Combining two of the most popular alternative energy categories, a Texas inventor has proposed a solar windmill.  In the patent that issued today, a windmill system is described which has solar panels mounted on the turbine itself.  Apparently the idea is to capture solar energy from various directions without using a solar tracking system.  I would imagine that the price of photovoltaic cells will need to drop a bit first before this approach is feasible.

Download United States Patent No. 7,453,167

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 11:06 am and is filed under Energy Patent of Today. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.