Tube for Tuesday: A Better Wind Turbine for Your Home?

I came across the Windspire unit a few weeks back and it has intrigued me ever since. Manufactured by Mariah Power, this nine-meter horizontal blade unit looks a bit more home-friendly than its more traditional looking vertical blade cousin. A visit to their website discovers that they are now manufacturing the 1.2 kW version of the Windspire in Michigan. A larger 3.0 kW as well as a direct-to-batter version appear in the works. While this is eligible for tax credits, I couldn't find anything on the base price at the Mariah site. A third-party site stated a cost of $4,000 for the 1.2 kW unit.

I have no idea if and how Mariah would ship the Windspire to our neck of the woods. A possible alternative is someone like Northeast Windpower of Westport Point who installs your more traditional vertical blade units. I've seen at least one unit in Westport put up by this company. In fact, from certain vantage points these "personal" wind turbines seem to dot the Westport horizon.

I don't have time for it now, but it would be interesting to do a full comparison of similar sized units in terms of footprint, energy generation, noise factors, etc.