The wind turbine can generate both electricity and water with nothing else required except humid air.
The turbine works in the same way as the turbines currently seen dotting horizons around the world and the electricity produced also helps power the water manufacturing process.
Air gets sucked into the nose of the turbine and is directed to a cooling compressor. The humidity is then extracted from the air and condensed and collected.
The water then travels down stainless steel pipes under the forces of gravity into a storage tank, where with some filtering and purification, it is then ready to drink, wash, or cultivate with.
Following a breakthrough by a French engineering firm, Eole Water, wind turbines could also provide drinking water in humid climates.
Eole Water modified your typical electricity generating turbines to allow them to distill drinking water out of the air in a bid to help developing countries solve their water needs.
The components inside the turbine also act as a water generator, extracting dozens of liters of water per hour from the atmosphere.
While wind-farms are becoming a common site, this is the first time it has been combined with a water generator.
Thibault Janin, director of marketing at Eole Water, told CNN that one generator producing 1,000 liters a day is ‘enough to provide water for a village or town of 2,000 to 3,000 people’.
‘This technology could enable rural areas to become self-sufficient in terms of water supply.
‘As the design and capabilities develop, the next step will be to create turbines that can provide water for small cities or areas with denser populations.’
According to Janin, communities in Africa and South America, and remote islands in Asia with little access to safe drinking water, the geographic makeup of the country where it makes impossible to centralize their water supply would be the types of communities who stood to benefit the most from the technology.
And foremost, It also make these areas water self sufficient in a way that doesn’t harm the environment.
The cost of one wind turbine is around US$ 600,000 (£400,000). However, Janin noted that prices would fall as economies of scale came into play.
Eole Water said their priorities in the design were maximum water production, energy independence, low maintenance, logistical flexibility and no environmental impact.
The turbines have a life expectancy of 20 years.
