Pecos Wind

Pecos Wind Power builds an 85kW wind turbine about a third the height of a utility-scale machine, meant to sit on the site that uses the power. Its control system, developed under subcontract from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, is optimized for low wind speeds, which is what determines where a turbine like this can go: most distributed turbines need wind that most of the country doesn't have.

Wind blows at night, when solar produces nothing, which is why the two together get a site to fully renewable and why solar alone never does. Distributed wind has stayed a niche because the machines were built for windy places and priced for utilities. A turbine that works in ordinary wind opens up a geographic market many times larger, on farms, plants, and campuses that have land and a load and no good nighttime option.