On the outside, you can still clearly see that this tiny house was once part of a wind turbine, but inside everything has been prepared for a comfortable and homey stay. In the coming decades, thousands of wind turbines will be demolished or replaced. Most parts of a wind turbine — the foundation, tower, gearbox parts and generator — are made of metal or concrete and, therefore, are easily recyclable. Steel, for instance, can be melted down and reused, but the downside is that this takes a lot of energy and creates emissions. Now there are companies that are turning the wind turbines into housing. The tiny house prototype is made from the nacelle — or control box — of a V80 2MW model wind turbine that stood on the Austrian Gols wind farm for 20 years. Its decommissioned nacelle is just 33 feet long, 13 feet wide, and 10 feet tall, but nowadays wind turbines are considerably larger. Inside the home is a fully functioning toilet and shower, a kitchen with a sink and stove, a pullout couch, and an electric heat pump for temperature regulation. Solar panels on the roof provide extra power, and the home comes with a 2-way hookup for electric vehicles, meaning it can either charge the vehicle or use the vehicle’s power inside the home. Designers say it’s possible to do 2,000 tiny houses a year using discarded wind turbines.
