Energy conservation and carbon reduction in the building sector are critical to addressing climate change. This paper presents a building-oriented critical review of wind-driven triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs), aiming to clarify their research maturity, realistic functional roles, and key limitations in the built environment. Bibliometric analysis reveals a rapid growth of TENG-related studies, with research activity concentrated in East Asia and North America, while work directly connected to architectural applications remains limited. Keyword evolution indicates a shift from fundamental energy-conversion mechanisms toward device optimization and sensing-oriented functions. Based on a structured review, two representative device categories—rotational systems and flutter-based designs—are examined with respect to their operating characteristics and suitability for low-wind building conditions. Reported building-related applications are currently focused on hybrid rooftop harvesting concepts and self-powered sensing components integrated into building systems, particularly for environmental monitoring. However, most demonstrations remain at a laboratory or prototype level, and their architectural integration is constrained by issues including low power output, durability, environmental adaptability, and system-level compatibility. Rather than positioning wind-driven TENGs as near-term power sources for buildings, this review highlights their more realistic short-term potential as supplementary micro-energy units and self-powered sensors, while emphasizing the technical and architectural challenges that must be addressed before broader building adoption can be achieved.
Peng et al. (Wed,) studied this question.