The WindTree is a ‘biomimetic wind turbine’ developed by French renewable energy firm NewWind and aims to get rid of that obscenely oversized windmill and replace it with a much more contextually sensible alternative – a decorative imitation tree, sporting dozens of small wind-turbine leaves. Source: Techly
Okay, so at this stage the WindTree, at roughly 10 metres tall, would simply be replacing an obscenely oversized windmill with an obscenely oversized imitation tree, but the guys behind the wind power harnessing tree are working on a smaller version for individuals which they aim to have available by 2018.
In the meantime, NewWind has already installed seven WindTrees across Europe, in Germany, France and Switzerland.
Each of the WindTree units is furnished with 54 of these wind-turbine leaves, dubbed ‘Aeroleafs,’ which, on these seven prototypes, are just short a metre tall and are highly sensitive to incoming wind currents. 
The leaves spin on a vertical axis coming up from the tree branch, and they are able to pick up breezes as low as two metres per second, enabling each leaf to generate a maximum power capacity of 100 watts.
With this advantage, each tree is able to produce on average between 1000 and 2000 kilowatt hours of electricity each year.
Due to the size of each WindTree, they are current only being installed in public places, used to power local lights and power stations in the parks areas that they call home but at a cost of US$55,350 per unit, it’s not just the physical size that presents a barrier to homeowners.
The smaller, domestic version project currently being undertaken would look at reducing both the size and the cost but even so, it might be a while before the energy saving cost would outweigh the initial installation cost.
