Tiny Wind Powered Supercharger

A company called Humdinger has developed a tiny wind powered supercharger that fits in the palm of your hand. The Microbelt small-scale wind charger it actually ten times more efficient at generating energy from wind that any other devices its size. It doesn’t actually feature a turbine but instead it uses “aero elastic flutter and vibration of a membrane” for wind power. The actual amount of energy generated by the device is small though but it is incredibly efficient.

It can output two milliwatts of power when the wind is blowing at a rate of about 5.5 meters per second, which is a sufficient power to run transit monitoring sensors. Which means it would remove the need for batteries completely. The devices could also be used in other applications. For example if you were able to put enough of these on an electric car, it would be able to generate enough power to charge the cars battery whilst the vehicle is moving. Imagine an electric car that recharges itself every time you drive it, without the need to ever plug it into an external power source, it would also mean that electric cars would be able to cover greater distances, at the moment they need to be recharged after every couple of hundred miles.