If you can deal with a 6-feet wide, 95-pound spinning wheel on the roof of your Cape Cod, well then, you just might simultaneously save the planet and put some cash back in your wallet. Earthtronics, a renewable energy product and consultation company, has introduced a gearless building-mounted wind turbine that can make electrical lemonade from measly 2-mile per hour wind lemons. The home device is licensed and marketed under the well-known Honeywell name and will be launched this fall at ACE Hardware stores, making the idea of personal wind power much more approachable against the inescapable association with sprawling wind farms.The Honeywell WT6000 Wind Turbine looks just like a household fan that was blown-up to cool off the sweaty kids in the movie Honey I Blew Up the Kids. Unlike gargantuan industrial turbines, these comparatively Lilliputian spinners ditched the pricey central gearbox for a direct-drive design that generates power from the blade tips. While traditional turbines have a range of 7.5 to 29 MPH, this configuration makes it possible to harness energy from wind speeds as low as 2 MPH up to 45 MPH, Although this isn’t the first building-mounted turbine, the wide range of usable wind speeds make it the lowest cost per kWh installed turbine ever made.

Making your home greener and cleaner does cost a pretty penny, but with tax incentives and savings over time, installing something like the WT6000 could be worth the initial leap. The newly passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allows consumers and businesses an uncapped 30 percent investment tax credit which will provide some relief to the WT6000’s suggested retail price of $4500 and additional installation fees up to $1500. In addition to state-by-state clean energy perks, personal wind power just might be within our reach by the time these land on store shelves this fall.