Wind turbine for homes to reduce costs naturally

Wind turbine for homes to reduce costs naturally By Emmanuelle Landais, Staff Reporter GULF NEWS Published: January 12, 2008, 20:30

Dubai: Miniature wind turbines or solar powered water heaters now available in the market could reduce your home energy bill by 20 per cent and reduce carbon emissions to combat global warming.

For around Dh6,000 a mini wind turbine can be connected to the circuit breaker of a house and with an extra electricity inverter can power your home's electrical needs. This does not power air conditioning.

Turning your home into an energy saving unit with the flick of a switch is the future, said Dilip Rahulan, chief executive director of Pacific Controls, who is shortly going to put on the market a Ubiquitous Box, or U-Box, which can monitor all sensors in your home and optimise their use.

Pacific Controls, which recently opened their headquarters in Dubai's Techno Park as the Middle East's first Platinum rated green building because of its energy saving facilities, has developed the small wind turbine for homes.

Combining the wind turbine with a U-Box will reduce energy consumption by using motion, temperature and timer sensors that can calculate when air conditioning, lights and taps should be switched on and for how long.

"This will help us find out where energy is being used. People go on a holiday and leave the air conditioning on, or the lights and with this system we will know if something is working that could be switched off," said Rahulan.

"Savings of 20 per cent in energy use can be achieved in all properties. We started this with Emaar 20 months ago. We manage all pumps and streetlights to reduce energy consumption," he added.

Homes and businesses will now be able to do the same with the Green Home and Green Building Systems which monitor use and waste of energy through a central command centre that can tell how full a water tank is, or what the temperature of a hotel lobby is.

Showers can even be set to switch off every three minutes.

"Through measurement and verification we will be able to monitor carbon footprint in homes. We are hoping to get LEED certification so residents can earn carbon credits. We will be able to tell how buildings are performing or [locate] any leaks," said Rahulan.