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The project, aptly called Wind-It, would have wind turbines built on pylons and towers along high voltage lines across the US, sparing the need to build entirely new structures on private or government land--and they'd generate as much as a megawatt of power per tower.

Wind-it answers one of the greatest challenges to the development of wind power: where to site wind turbines. Choppin, Delon and Menard's design uses existing infrastructure - the towers and pylons that dot the more than 157,000 miles of high voltage power lines in the U.S. - to locate their turbines, which can be stacked within already sited structures. Moreover, Wind-it solves the problem of linking energy generation and electricity transmission in the same way - by co-locating them. Wind-it XL calls for new and taller pylons. The design is most promising for developing regions and can generate as much as one megawatt of power. Wind-it L loads eggbeater turbines onto the core of existing towersin medium- and high-voltage grids. Wind-it retrofits low- and medium- voltage pylons for a nominal one toten kilowatts of power.