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Credit: UGE
The Eiffel Tower has received its fair share of quirky updates these past few years—an ice skating rink, a vertigo-inducing glass floor—but this may be its most important yet. As part of the tower’s first major retrofit in 30 years, New York-based renewable energy provider UGE designed and installed two vertical-axis wind turbines above its second level.
The turbines are painted bronze to blend with the surrounding iron scaffolding, and will unobtrusively generate 10,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. It sounds more impressive than it is; the structure actually consumes 6,700,000 kilowatt-hours a year. Still, it’s a symbol of larger, citywide effort. Paris aims to eliminate 25 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and source 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
