my holiday house is off grid, it runs quite successfully on 1600watts of solar panel, we also added a 300watt wind turbine to harvest energy from the sea breeze, which also is a regular occurrence at night, I bought a replacement turbine from china, then had a stroke, I got over that really well and installed the replacement turbine. it was single phase instead of 3vphase and I changed the wiring to suit, but feeling a little bit slow mentally I forgot to put the meter over the output, the internally regulated turbine wasn't internally regulated and it cooked our 15kwh battery bank (bummer) battery bank now replaced I am going to use the wind output to heat our solar hot water tank. we found that the small turbine added useful amounts of power and in winter it was really nice to see the batteries fully charged first thing in the morning, also the sound of the wind turbine whooshing away was reassuring. ps, I mounted the turbine on a tube mast made up of two pipes, with the thinner one inside the other, silicone turbo tubing in between. these were clamped the the upstairs corner of the house by pipe clamps and MG B engine mounts. a boat winch winds the taser down to access the turbine, and back up to be in service.
You've actually described something I wished a lot more people would consider. I have lived in Fremantle WA and Aspendale Victoria both located right next tot he water and BOTH get a seas breeze that's as regular as a clock. It might vary in strength but you can't prevent the basic physics of what happens due to the temperature differential between the land the the water. ANYBODY with a solar system in that sort of location has an inverter system sitting there with LITTLE or NOTHING coming in as the sun goes down. All you need at that point is a *SUITABLE* wind turbine with an output compatible with the solar inverter. There is a company in Iceland that has done this but they are horribly expensive but then they are built for Icelandic conditions. I actually think there is a small market for low cost VERTICAL wind turbines. They are cheap, they are simple and they are quiet if they have decent bearings. The biggest issue with small HORIZONTAL turbines is the noise they make. One of the small Scottish Islands has a couple of small HAWTS and they generate more power than the Island needs. They are as loud as hell but they are way out town. In built up areas like Fremantle an Aspendale you can't have them. It will only take 1 neighbor to complain and out they go. Against it is the misconception of efficiency. People see the lower efficiency of VAWTs and immediately dump them as no good. But if you've already paid for the solar inverter and its only working 8-12 hours a day depending on the time of year and you can extend that to around 20 hours a day (and possibly 24 at times) then you are raising the overall system tremendously. The fact you have done this and proven that in a decent location IT WORKS is music to my ears.
@@EngineeringwithRosie FYI - the reason I like this comment is that I have been working on a variation of the VAWT with a better aerofoil and electronics compatible with solar panels. I started with a degree in aerospace so I have a pretty good understanding of the issue of a wing profile that is effectively go through extreme swings in angle of attack. That's just one of the major issue of VAWTs that only a few have tried to deal with. I know the detractors arguments as well but most of them are ignorant non-engineering people who don't accept the concept that a technology that's good for 90% can also be hopeless for the other 10% and vice versa. HAWTS (small, medium , large or giant) will always out perform VAWTS but they are just out of the question in around housing BECAUSE OF THE NOISE. Now look at a strip like the strip from Port Melbourne, through St. Kilda, down to Mordialloc and all the way to Frankston. Nos consider how many MEGAWATTS of solar inverters are already installed and doing NOTHING from late afternoon through to early morning.
@@EngineeringwithRosie And here is the real thing to consider Rosie. We are due to shutdown at least 5 of our GIGAWATT class power stations before 2030. So you know I define a GIGAWATT class power station to be one that has a nameplate rating of greater than 1,000Mega Watts or more and supplies *BASE LOAD POWER.* And there is a giant problem around the world that's about to come hammering in on developed nations. We all built big base load power stations starting after WW2 and then continuing through the 50s & 60s, but by the 1970s with the population rapidly expanding they all became Gigawatt Class power stations. Some are huge like the one in Toronto at over 6 GW. But if you ga and look at the lists of power stations available in places like Wikipedia (it one of the easiest sources) you find something really odd. Despite population growth the entire developed world just stopped building them. California has only built 1 since 1990. We haven't built 1 since the late 90s and the French haven't built 1 since the mid 1990s. Other than a few exceptions like Hinkley Point C in Britain and c couple in America NOBODY in the West has built any new major power station in over 20 years. China and India are exceptions but they are developing rather than developed nations. The reason is simple, we all got conned by the economics clowns who told us to privatise everything. If you just paid several billion for an asset you need it to make money and preferably as much as possible. Its even better if you can raise the prices of what you produce, but that's not so easy because there are regulations. But there is an easy way around that. Don't build anything new and PREVENT (through lobbying) anyone from building anything new except smaller power stations that you can also buy into. As the population increases demand increases and basic supply demand economics drive the price UP while your costs remain almost stationary. Its super bonus time for 20+ years and it only gets better and better. So here we are 25+ years later with a bunch of rapidly ageing power stations and almost no way to replace them before they fail or shutdown through age. So to simply keep our society going we will need every last kW of generating capacity we have producing at its best. Fun times ahead.
We really need to make small wind work for us. As all Canberrans know, the majority of our power consumption is at night in winter. A battery pack only lasts a short time so to supplement it we need to sqeeze every watt we can out of whatever breeze there may be. Development of highly efficient small turbines could help, in conjunction with impoved storage capabilities. Here's hoping.
You showed an example of building integrated wind turbine in London, U.K. at a building called Strata in SE1 . I have lived near to that building since it was constructed. I have seen the wind turbines there operate once. There is apparently a structural and vibration issue when the turbines turn, frankly it looks as though the developers were indulging in a bit of greenwashing. It would have been more effective to use the money spent on those turbines to insulate the flats ( apartments) to a higher standard.
Oh dear! Yes I think that's always the case for these architectural green buildings. Shame they didn't check about vibrations/ resonance. At least they probably still look cool while they're stationary. But probably not inspiring anyone to go green of they never work.
While in not disagreeing with your ,better the money spent I can tell you solar an wind together work hand in hand. But you need to understand what type of turbine is required in a particular situation,. Solar alone does not return a good steady output. Wind fills in the gap!
@@Robert-cu9bm these so called imbalance issues are unacceptable and it's simply lazy installation,. Wind or solar are not viable alone,you must have both,. The combination is 25% more efficient,.
Where wind is the biggest asset here, is during those days, and WEEKS of cold snowy weather when there isn't much sun, but there IS a lot of wind. Wind is very much dependent on location. I live in the states out on the plains, on top of a hill, and the wind is ALWAYS blowing, except for perhaps during a few dog days in July, so Wind has made a pretty big impact, and greatly reduces the number of solar panels necessary to keep the batteries fully charged without using the generator or grid.
Excellent explanation, but one point you missed: Here in the UK, we have to take into account that solar panels produce almost nothing in December when the sun is below the horizon for most of the time and the panels will be in shadow for most of the rest of the time, which is the time of year when we use most power, wind on the other hand produces power all year round, with the most power in the winter when we use most power. Looking at the UK grid, we generated an average of 5.7GW of solar in the last summer solstice week but only 0.12GW in the last winter solstice week.
Thanks, and I think I did cover both those points. The solar irradiation in kWh/m^2 is the annual average and takes into account seasonal differences and cloud cover. And you're absolutely right, when season variations are important, wind is great for diversity. Does it need to be urban wind though? If say only if you can't connect to the (wind farm-powered) grid.
@@EngineeringwithRosie Are you only interested in annual averages? We don't currently have off grid batteries that can smooth power consumption over a year. Our winter solstice week average solar power generation, based on the UK grid figures for the last solstices, was just 2% of our summer solstice week average solar production, so if I only have batteries that can smooth weekly power consumption rather than annual, then to have enough solar power in winter I need to install 50x the amount of solar panels that I need for the summer, and then in the summer all but 1 of those 50 is not required! This does not make great economic sense! If I have a grid connection then the cheapest source of power is the offshore wind turbines, urban generation isn't anywhere close to competing, or that would be the case if the Europeans weren't currently buying so much power from the UK grid that our grid prices have gone through the roof! Last Sunday, the UK was exporting as much electricity as was being generated from renewable sources!
@@EngineeringwithRosie sorry Rosie, on first viewing the seasonal slump in solar does not come across at all clearly in the video & in the UK it is a major problem. My campervan has a 220W solar panel bolted flat on the roof & through January & often February it doesn't generate enough to cover system losses, I've come back to the 'van in Spring several times only to discover I need to buy a new battery bank.
@@alanhat5252It's not a major problem is a known situation. 220w panel us on the low side these days, but even with a more modern 400w you'd struggle. On the east coast in the UK, with our 6000w PV (and kwH battery) only produced 113kwh's in December. You anticipate that and go on a time of day tarrif, so I top the battery up at night (72p) and between the modest PV generation plus battery power, manage all day (family of 4) Looking at 5-6 years ROI, but I honestly feel it's a national scandal that panels and batteries are not on every house.
Another reason to go for wind instead of solar is... when there's NO SUN ! I plan to spend 1 year in the artic circle above Lofoten and I want to be off grid during winter. And at this latitude in winter, the sun shines only few hours a day and very low, generating very little power. I plan to install a 1.3m turbine over a 10m pole facing the shore.
Hi Rosi A further possible advantage of wind energy is that it is many times produced at (or after) sunset, which could mean a saving on battery capacity.
That also depends on scale. What happens is that solar heating of the ground induces vertical mixing due to convection. This is why there's almost always a breeze on sunny days. At night, mixing stops, so the wind goes calm at the surface and actually increases above 100m above the ground A small turbine on a home will produce much less output at night whereas grid-scale systems will actually produce more power. Of course this is somewhat influenced by geography.
I worked at an early backyard windpower company once upon a time, Southwest Windpower, and while they initially sold a 10m tower, they quickly moved away from that to 15m, 18m and 20m towers. The issues were usually permitting and access, although the Skystream was designed for 10 year operator without maintenance of any kind.
My brother is building a new house in Queensland and will be including solar I will be very interested in how his performs against mine back in Devon in the UK. We do get meaningful power for 9 months of the year and living in a rural area area I had considered a small turbine. I became aware of the energy potential of small v large turbines and have instead subscribed to a more cooperative venture of wind turbines being constructed in Scotland by Ripple Energy.
The bigger the wind turbine the better the investment, which tends to mean that the best investment deals, currently on ~16MW floating wind turbines, can only be afforded by the biggest pension funds! It will be interesting to see how the smaller onshore wind farms are doing in 30 years time when we have more than enough offshore wind at prices so low that the onshore farms probably become uneconomic to replace turbines. Assuming that we ever have enough energy, which seems unlikely, you can always make use of cheap energy!
My friend was well into his 60s if not 70s when he brought his solar and water heating panels for his house and up until his death he loved them and said it was the best thing he did
Thanks Rosie, Agree your comments, not a good idea to attach a wind turbine to a house as vibrations will find their way into the building. My off grid house is near that wind farm you showed east of Canberra. It has 3.6KW of solar and 1.1 KW wind turbine on a 15m mast. The wind is particularly helpful at night and in overcast weather. The device itself is a Bergey XL1. It has been operating for fifteen years. It is super reliable, smooth running and needs very little maintenance. Overall it produces about one fifth of our electrical power. We dont need or use a backup generator.
I am in north Manchester UK and my SOLAR ENERGY SYSTEM and battery storage is doing awesome stuff for me. No I don't get Aussie numbers. But I reckon for a 4.9kW system with two slopes one south and one north-west hitting Summer days of 22kWh in a place as far north as Manchester (we are on the same Earthly parallel as Canada's Edmonton, Alberta) is damn good going.
When I lived in Iqaluit there were a few people in town with rooftop wind turbines. It's quite windy since there's no trees, and the days are *very* short in winter (4 hours of day, plus another 3 hours of dawn/twilight). Of course in summer, days are very long (20 hours of day plus 4 hours of dawn/twilight). I don't know how far they've moved in the past 3 years but there's a possibility that they could turn off the diesel plant all summer long if they put up enough solar and a bit of batteries. They're also talking endlessly about putting up utility-scale wind turbines.
While solar works in the daytime, wind could work all night , when consumption is lower, and wind might help to make batteries last longer. Works on yacht wind generators.
I was thinking, right now in some places utilities will offer electricity credits to people who buy shares in community solar projects and sell that power to the grid. In principle, the same could be done with wind. If we could band together and come up with the capital to pay the utility to install and maintain one extra large wind turbine in a good location, a sort of "community wind project", and if they would offer us credits for the extra electricity it produces, that could end up being way more cost-effective than small local wind production.
I always fancied a wind turbine on my roof because I live in a fairly windy place, but when I looked at the actual size of even a "tiny" wind turbine and how little energy it would produce...I quickly that it was never going to work...🤷♂️
In denmark where i live, you can only have a urban windturbine if you live in the country side and it would make alot of sence to get one . But the price of a wind turbine that is goverment approved cost betwine 65.000$ and 135.000$ . That is alot of money when you can get solarpanel for your house 15.000$ to 18.000$ .
My biggest problem with domestic solar is that it's production is out of phase with both my daily and seasonal usage patterns. While this might not be a problem for some, where I live, I cannot sell the electricity back to the grid when I'm producing more than my own consumption, and when I really need more electricity ie during winter, early mornings, evenings or at night, I can't produce much (if any) from solar. A large battery might solve the daily cycle storage needs (for part of the year), but not the winter peak usage and introduces a whole raft of ethical questions about the production of large lithium-ion batteries. Also, as I neither work from home or have air conditioning, my summer electrical usage during peak sunlight hours is very low. I can understand an office building that both has air con and people there during the heat of the day (for the few weeks in summer when it's too hot), but the case for residential solar here is rather lacking. It would be much more effective for my road to pool their money and invest in our own medium size wind turbine as it's consistently windy, especially over winter and then maintainace would only need to be done once and the cost split between 50 houses (or my village could invest in a few of them).
Wind turbines are more suitable to large scale utility installation unless you are off grid and need to generate at night. Solar works for both individuals and utilities. Individual solar also assists the grid distribution.
I'm very happy with my 2000 watt pmg from Missouri wind and solar this with my 4 365 solar panels run all electrical needs in my home and yes, my turbine is 10 meters high.
Another great video, Rosie! I live in the southern California desert. We get a LOT of sun, and a good bit of wind. My neighbor has a 400 Watt wind turbine, but it is only rated for a 12 Volt system, so doesn't do much good on his 48 Volt system, so he is using it on a secondary 12 Volt system. It is still not enough to keep that system strong enough to run his air conditioners, as the wind generator needs at least 7 mph winds to even start up. We both have plenty of room to put in solar arrays, and we have found that for less money, we can get more solar panels to produce the power we need. This, of course, is not true everywhere, but here it makes total sense.
3:33 Wind closer to the ground gets slowed by the _ground._ Even on perfectly flat ground -- without buildings, trees, and hills and stuff -- the wind speed vs altitude plot looks the same.
Love the straight forward approach - with actual numbers!!! I'm looking into wind power and looking for guidance if anyone can point in the right direction. so, to go through Rosie's check list - I live off grid, I'm out in the sticks, I have several hilltop on my property which are c200m above the sea level. The sea is 1.5km away and is visible right down the valley, so I get all the off-shore wind all the time. I am looking to supplement a solar system. The proposition to test is that I would be better of have wind power than more batteries so if we get several consiquitive days with no sun, chances are it will be stormy so I can generate power from the wind. same for overnight, where the only real demand is refrigeration for food so I need maybe 100 watts per hour to fill in the gap and reduce the drain on the battery - so a small wind turbine will not be far off the ground - with all the structural issues of building a large tower and the power it needs to generate is relatively low. Anyone with ideas for a commercial avaible system that can do that or better, ideas on how to build one myself, I would love to hear. thanks
Good video, thank you. One questions that i've had (and seen online) is the efficiency of a wind turbine to just heat water in an accumulation tank for a radiatorsystem. Since most of the electricity cost here in sweden goes to heating and there is not much solar during winter. That would also reduce the need for a constant output, since the water will be used as heating storage.
Exactly, we don’t need loads of electricity for some lights, and electronics like charging your phone or laptop. One should also realize 60 % of electric energy is lost in the grid.
Cool vid. Obviously a very niche application, but it's a good example of how mildly creative thinking and what is increasingly off the shelf renewable tech can save a companies a decent chunk of change.
I'd add another reason why urban wind turbines are not a great option: the cost of the installation of photovoltaic panels is directly proportional to capacity and the size, you simply add more panels and size the power electronics accordingly. But big wind turbines are more cost effective ($/kW or $/m^2 swept) than small ones, that's why we are always trying to make them bigger.
Great video. Thank you. I would also add cost £££. I wanted a 3kW turbine (i live in Scotland so we have lots of wind!). It was £25k vs £4k for a 6kW PV array!!
The need for a tower, its foundations, dump loads, braking system, and the on-going maintenance all make small-scale wind more expensive than the simpler PV or PV + battery option. For most urban situations, a PV + Battery system combined with variable tarrifs is going to the most cost-effective solution.
Living in a unit which only receives max 2 hours of sunshine in at winter solstice and was looking at a wind turbine with 1 metre diameter blades, thinking to install on balcony. Just to charge a 12 volt battery, not trying to power the house. This video has convinced me to do more research before spending $. Thanks. It would be nice to have a link in the description of this video to the list of certified small wind generators that you mentioned.
Good explanation and visual graphs, easily understandable without excess jargon! But got to admit, calling Germany northern Europe had me grinning here in Finland 🙂
You're still at the mercy of sunshine and wind; both of which have inconsistency in their availability. Dark days and no wind is very inconvenient to depend upon for electricity. I've designed and built a series of computer monitored wind gennys charging a 500 AH battery pack. The final version was a 2.9 kw which followed its predecessors in maintenance problems and lack of stable wind. Electronic Design Specialist and Mech Eng., I'm done with both solar and wind. Too much trouble but, I do have a 1 amp solar battery charger on my petrol lawn mower! :')
THEY DID SOME WORK YEARS AGO IN A ROOFTOP WIND TURBINE THAT SAT IN A VERTICAL TUBE AND LET THE DISRUPTED FLOW ACROSS THE ROOF FUNNEL THE WIND TO THE TUBE AND THROUGH THIS STATIC VERTICAL AXEL TURBINE
Have you ever visited Folkecenter for Renewable Energy in Denmark, Hurup Thy, Yutland? It’s a magical place where wind, solar, wave and other sorts of renewable energy solutions are practiced, studied, developed and educated. If you ever have the chance to visit, do. It’s like a whole other world.
What I'm missing are ridge wind turbines, that use sloped roofs to increase the amount of wind moving through the turbine. Like ridgeblade. Still not as great as full sized mills, but better than smaller ones AFAIK.
On average, you actually have more hours of daylight, plus you have more days of summer and less days of winter than Australia and the rest of the southern hemisphere! In fact, if you adjust the angle of your panels to match the lower sun angle then Rosie's figures for Kwh/m² are wrong, I believe they are for panels lying flat, choose the correct angle and your figures are almost as good as Australia, only real problem is that you can't get nearly as many panels in a field without them shading each other, and an advantage is that the panels work more efficiently when they are cooler.
I live off grid in Canada, I want to add in small scale wind turbines to vary my power inputs. I'm looking forward to the DIY part. In my imagination, it sits at the peak of the roof and looks like a vertical axis turbine on its side, getting the wind funneled up by the roof. Vibration is a concern. I'll use foam under the bolted on plates...
So in the uk the planning portal states The distance between ground level and the lowest part of any wind turbine blade must not be less than five metres. An installation is not permitted if any part of the stand alone wind turbine (including blades) would be in a position which is less than a distance equivalent to the overall height of the turbine (including blades) plus 10 per cent of its height when measured from any point along the property boundary. Which means if you intend to put up a horizontal typical looking 1kw turbine blade diameter 1.8m then the height is 6.8m min the 110percent is 7.48m away from any boundary that means you need a garden about 56m^2 and it be more or less square. Which very few people in a urban setting will have. Plus you will the. Be causing quite a bit of shading to any solar you might have. Roof top wind might fit in better with regs and peoples actual houses like the ones ive seen that look like drums on their sizes with 3 cut out rectangles along roof ridge lines however they are a bit unknown regarding the noise, vibration, resonance and also the cost above and beyond say solar on a similar roof ( not saying both wouldn't fit on a south facing one without shading) but you have to factor in scaffold costs with roof ridge mounting and what if they need maintenance? In alot of ways solar is more predictable, wind requires dump loads and brakes of wind is too strong. I think for alot of these reasons both bureaucratic and economic that wind takes a huge back seat to solar even in the windy dark uk. Btw loved your vid on tethered wind systems.
One thing I noticed is that many NYC buildings have "gaps" in the middle of them, mainly for regulatory shenanigans. It would be interesting if they put wind turbines in there, so they would at least be useful.
Really thorough and interesting video Rosie! You nailed every point and it was nice to see that it's not just another video either say small wind sucks or is the best thing ever! I think this video is up there with your turbine waste video for a great use of napkin calculations as well. Keep up the great work!
In Ireland I think it's a bigger issue. I live in a rural area and while solar is (usually) amazing in summer but in winter there are says I get 1 to 2 kWh per day from my 6.5 kW array. And unfortunately winter is when I use a lot of electricity. A few small turbines to offset winter electricity usage would be nice to have.
As mentioned on a society level it would be much better if the money is invested in utility scale wind power on- and offshore - much more electricity generated pr. monetary unit. In our end of the world (I live ind Denmark), wind is definitely a more important part of the grid than solar as it fits our usage profile much better. More production in the winter where the heating needs are highest.
Yes - the whole point of this post is that small wind turbines do not make economic snese except in completely off-grid applications. You can get the same amount of renewable eenergy far, far cheaper and far more reliably too with big turbines connected to a grid.
Thanks Rosie for well balanced objective video. Mounting a wind turbine on a ground fixed tower or pole instead of a roof avoids lots of concerns. In some locations with extended periods of cloudy-wind weather in the winter, off grid hybrid solar/wind/battery along with energy management system on a common pole can be a practical option. Creating a microgrid on a suitable pole by adding high intensity lights, security cameras, wi-fi, EV charger, golf cart charger, etc.. is one of the simplest off-grid systems. Always a trade off between pole height and size of turbine for given load.
Issue is if your going wind you need to go big to make it worth it because of how power scales with wing span, for a doubling of wing span you get 4x the power, so small scale wind kinda sucks. really the minium size you should be installing is a 2kW system and even then it just to supplement other renewables, even in Denmark or Germany solar first then for the the winter months a little bit of wind goes down a treat, and the reason why I say 2kW of wind is required is because you are only really going to see 500 - 1200W of power generation for a 2kW wind turbine. If it's going to be an equal part of your power source of your power you really need a large system to make it worth it, it happens around the 10kW mark where if that is what you are aiming for wind + solar makes a bunch of sense in planes where you don't get much sun through the winter, 6kW of wind + 4kW of solar will do you fine throughout the year.
@@TheGerm24 taught by nescot Surrey UK where I did my HND IN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES and its a general idea, domestic wind is really useful, summer mostly pv and winter mostly wind
Rooftop solar panels still quite some challenge for the densely populated countries like India and China where buildings are vertically big and don't have sufficient surface area to meet the energy needs. We gotta find the solution for that.
Yes you're right, in densely populated areas rooftop solar can only make a smaller contribution to the grid than in places like Australia where most people live in single family houses. I think the solution will be a mix of mainly rooftop solar, solar farms and onshore and offshore wind. The proportion of each will vary depending on local conditions and in some places will include other techs like nuclear, solar thermal, geothermal, hydro etc.
@@EngineeringwithRosie Check out Two Bit Davinci's channel, he's just release a video about a Canadian company that has solar panels that can be used as building cladding and not look like solar.
1. Rooftop turbines are a tiny resource, as noted here. 2. Even in Europe with assistance from offshore wind etc solar can to the job just fine. Rosie's video on Sunovate air cooled solar shows that we can use thermal as well as electricity from rooftop, so greatly increasing total energy use. Agrivoltaics means that we can in utility scale solar use as much land as we need to, shading and reducing water consumption for plants. Storage can be done for renewables overnight using EneryDome's supercritical CO2 system, way cheaper than batteries. For seasonal storage GKN Hydrogens' hydride storage can reach electrical plus thermal efficiencies of 90%, good enough even for Scandinavian winters. Energy expert Martin, interviewed by Rosie, was rather down on converting natural gas pipelines for hydrogen transport, basically on the grounds that you can transport a lot less energy for a given pipeline when it is hydrogen. True enough, but 30% or so of current volumes in, say, the German or UK grid is just fine, as in any reasonable scenario we won't be moving as much about, with combinations of rooftop solar itself, local storage in things like EnergyDomes, heat pumps, better insulation etc making the capabilities of a converted grid in fact a very good fit for the volumes of hydrogen we are still going to need to pump about. We seem to have all the tools we need for decarbonisation. Doing it is another matter, of course.
With energy storage surely a domestic wind turbine would be an enhancement. Even a small amount should be of benefit. But I suppose I'm missing something.
Suggestion: Rotate the whole tower: Instead of making a cylindrical tower that is aerodynamically OK (Cd: 1.2)for winds from any direction why not go with a rotating, aerodynamic teardrop shaped tower (Cd: 0.12 hinged at ground level)..? Advantages: * The tower can be lighter and less expensive if you don't have to build in the strength it requires not to be blown over by itself... and you get more distance between the leading and trailing edge which translates into more strength per kg in the desired direction... * There's plenty of research on how much quieter and more efficient fans with 'aero' stators are, which should translate..? Suggestion 2: Home wind does not have variable pitch. So blades with Whale Tubercles, which give lift (don't stall) over a far wider Angle of Attack range make sense here... Tubercles also ameliorate wing tip vortices which means more efficiency and less noise. They also look cool! :)
Solar makes sense to me. But not necessarily for nationwide doctrine but for private personal use. Solar panels are becoming more efficient every year. Personal or home solar and wind energy could possibly work IF the devices become IRONCLAD reliable and affordable.
Hello from Maryland Eastern Shore, Have you heard about Wind Turbines that have torque inverters on them. They increase the rpm exponentially by use of pulleys and cams. At any rate your use of metrics was awesome. Mericans still use fractions but its easier for me to understand joules anyway when i have to use higher radiation values I prefer them. ok thanks Scott - Maryland.
Good video. Relevant information, well articulated and clearly presented. Learnt quite a few things about what considerations go into these systems. Thanks
Could someone do a study on wind turbines combined with solar? This would be far more relevant to all homeowners. Nobody really wants a wind turbine tower in their backyard. There also must be wind generators with low vibration which is more important than how much power they generate as we just need this as a complement to solar.
not that the US has the political will for any massive redevelopment projects but i wonder if you could design a city where structures directed and concentrated wind energy somewhere specific and deliberate and then you can put a regular turbine there. that's probably worse than other options but if we have a stunt-architecture budget anyway...
Great video, very clear why it doesn't work in urban areas so well. What is interesting about wind is the moments it generates electricity. I am a firm believer that we will all go to hourly pricing of energy, which means winter prices are high (living in Netherlands). And due to recent events it only became worse. Thus, a small wind turbine (if you don't live in an urban area) might become economically viable. I try to be more self sufficient and find it more and more appealing. I am not offgrid, because I also want to export excess solar energy. I live 6km from the coastline in a region marked as windy, and trees are funneling the wind to my house :) And in future with huge energy prices in winter, it will be great. If it only does a few hundred watts it is enough to keep my small heatpump keep the house at temperature during windy winter nights.
It seems like solar panels and battery storage would make more sense than wind turbines for most cases. Even in the windy Denmark case, the small turbine was producing only 50W. That isn't going to power much in a home.
@@TheGerm24 I already have solar + battery. The addition of a windmill of 1500 to 2000w peak power would be great. Many days in which it will actually produce that kind of power, like some RU-vid videos of the istabreeze i1500 for example. But yeah, you can't do that in an urban environment.
I was stationed in Germany they don't get sun at night or enough wind. In America we don't get sun at night and no one stores it cause it's expensive. In America I just watched something everyone pays to get connected to the power company which is about $30,000 to $40,000. Mine as well use their power since you paid that much. How do the power companies store power for places where it's dark at night or when not windy? I don't have $40,000 to get connected to power company. Do a renewable energy video at night.
I have a small homemade wind turbine on my balcony. It barely generates enough electricity to light up a few LEDs. Building it was a fun little project but generating a meaningful amount of energy from wind just isn't possible in urban areas.
If you had fun and learned something then it sounds like a winner to me 🙂 I spent about two weeks and probably a couple of hundred Euros on my gingerbread wind turbine and it barely lit up a few LEDs for maybe a minute or two in total! But definitely worth it.
In your comment lies the answer. A small windturbine cannot generate a lot of power. The bigger you go, the more you can harvest. It goes exponential. Also, balconies are not the most appropriate places to put windturbines. The top of roofs is more suitable, because of free windspeed and the pressure differential before and behind the building. A study about windspeed around large buildings showed there is a certain point above the roof where windspeed may reach 6 times normal free windspeed.
Hi Rosie! good lesson in solar, Lac Seul First Nations, Northwestern Ontario, Canada. Solar PV, Wind Turbine, and thinking of water turbine (In Water Line). the water turbine I hope it is feasible, but we'll see... Praying it will be. based on homes.
For someone with hearing impediment it’s hard to understand you probably due to your audio setup maybe? Captions are ok, it would be good to get better audio on your great content. I am sure lots would disagree and suggest it’s my speakers which I tried to change, used head phones and even used an amp on my tv to amplify to no avail. Thanks for the great content I watch it several times to pick it up properly 😊
Good point about using what's most naturally abundant in the area. I think you should look at Robert Murray Smith's "Thinking and Tinkering" videos. He's been testing different wind turbine models with varying and promising results. Very informative.
Kolding is a really bad example of an average location in Denmark when it comes to wind, it's on a hillside / in a valley facing in the wrong direction for the prevailing winds.
It felt windy to me when I lived there! But I don't think it matters too much for the comparison, which is between wind farm and urban wind more than between a good and bad wind location. I just liked the fact that Kolding has about twice the wind speed of Canberra and Canberra has about twice the sun as Kolding... Roughly.
@@EngineeringwithRosie You should have tried living in Ringkøbing! However, even there where there is plenty of wind, due to the issues you highlighted for most people an urban turbine wouldn't make sense.
@@sbwende do you live in Ringkøbing? Did you watch the Tour de France go though on the weekend? I really enjoyed watching the stage that went through Kolding on Sunday, on all the roads I used to ride when I lived there. And Denmark looks so beautiful from the helicopter view! And I noticed it was quite a windy stage though Jutland.
Is there any data on INSTALLATION failure of roof panels? I had a satellite dish on the roof- 4 bolts. They leaked. Inside water damage was just shy of $60K. Dish told me the installer was responsible, who- surprise- was out of business. So how does the panel industry work? Who is responsible if the roof leaks? How long- 90 days? 5 Years? When I ask the panel sales types this question, they ALL tell me they will get back to me. Never happens. Any thoughts?
0:11 It seems like the urban wind energy could be greatly enhanced with a big funnel concentrator for light winds that can be folded down in higher winds. A big cloth umbrella like structure. A 4 meter diameter, 30% effucient windturbine gets about 300 watts of power at 5 meters oer second. At eight meters dianeter, the power goes up to about 1100 watts. How much of the wind energy is lost by a concentrator? Why not just make the turbine twice as big? If a concentrator can also be used to concentrate solar, and there is already a support structure, then using the concentrator to concentrate wind might make a lot sense. If it is dark half the time and cloudy half the time and there is already a big concentrator dish for solar, if the same dish can be used to concentrate the wind, it might make a big difference in energy with relatively little added expense. There are also military applications for a dish. The tracker can track other things besides the sun and wind. A million dishes in a metropolitan area each firing a million Joule micriwave pulse is a trillion Joules. That might be enough to turn a large volume of air at the focus to plasma. Plasma readily absorbs microwave radiation. Once a little bit of the air is ionized it absirbs more of the microwaves, which ionizes more of the air in an accelerating process. If the acceleration is great enough, the air can be turned into a bomb. If the plasna is hot enough to make Xrays, the Xrays can fry the inside of the target. If the Xrays are converging because of the widespread area from which the microwaves are converging, some very seriously high temperatures in the millions of degrees might be possible. Xrays can accelerate charged particles to velocities near the speed of light. The shock wave might be like the target crashing into a brick wall. There is a dish. There is a tracker. There is a huge power source. It is already 90% of the way to being a microwave weapon. One might expect to get some government subsidy if their rooftop dish is part of a weapons system. Even though microwaves are not ionizing radiation, it seems that if enough microwaves are focused in a small enough area, they can turn air to plasma. Infrared is not ionizing radiation but a pulse from a 100 watt CO2 ficused to a tiny focus will turn the air to plssma or at least ionize enough of it to make a small explosion. A trillion Joules is the equivakent of about 250 tons of TNT. The ABM system controversy was also divided along political sides like the climate issue. One of the arguments is cloud cover. With enough power it might be possible to remove the clouds from a large metropolitan area. Water readily absorbs certain frequencies of microwaves. Another argument was that a barage of missiiles can hide behind a gigantic fureball and be undetectable and subsequent exolosions can get closer and closer to the target to continue hiding the incoming missiles. This argument was not opposed with any convincing argument. But satellite and high altitude detection systems are a lot more sophisticated than they used to be. If they are going to spend trillions of dollars fighting the climate noncrisis, nonissue, and the same system can be used to combat a real issue, there might be more support for the system. If the real climate issue is the approaching ice age, concentrated solar is of more value. If it is possible to remove clouds from a large area with micriwave dishes, , the temperature of the planet could be increased to possibly even prevent ice age conditions from spreading over the planet. Cooling the planet by ionizing the air to encourage cloud formation is another possibility.
One benefit of wind turbines you didn't mention is that they can be constructed entirely of recycled materials (read: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind), and they can be entirely recycled in some cases. Solar panels require many expensive, toxic chemicals and materials in their construction that isn't easily recycled and is dangerous when thrown away.
Yup, ..if you're going off grid for the sake of self reliance, then, really anything that can be built and maintained at home or at least the cottage-industry level, ..such as wind, concentrated solar thermal, biomass, ..and low tech energy storage, e.g. a heat battery with a stirling generator
Great video. I wish there were a way to finance a wind turbine (or a fraction of it) on an ideal location. That would be YOUR turbine. You would split the proceeds with the land owner/farmer. I am unaware of this option anywhere in the world.
My understanding is that while you can generate more wind energy in the middle of nowhere, there's efficiency loss in transmission to consider. When you generate it onsite, you eliminate this loss. Curious how significant that is
Because power goes as the cube of the wind speed it does not make mathematical sense to use average wound speed to estimate power. You need to find (or calculate for yourself) the average of the cube of the wind speed. In other words, cube the individual recorded shows before taking the averages.
I tried to get someone to supply a wind and solar system form my house in wellington, new zealand. No one would supply - all sorts of excuses but nothing eventuated after 3 months of calling and emailing. Wellington has lots of wind a ground level - one of the excuses was that the cheap chinese turbines disintegrate in the strong winds. Also the solar arrays run at around 300 volts DC and the small wind turbines tend to be ~48v AC.... I would love to get my hands on the plans for a turbine that I could build myself and stitch it into my 7.5kw solar system to take advantage of the regular gales that blast my house - but as you have said before - the claims and reality are often far apart.. and I have no way of knowing which one to choose.
We are also in Wellington well just north on Kapiti Coast, we have solar and are looking at getting a wind turbine. Yes hard to get a reply! Lots of cheap ones on the internet. Will they last ? Interested to share the search for a 5 kw turbine of decent quality with a good inverter
@@anthonyryan6265 I have worked out that 48v AC wind turbine, connected to a transformer of the correct dimension, and then recitifed and buffered with (maybe) a small bank of super capacitors (to smooth out the lumpy power from gusty winds) should be able to be fed into an mppt controller and the controller will see it as a solar array. The only turbines I have found that seem able to handle our brutal winds here are the ones from the creative folks at Missouri Wind and Solar. But they, like everyone else are not keen to supply because of the local environment. I was hoping that Rosie might know of someone who would be up for solving this ...
@@madpete6438 We have a SMA solar system suppling 4.5 houses, if supply a single phase supply the inverters at battery bank will see this as a supply all ok. We are looking for a turbine with inverter package. Just finding a 4-5kw turbine of good quality that will last is the issue. Lots of small turbines at 500 watts around. Messaged the thin air people but no reply not sure if they still operating? What turbine have you found?
@@anthonyryan6265 Missouri wind a d solar do a range of reportedly tough turbines. They also do complete packages. All I can say is stay away from the crappy cheap Chinese rubbish. So many of these have been installed and failed on short order. They also over claim output, by as much as a factor of 4. Look to spend about 9 to 12k us installed (based on what I have discovered planning a 3x property system for new house build with 2x flats) for your turbines (I would use 2 x 3 or 4 KW if I wanted 5 KW output. I hope this helps... So much disinformation from greedy marketers ... That is why we listen to Rosie!
Great explination, ive been thinking about ways to utilize wind energy for my own urban environment because i live in canada and winter makes solar difficult. I do strongly think that if we can get the cost and footprint of wind turnines down, perhaps through DIY systems and virtical access turbines, it would still be worth it to install on a smaller scale/in urban environments.
I see that you are such a sun panel fan but could you comment on different wind generation that big spinning blades? Vertical, ion, vortex, vibration, pods, etc. There are a bunch of new techs around that promise better results in cities.
The big problem it that most if not all the blade systems out there are not effective an of to make Wirth getting even the Archimedes turbines still have there down falls.
Danish Professor Brian Vad recently suggested that we should stop building Rural Solar. It is better for the grid to place Solar panels on factories and Parking lot close to the consumer.
Wind turbines cost too much. You can buy a car alternator for about $100. Wind turbines are $600 plus. I do not understand why unless mass production makes that much difference.
In higher latitudes hybrid PVT panels could be a better a bet ... The horizontal axis wind turbine is a bit more of a problem so swarms of small VA wind turbines might make a meaningful addition in real urban areas... Like the roof of stores warehouses and offices or schools.
Damn... those 50W for a micro-turbine for household is a big party pooper on my plans for wind-energy at home XD (Villa in DK, Urban, 9m). what to do now? no more room for ekstra solarpanels, but i want to create more of my own electricity
Rosie, ..... HELLLP ! ! ! of course we want our wind turbines to be certified - unfortunately; it does not matter how many Savonious designs are "Certified" their efficiency will come down to one basic calculation. The wind resistance on the downwind side compared to the wind resistance on the Upwind side. and this is usually an extremely tiny difference. HOWEVER; the "Louver Type" wind turbine has a HUGE ratio between the upwind and downwind sides. It's like 10 to 1 . A flap turbine that has 10 square inches catching the wind on the power side, will have only one square inch slipping through the wind on the upwind side. This also means that the 10 square inches effectively has 100% solidity and the upwind stroke has very low solidity. HOW would a person get a decent comparison done on an extremely new and untested turbine like the "Flap turbine" or "Louver Turbine"???
My main concern with urban wind power would be the noise generated and the annoyance that that would cause to neighbours. Parking place rage is bad enough !!!! How noisy are urban wind turbines ????
"How noisy are urban wind turbines ????" - the small ones are very noisy compared to the big megawatt scale turbines! At least in proportion to the power output. It is possible to make quiet ones, but generally the smaller they are the more annoying.
@@nigels.6051 Thank you, I live on a hill and have a 3/4 acre garden. We are near a motor way so there is back ground noise . I would quite like to put up a small wind turbine, but I probably wont until there is a noiseless commercial one available. I would not want to add to the noise pollution or annoy my neighbour's .
@@gloucestergarden3441 As a general rule, blade tip speed is about the same whatever the size, which means that the smaller the blade length, the faster they rotate, so small ones always make a high pitched whine, and nobody likes that. On the positive side, they only make significant noise when it is windy, so if you have a few trees around that also make noise in windy conditions then the wind turbine may not be too noticeable, and if you have a good hedge blocking the noise from reaching your neighbours then you may be OK. Solar panels are so much easier and silent! My recommendation, as someone else mentioned in these comments, is that if you want to invest in a wind turbine, go shares in a massive one, the bigger the better, that is placed somewhere with good wind and feeds your electricity through the grid. That is what the grid is for, and it also provides storage and backup mechanisms, and you don't need to worry about maintenance. Of course your options then depend on which country you are in, UK has options, one was linked in the other person's comment: rippleenergy.com/coop.
