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Off-Grid Home Ecocapsule To Hit the Market This Year
Kristine Lofgren writes: If you dream of living totally off-the-grid anywhere in the world, you need to get your hands on this home. Nice Architects just unveiled their incredible egg-shaped Ecocapsule, and announced that the tiny solar and wind-powered dwelling will be available for sale later this year, with units shipping in spring 2016. From the website: "Despite its small form each Ecocapsule is fitted with all essentials necessary for a comfortable prolonged stay without a need to recharge or re-supply. Ecocapsule is powered by a built-in wind turbine complemented with an array of solar cells. Dual power system and a high-capacity battery ensures that you will have enough power during periods of reduced solar or wind activity. Spherical shape is optimized for the collection of rainwater and dew and the built-in water filters allow you to utilize any water source.
The energy output of a wind turbine is proportional to the cross-sectional area, and to the cube of the wind speed*. This means that to provide a useful amount of energy they need to be big, and they need a lot of wind - that means a high mounting point. These little pinwheels on short poles are just a gimmick - you'd be lucky to get 20W from them on a very good windy day.
*Think about it. (m*v^2)/2 will get you half-way there.
Pretty looking caravan (with optional wheels?) but not very efficient on the space, not particularly comfortable looking and not really practical as a permanent home as they try to suggest. In pretty much every use case you'd be better off with a larger caravan and a couple of solar panels and some batteries that you can set up when you get wherever you're going.
Here is a link to a Airstream floor plan. Looks to be well thought out too. They do have a few years of learning how to do this. http://www.airstream.com/trave...
Passionately Indifferent