SmartWind RidgeBlaster

Grenada's James Post's SmartWind RidgeBlaster is a leading entry in GE's ecomagination Challenge; one of several ideas he has in the $200 million competition, which stops accepting ideas on March 15th.

But what is this great idea? It's a horizontal wind turbine that sits along the ridge of your roof, where the turbulence is greatest. No big windmill arms, just a long cylinder-like structure spinning innocuously at the top of your roof, and producing up to 1.8kW of electricity.

Post - who also happens to own an eco resort - says that the RidgeBlaster is still in the lab stage, but once he gets some funding, he'll quickly be ready to test some prototypes. If he is one of the five winners of this challenge, he will automatically pocket $100,000, and if GE show the same level of interest in his design that the voting public have, he could well be offered a commercial relationship with them "in early spring."

Source: inventorspot.comAdded: 20 October 2011