting stats on average wind speed and whether wind power makes sense for you. They will also provide information on local and federal incentives for alternative energy in your area. You’ll probably want to confirm any data you get – even in you live in a spot that’s good for wind, perhaps you have buildings blocking your property that would make your location different than what’s shown on the map.
Good luck!