GROW Solar Ivy mixes solar power and cool design

Well…solar and wind Ivy. SMIT, a new York based company that proclaim themselves “a sustainable design start-up company that is developing a new approach to solar and wind power” is currently exhibiting their revolutionary GROW hybrid energy system at the Museum of Modern Art. That’s right, its solar, it’s wind, and it’s art.

The grow system uses recycled materials when possible and incorporates an intuitive energy monitoring system to allow users to control and fine tune the system on their own.

On the outside, the patent pending system consist of bricks each with five “solar leaves”; Each one of the leaves created in a roll to roll printing process where conductive ink, and piezo generators are layered in. Then the rolls are stamped into leaves. The result is a bunch of ivy like leaves covering the side of a building, to pick up solar and tiny little piezo generators on the stems of the leaves to generate electricity from the movement of the leaves as they blow in the wind and twist.

The first production of the GROW system will be a solar only version with a more traditional installation. With the wind/solar combination to follow…hopefully soon.

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Tagged as: solar