How Wind Turbine Chargers Function

During the 2007 Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England, festival-goers were greeted by an unusual sight: a large, vibrant orange tent topped with a functioning wind turbine. At first glance, it might have seemed like a piece of contemporary art, but it was actually a mobile phone charging station. People could directly connect their devices to the turbine’s power unit to recharge.

Wind energy is rapidly becoming a major player in the renewable energy sector, with global capacity growing by nearly 30 percent between 2007 and 2008 [source: AWEA]. While much of this growth has come from large-scale wind farms, individual ownership of wind turbines remains out of reach for many, given the high cost of residential setups. However, a breakthrough in the technology has made it more accessible: a compact, plastic windmill can now be used to charge your phone. Although it won’t charge as quickly as a regular outlet, the wind-turbine charger offers a solution for those without access to conventional power sources. So, when you're far from civilization, you can still keep your phone powered by harnessing the wind.

Wind-powered chargers are still quite new to the market. In this article, we’ll explore the two main options available. One, the Orange Wind Charger, was first introduced at Glastonbury and is still in the prototype phase. It uses a simple wind-turbine design to generate electricity for charging mobile devices. The other, the HYmini, is already available for purchase and offers multiple power options, including wind energy.

Let’s take a closer look at a wind-powered phone charger. Surprisingly, it functions much like a 60-foot (18-meter) wind turbine, but in a much smaller, portable form that fits easily in a backpack.

How Wind-Turbine Chargers Work

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A wind turbine operates on a straightforward principle: it’s a wind-driven electrical generator. Initially, it captures the kinetic energy (energy of motion) in the wind, which causes the turbine blades to spin. These spinning blades turn a shaft inside the tower, which in turn rotates an electrical generator. The generator then converts the kinetic energy into electrical energy.

Since a cell phone operates on electrical energy (stored in its battery), a wind turbine can charge it just as effectively as a wall outlet. Both the Orange Wind Charger and the HYmini are designed similarly to full-scale wind turbines, but they're built from lightweight plastic rather than steel and fiberglass. The blades are measured in inches instead of feet, and rather than feeding electricity into the power grid, they send it directly to your phone’s battery.

The HYmini and the Orange perform this function in slightly different ways, but the basic concept is the same. Both devices charge mobile gadgets — like cell phones, MP3 players, or digital cameras — with clean energy, all without needing access to the power grid. In the case of the Orange, that energy is entirely generated by wind.

Weighing just over 5 ounces (150 grams), the Orange charger is perfect for camping. It’s designed to fit in a backpack and be mounted on top of a tent to capture wind energy. The turbine charges a battery within a detachable control box, and that battery then powers your phone with a 0.5-watt output.

The HYmini is a smaller, integrated unit that produces more power than the Orange — up to 1.7 watts. This is because the HYmini doesn’t rely solely on wind power. Instead, wind serves as a supplementary power source. The primary sources are a wall outlet, which charges the HYmini before a trip, and optional solar panel add-ons for when you're not cycling.

On a bike? Yes — or even while snowboarding. The HYmini encourages you to generate your own wind power.

How to Use Wind-Turbine Chargers

The first step when you get a HYmini is to plug it in.

It takes roughly 4 hours to fully charge the HYmini battery using a wall outlet. The battery can then power your cell phone, MP3 player, or digital camera via the built-in USB port (or with an adapter). Once the battery is depleted, that’s when you switch to green energy.

The HYmini has a sleek, sporty design, featuring a small propeller and attachments to secure it to your arm or bike. Wind serves as a supplementary power source — you can either hold the unit in the wind or create your own wind while biking or skiing. The turbine generates up to 1 watt of power in winds ranging from 9 mph to 40 mph (15-64 kph); it automatically shuts off above 40 mph to prevent the blades from spinning too quickly. If your phone runs out of power, a 20-minute burst of 19 mph (30 kph) wind will give you another four minutes of talk time — just enough to call for help after an accident. Or, use that 20 minutes to power up 40 minutes of music or take 20 digital photos.

For an additional 0.7 watts of power, you can attach up to four mini solar panels and position the unit in direct sunlight.

The Orange Wind Charger is designed primarily for camping and not for high-speed activities. The 12-inch (30-centimeter) propeller detaches from the tower for easy packing, and you reassemble it when you set up camp — typically on top of a tent to ensure the blades get good wind exposure. Once the turbine has fully charged the control-box battery, you can disconnect it and take it with you to charge your phone on the go.

With the Orange’s 0.5-watt output, it takes up to 2 hours of steady 12-mph (19-kph) winds to fully charge a phone [source: GotWind].

This leads us to a limitation of wind-powered chargers: sometimes, there’s no wind. This is especially problematic for the Orange turbine, which is designed to remain stationary and capture environmental winds. For the HYmini, however, with its solar attachments, generating power can be more reliable — at least on clear, sunny days.

Still, in an emergency, a wind-powered charger is likely better than having no charger at all. And at around $50 for the HYmini (the price of the Orange is still unknown), it might be worth bringing one along and hoping for a little assistance from nature.