Have you ever seen an entire community of wind turbines? Lexington Farms Subdivision in Jerseyville, Illinois is exactly that. This community is totally energy self sufficient due to a combination of wind turbines and solar panels installed on every house.

The Illinois Housing Development Authority spent over $1.6 million to build the housing development, which is designated for lower income earners (below $41,000 annually). Each of the 32 single-family dwellings sports a Urban Green Energy vertical axis wind turbine and a set of solar panels. Even the street lights are powered by smaller, conventional wind turbines. Each hybrid system can produce up to 8.3 kW of energy, enough to take a large chunk out of the renters’ electricity bills.

Each Urban Green Energy VAWT is an eddyGT, a 1kW wind turbine, standing about 9 ft tall. These turbines are rated for speeds of 26 mph, but turn in wind speeds as low as 8 mph. Imagine driving into a neighbourhood and seeing 32 wind turbines rotating above each house! Perhaps in a few years it won’t be such a rare sight, especially if municipal governments loosen their bylaw restrictions.

In the video below, the neighbourhood residents are interviewed and answer questions on the performance of the wind turbines. Most of them have seen reductions of $50 to $100 a month on their utility bills, with one guy even claiming a negative bill. This could happen if your turbine provides more power than you need and the excess energy gets fed back into the grid.

Click here for more information about Urban Green Energy.

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nWeVeiBmj0′]

The Hilton hotel group announced earlier this year that six wind turbines would be installed on the roof of the Fort Lauderdale Hilton. Of course, this wouldn’t be too exciting, except for the fact that they will be vertical axis wind turbines!

The wind turbines will be provided by Urban Green Energy. Each UGE-4K wind turbine will provide 4kW of energy. The height of the Hilton Fort Lauderdale lends itself to wind turbines, since standard commercial wind power is not typically economical in the flat landscape of Florida. The ascetically pleasing design of the UGE vertical axis wind turbines will mesh well with the high end luxury of the Hilton hotel chain.

The six vertical axis wind turbines will be combined with a solar panel installation to create a hybrid generating station. The energy generated will be the equivalent of powering over 2500 lights in the hotel. Additionally, the hotel plans to build a small restaurant and lounge, nestled on the roof between the solar panels and wind turbines, creating an ecological oasis 200 ft above the beach.

Since opening in 2007, the Fort Lauderdale Hilton has made saving energy a priority. The hotel’s Green Team has overseen many energy reduction initiatives including recycling programs, automatic flush toilets and high efficieny lighting and batteries. The new wind turbines are the next big initiative for the hotel.

For a video of an Urban Green Energy 4kW vertical axis wind turbine in action, click here. 

For several years now, the skies above Fort Lauderdale, Florida have been decorated with the spinning of a vertical axis wind turbine. Specifically, above the Interstate Asphalt building on SE 17th St.

The Urban Green Energy vertical axis wind turbine is a unique sight to behold in the industrial block of buildings. Installed in May 2011, the 4kW wind turbine was the result of a research project by Tufts University in Boston, MA. When winds are blowing at 20 mph, the wind turbine can power 100 40 Watt light bulbs (i.e. 4000 Watt generating capability).

Florida typically is not a prime real estate for wind power due to generally lower wind speeds and flat terrain, but the Urban Green Energy wind turbine can provide power at winds as low as 7 mph.

You can see the wind turbine installation yourself by checking out the Interstae Asphalt building at 1041 SE 17th St in Fort Lauderdale.

Click here for a video of another 4kW UGE turbine installation in Fort Lauderdale.

Rim of the World High School has begun an energy conservation project involving the use of vertical axis wind turbines. The project was proposed in 2011 and approval has now been granted from the California Division of the State Architect.

Construction is set to begin on the project in mid-2012.

The entire energy project will involve eight solar panels and four turbines. The fenced installation area will be near the main parking area next to the Performing Arts Center. Wires will run into the nearby physics classroom for monitoring and learning purposes. The total cost for this project will be about $400,000. The turbines are to be installed on 23 foot high poles and were manufactured by Urban Green Energy in New York. The energy produced by the turbines is expected to be about the equivalent of the amount needed to power an average sized home.

“It’s my understanding that we are the first school in the state, and maybe among just a handful of school districts in the nation, to be using wind turbines at a school site,” said Rim of the World Unified School District’s board president Scott Markovich. “This is so new a technology for schools that the DSA looked at our application and architect plans very carefully, because they hadn’t done it before. This will put our high school on the map for forward thinking.”

The school is not currently focusing on using the project as a money-saving tactic, instead focusing on introducing renewable energy to math and science students as part of their curriculum with the project providing a hands-on, real world learning project. There will also be opportunities to involve younger students currently attending the local intermediate and elementary schools by use of field trips to observe the project in action.

Click here to learn more about Urban Green Energy vertical axis wind turbines.