June 4, 2013

Product Design student Alexa Forney and Greg Yeutter, minoring in Product Design, were selected as one of the top 25 teams in Schneider Electric’s Go Green in the City design challenge. Their top-ranked project, “Wind Power in the Urban Pedestrian Space,” focuses on the benefits and challenges of installing wind power solutions in urban settings. Forney and Yeutter will be going to Paris later this month to present their final design solution in competition with the other remaining teams.

Participants in the Go Green in the City contest hailed from Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Turkey and the United States. 

Forney and Yeutter worked to come up with and refine the idea for the project, which aims to bring wind turbines into Center City areas to generate electricity. The students’ design incorporates large, flat “sails” strategically suspended over streets, with small wind turbines mounted to existing poles or as part of the same cable suspension. “The clever part of the design is that it will also cut down on strong winds at street level, a problem that plagues many cities,” the two students wrote in an abstract.

Product Design Program Director Michael Glaser served as a mentor on the project. He notes that Forney and Yeutter do not yet have a final design, but rather a half-completed prototype. “The sample system projects to save $117,950 and 3.16x108 kg CO2 in energy costs over a 15-year period,” Glaser says. “It is also a beautiful, sustainable, cost effective way to successfully integrate wind power into the city.”