Wind turbine promises to blow away your utility bills

You’ve spared no expense in creating a smart home. You bought smart lightbulbs, a smart TV and smart appliances. All that’s missing is a device that makes you look smart when the electric bill comes in the mail.

The Agustsson brothers of Iceland may have figured out that part. They are the creators of Trinity, an affordable line of portable wind turbines, some of which can power the entire home.

We’ve all driven past wind farms and the seemingly endless line of gigantic wind turbines that harness the wind to provide electricity to local communities. Outfitting a home with a wind turbine has been possible for some time, but a system to cover all of a home’s energy needs with installation can cost between $40,000 and $60,000.

The Trinity 2500 has 300,000 mAh Li-ion batteries, weighs 42 pounds and costs just under $6,000. It needs just wind speeds of 2 mph to start converting the wind to electrical power.

“Depends on the size of the house and how much power you use,” said Agust Agustsson, who formed the company Janulus with his brother, Einar. “Most people should see a substantial decrease in their energy bill and in some cases people can go off-grid or electricity back to the grid.”

There are four sizes of turbines. The Trinity 50 and the Trinity 400 are the smallest and ideal for charging devices on camping trips. The 1000 and 2500 have built-in grid tie inverters so they can synchronize to the power system of your home and feed electricity into all the outlets. The amount of power from either turbine could lower the electric bill by 50 to 90 percent.

Janulus is crowd-funding production through Kickstarter and has already shot way past its $50,000 goal with 16 days remaining. The Trinity 50 turbine is available for $369.

All the turbines have three blades and three legs that take a tripod or flat position. For high winds, the blades can be folded into a vertical position. There’s no complicated setup or need to call an electrician, Agustsson said. It just plugs into an outlet and immediately goes to work.

There is also a smartphone app to monitor and control the performance of the turbine.