Can’t wait for community-scale renewable energy to come to your town? Maybe you should just start with your house! A new invention, dubbed “The Jellyfish,” may make distributed generation a reality for every home in the country.

At a mere 36 inches tall, the plug-in wind appliance can generate about 40 kilowatt hours each month, that’s enough to light a home using high-efficiency bulbs, said [Inventor Chad]Maglaque. And although micro-wind is nothing new, at $400 a pop, the Jellyfish’s price and simplicity make it a fresh face in the market. [Via Worldchanging]

This is truly the ultimate in distributed generation. Just imagine how we could radically change the way we get power in the United States with new technology, “micro-wind,” and distributed generation. Here’s the future I imagine:

1. A new smart grid system will make it easier for power to be bought and sold, reducing the cost of electricity and encouraging the use of renewable energy.
2. Large-scale renewable energy projects like wind and solar farms will drastically reduce emissions, providing home-grown, clean energy while reducing costs.
3. Small-scale renewable energy projects in every community will reduce the need for power from large power plants, allowing us to take even more coal-fired plants offline.
4. “Micro-wind” devices like the Jellyfish will reduce every building’s need for electricity, even further reducing our demand for large power plants and taking even more coal-fired plants offline.

The future is almost here. Distributed generation and renewable projects of every shape and size will drastically reduce our need for large power plants, even as we shift from coal-fired power plants to more renewable energy sources such as wind farms.

For a glimpse of the future, see the Jellyfish in action below:

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1. What is Distributed Generation?
2. Top 5 Reasons To Use Distributed Generation