The Challenges of a Wind Turbine on Your Home
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- The truth about a wind turbine on your home. Get Surfshark VPN at surfshark.deal... and enter promo code UNDECIDED for 83% off and 3 extra months for free! We’ve seen wind turbines popping up everywhere in the last few years for grid scale renewable energy installations. Solar panels for home has been a disruptive technology, but what if we could scale down wind turbines and install them on our home? In theory it sounds like a good idea to diversify our home power generation, but does it make sense to install micro wind turbines on your home vs. just installing solar panels? Let’s see if we can come to a decision on this.
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I helped a man build and install his in Atzec, NM. It's on Mountain View Drive. We did that back in '04 or close to it
I'll tell you why we don't have solar powered cars. Elon Musk said it's stupid. No really I forget exactly what he said, but from an engineering perspective, if you want to have a regular sedan or SUV, the amount of power generation is trivial, most people don't leave their vehicles out in the scorching sun in the summer, the best time to get power into the vehicle, and it presents engineering challenges that adds complexity and cost, so I imagine Elon's comment was based on a cost analysis he probably worked out in his head one morning over a cup of coffee and decided it wasn't worth Tesla doing it. The cost it would add to the vehicle isn't worth the amount of power you would get from it, or is so trivial that the added cost would have one main effect, which is deterring people from buying the vehicle.
I want to sleep at night and the vibrations-noises of a wind turbine is a bad idea.
Car manufacturers I guess feel cars with wind turbines will not help just like solar...I still think it's in the future and should be explored
could you do a video on the benefits of Aerogel as insulation to cut down on cost heating and cooling bills?
I have a turbine on my off-grid property that complements the solar nicely. It cost me very little to install and zero maintenance cost since I did the install myself and perform the almost non existent maintenance once a year myself as well. My turbine is 1800 watts and can outperform the solar during bad weather producing as much as a kilowatt/hour of electricity on those days, witch may not sound like much but when you are off-grid it can make all the difference. The cost of the turbine was less than $1000 plus the cost of the tower and the charge controller/diversion load. The charge controller I use is about $600 and I built the diversion load myself for under $500. I constructed the tower myself and I'm not totally sure on the cost of it, but it was one of the smaller costs. There is also wire and hardware of course. Once constructed the turbine system costs me nothing more than the solar array to maintain, although eventually I will have to replace bearings but I have them on hand and they were cheap. You just need to be willing to do everything yourself. I am planning to do a video on my install this spring to post on my channel.
Off grid is the key here. For on grid apps where there is net metering, you want the most production for the dollar, and that’s solar.
A friend who is a talented electrical engineer equipped his home with wind and solar about 12 years ago. The solar system is still producing, the wind system never produced significant power and is now a curiosity in his yard.
I'd like to see a video
I'd love to see that video!
We run turbine on the boat, great for cloudy days or at night when the solar doesn't work.
How large is the tower and how do you lower and raise it for maintenance?
I building in Taiwan built a vertical wind turbine in the 28th and 29th floors of a office building, where the is a constant wind flow. The turbine provides 15% of the buildings energy needs and mostly use to power the ac units saving over 3 million a year in electrical cost. Wind technology does exist, just not as sexy as strapping big reflective panels to your home and hoping they don't get damaged. There also a wind pod shaped like a ships GPS receiver the big dome things, it has energy potential of 15kwh a day, mainly used on ships at sea to provide energy for life support systems like AC/Heat and lighting. This takes off load of the engines reducing fuel consumption. I love Matt but if you really dig deep you will find that there are a lot of practical wind turbines in used in everyday applications.
That wind turbine wall would be great. Even if there's not a lot of wind all the time, the shade it casts on a south-facing wall in a hot climate like Phoenix would also lower energy needs by shading the wall thereby reducing heat penetration and lowering cooling needs. It's a two-for-one deal there. Plus it can be made to look architecturally pleasing.
Here in the UK residential wind turbines aren't really feasible for anyone who doesn't have a ton of land. However there are initiatives for shared-ownership wind farms where individuals buy capital to fund the installation of a multi-MW wind farm and then receive a percentage of the generation for the lifetime of the project. It's an idea that's gathering momentum as it doesn't tie you to one property either
11:14 take this roof-turbine and install it on each of the edges of buildings vertically. Walls are usually bigger "sails" than roofs and such application works better with different wind azimuths.
There's only one thing that burns my buns about large wind turbines is that burying the blades is a preferred method of disposal here in they USA. In Europe I see that grinding the blades to make the debris into building material is somewhat mandatory which would be much less polluting and better suited for the environment.
Installations are much cheaper here in Australia, average 5.5kw solar system installed, is frequently advertised on tv here for 4000 dollars, check it out if curious, interested In your program,
Doing a good job mate, keep up the good work.
Ridge blade seems like a solid win. But yeah it's a location based tech. Once costs come down and you live somewhere with steady wind (the plains, the coast, etc) it would be silly not to use it. Also tall urban structures should have them by default. So, soon, but not quite yet. Solar panels need to up their game tbh..there are much more efficient designs available that we aren't getting because manufacturers don't want to retool production. So sick and tired of tech companies creating artificial plateaus in order to maximize profit. (Sure they deserve profit, just not the wringing blood from a stone level).
Great stuff to hear from people who's actually shared the experience in this technology. But don't let 'them' know too much about it or they'll take that too.
I wonder which if any, would be the most safe for wildlife. I expect some of them (the roof ridge mounted one) will just mince birds up all the time.
That would be be a major factor in my decision making.
I live off grid, and i have 3,1 kW of solar, and planing to add 2 kw of wind, the turbine i'm looking at is vertikal, and has closed bearings, only maintenens i can do is wash it from time to time, if i want, but my solar panels, they need washing, ice scraping and removel of snow, i live ind Denmark, not much sun in winter, but plenty of wind, and the opposit in summer.
I was thinking of one of the really cheap 100w Chinese turbines, to plug into a big Bluetti when it's not sunny.
A bunch of people say they bought one of those, but only got 10w out of it. Others have said, though, that running one with no load damages the internals... and what's the first thing a noob does with their new turbine? Takes it outside, holding it in their hand, and watches it spin... and now it's broken!
I've seen another video from somebody who bought a 500w dirt cheap one from China, but installed it properly and has been getting 500w from it for years. So I suppose if you're lucky and know what you are doing, you can do well with a cheapie.
I also discovered (after more research than I should have done) the concept of "dump loads". A turbine with no load on it will damage the turbine, so once the battery bank is charged, the charging will cut off and damage the turbine, so wind charge controllers, unlike solar charge controllers, switch over to a "dump load". This is usually some power-hungry, ineffcient device like a resistive water heater in a big tank. Free hot water!
So, in the end, I'm going to be running that big Bluetti on a heath robinson collection of VERY-less-than-optimally-placed 100w flex panels, electrical tape and garden poles. It'll probably never "pay for itself", and the 500w of panels I have space to rig up will probably struggle to put out half that most of the time... but we've all got to do our bit. And if I can boil the kettle, dry my hair and render a video on solar power, that's at least a bit saved.
This explains why my neighbor lined the top of his roof with 12” desk fans and said the power company was going to write him a check every month equal to his mortgage payment. 🤪
I have a question for you. You just talked about self-reliance. The question is how do you have self-reliance in a country that wants to control your every move? You can't have self-reliance if the government that wants to control you has all the means for control. What is your options for this situation?
My biggest worry is that the winds in my area might be to strong. I know some of the wind operators in the area say they have to shut down with the wind gets over a certain speed to protect the gearing.
Can you imagine the absolute racket a load of these would make..
I am still interested in combining solar and wind technology. Where I live, on an island in the Pacific, between a mountain and an ocean we do get nearly constant wind. We also get a lot of sunshine as we're closer to the equator. But, we have periods of rain that can last three or four weeks at a stretch. I'm also looking at the long term, possible disaster scenario. I'm not one of those people stockpiling, canning their own vegetables and smoking their own jerky in preparation for Armageddon. But I am a realist. The super volcano may not erupt in my lifetime, but it may do so in my grandkids or great grandkids lifetime. If volcanic ash fills the air and blocks the sun, and there's a disruption of supplies and fuel coming from the mainland, I'd like to leave them a legacy of being able to power their homes and their electric cars. Power for sun lamps to grow food to feed themselves, and any animals they may have. Or, you know, just have cleaner air to breathe.
Wind turbines don't interfere with solar for the most part, right? Por que no los dos? Especially for those of us in the PNW
The Conical, Wind Wall and Ridge systems seem to have some potential. The only downside to the Ridge is, I know I would hear that inside my house, especially if it started to wear the bearings over time. It will be interesting to see how development drives down the costs of the Wind Wall and Conical types. I live in an area that gets decent winds all the time.
I hate the wind turbine craze, my country have been shutting down clean and stable nuclear power and keep installing wind turbines that cant deliver stable enough power to the grid without us burning a ton of oil to have a buffert to balance the demands.
The argument that wind turbines are clean is insane to me due to all the maintenance, enviromental damage durin installation and use and the turbines in the oceans poison the water overtime with the sacrificial alloys that we have to use.
The turbines and gearboxes needs to be replaced in 5-10 years and the blades cant be recycled (some say they can, but there is no efficient way to recycle them yet)
Payoff times completely, utterly miss the point. It's like renting vs. owning a home: renting is just burning money that you'll never see again, whereas owning builds equity and is more of an investment and can be considered similar to just putting that money into a savings account. Then there is the autonomy of being able to do whatever you want to change/upgrade your own home which you can't do with a rental property. When it comes to home solar/wind/whatever, it's not about the cost, it's about the benefit. It's about knowing that no matter what happens, you'll have power. The grid can be completely destroyed and you'll be fine. It can go down for 5 minutes, and your Superbowl or whatever remains uninterrupted. You have complete autonomy. But the bottom line is that you will never again be at the mercy of the power company. Whatever the price of your system, that's all you will ever pay, the cost won't vary and it very specifically won't go up. If you are on a tight budget, even if you finance the system you will always know exactly what your monthly payment is and you will never have to guess or be unpleasantly surprised. And eventually that payment will end and it will all be gravy from there on out.
Sure, sometimes things go wrong and it's possible you will end up with an unexpected repair bill at some point, but that's life. One thing that *is* certain is that if you remain dependent on power companies you *WILL* get ripped off and the cost will keep going up. And as I said above, the cost of repairing something you own that eliminates other bills and makes you independent is still better than just throwing money away that you will never see again.
Every (always anecdotal, never contextual) argument I've seen about small (or large, for that matter) wind turbines sitting idle boils down to complete cluelessness on the part of the owner and everyone who describes the situation. If it breaks down and remains that way, you've got nobody to blame but yourself. If it is poorly placed, then move it! Put in on a higher tower, move it horizontally if something is in the way, do whatever it takes to make it work. Just giving up without giving it an honest effort is the epitome of stupid. It's also incredibly dishonest to say that it's the fault of the technology when it's your own fault for not doing your homework, not understanding how it works, and not giving it the best chance to work.
There is also the problem that "early adopters" desperately want the capability but no companies have put any significant resources into making small wind turbines durable or effective. So we're left with companies putting out crappy products just to make a fast buck and there are very few if any good options out there. As long as there's so much FUD being perpetuated regarding small wind turbines, there will never be enough demand for reputable companies to bring any resources to bear on that particular problem. There just isn't enough money in it. Just like EVs, we're still waiting for a Tesla to disrupt this particular market with a single dwelling wind power system that is affordable, reliable and has decent performance.
The other aspect is that if you already have solar, you don't need a wind system to fulfill all your power needs. And you don't actually need it to run all night, either. What you really need is for it to work during cloudy and stormy days when solar doesn't do much (during a rainstorm your solar panels won't do much but a wind turbine is likely to be at its best) and if possible give you just that little bit extra at night to keep from discharging your battery bank quite so much. Often even if the wind dies down completely at night and during the day there is wind at dusk and dawn because of the effect of the sun on thermal masses around you, and those are actually often the best times to have that little bit of boost. In the winter, when the nights are longest, having the wind power when you're cooking dinner helps get you through the night without discharging your battery so much and when you're getting up and cooking breakfast and getting ready for school or work it will get you over that last little hurdle before your solar panels start getting significant sunlight. It's about complementing your solar system, not replacing it.
And if you have ANY kind of home power generation and don't have any way to store that power for future use, you are SERIOUSLY misguided. You are *EXACTLY* what the power companies want. You are providing them with free load leveling, providing them power at very low if any cost with zero overheads or maintenance costs (no infrastructure, fuel or employees), and reducing their costs (=increasing their profits) across the board, all the while yourself remaining tethered to and dependent on them.
the problem with this is that solar panels go bad quickly and they are not cheap to replace, wind turbines you can use everyday recycled bottles and motors that you can get free or buy super cheap. solar panels are not cost effective. turbines do not cost 8k, that is ridiculous. you keep pitching solar, but you dont tell folks how much they cost after they get burnt out very quickly if they get hours of direct sunlight, and that even if you get that much sun for it to even pull in enough electricity. I've built homemade turbines for cheap out of free motors people throw out or i can get it cheap on ebay and use recycled bottles to make the blades and generate more electricity to keep my batteries charge as they discharge to power my house than a solar, even on a no sun or cloudy day lol.
I like that the Ridge-Blade can be installed right along the ridge of a roof where you likely wouldn't have any solar panels; it allows both systems to be installed in parallel.
I hope it gets thoroughly trialed out in cold climate regions subject to snowstorms and snow accumulation on roofs.
I was thinking the same thing. My house faces west and is on the side of a hill so when someone sneezes down the bottom I get a hurricane at the top. Like you say, I think the two systems would compliment each other nicely.
@@jacktoy3032
No need to test such a specific situation.
It works, or it doesn't.
Snow blocks airflow. You have to clean the snow off if it builds up and blocks airflow.
If it doesn't build up, then no blocked airflow.
Pretty sure they're out of business - their phone numbers are all defunct and their social websites are all down. Tried to fill out their form to get a quote and that was broken too.
Bird Killing !!
Having worked in the small wind industry for 12 years, selling ~4000 small wind turbines, having one in my own yard for 14 years now, I would encourage everyone to install solar and forget wind, for the reasons Matt gave here. The 3 small wind manufacturers I worked for are long ago bankrupt and the goofy designs shown in the video won’t produce hardly any energy but will cost a lot. Large, utility wind makes sense because they’re hundreds of feet in the air with massive rotors.
I'm not an engineer, but just from a simplicity standpoint, solar doesn't have any moving parts, wind does. That alone seems like a good enough reason to consider solar over wind for small installations.
The resistance of wires reduces the power supply from grid scale wind generators, so i wonder if these power loss calculations were used to decide the argument.
@@jadeskye6755 yes, i agree max out your site for solar before considering solar. i thought the roof top horizontal concept looked very interesting.
Stil, micro wind doesn’t use extra land. If energy use is close to where it’s produced, you save the heat losses from resistance in the wires. Also, works at lower wind speeds. Probably could edge out solar in winter months.
@@jadeskye6755 Also imagine how annoying your neighbor's old squeaky wind turbine would be. Solar is silent, which makes it a much better fit for a residential neighborhood.
I have a PIKA T701 1.7 kW wind generator from Maine that helps power my off-grid home. It’s been super efficient and reliable for over 5 years. Unfortunately GENERAC generator company bought the PIKA company and discontinued the wind generator line…but continued the battery and inverter line with their name on it. My machine is on the top of a ridge and uses a 30’ tilting tower. I sure hope someone picks up the rights to produce this beautiful-quiet-efficient machine. My system is a “hybrid” solar wind system and is 100% off grid. Winter brings helpful night and daytime wind generation. I’ve been a sustainable energy engineer for over 40 years…and will never be On-Grid. Good review!
I've been a consultant on wind and solar for ten years. Wind is not practical for 99 pct of homeowners due to the steady high winds needed to make small turbines economic. Wind makes sense at utililty scale, but at homeowner scale it's a niche application, used only in very windy places or as a supplemental source for long winter months with no sun. So basically your video is correct!
Nice! Always great when you see validation from someone actually in industry!
Have you seen any of the newer micro solutions in practice yet? I’m curious how they’ll perform in the real world over several years, but I don’t think they’ve gotten to the point that they can provide that data yet.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet the three bladed horizontal axis turbine is the most efficient design by far. There are alternate designs that address issues like noise, bird strikes, low wind generation, but their efficiencies are all worse than the standard design. it's all about life cycle cost per kwhr. in your local wind regime, at your operating height AGL.
@@shadyislandchronicles4237 I hear good things about verticle turbines as well. Though if you have constant running water on your property a small hydro generaror is better than both wind and solar.
What do you think of Semtive’s? A cousin of mine’s had great success with their’s but they also live on the unblocked very top of a large hill that’s arguably a small mountain in town. I’m curious about it in more erratic places.
@@Jokerwolf666 agreed about hydro. but you need at least a few meters of head. small vertical axis wind turbines have some advantages, but efficiency is not one of them.
Love the ridge blade design , looks like it has a future , quietness and servicing costa would need to be low for home owners. Larger buildings with pitched roofs such as public buildings may make it more cost effective along side solar
Right. All that's needed is to figure out a way to rotate the house to allow for change in wind direction :)
@@whatafellow - there is already a constant flow of air to the existing ridge vent, from sunlight heating up a roof or from panels heating up, so this additional updraft should help, as long as there is sunlight
I too favour the Ridge Blade. I'm hoping to see the technology become affordable to the point of it becoming a standard
@@sabret00the - I wonder if existing squirrel fan type wind turbines can be mounted in a horizontal fashion to build it DIY?
I agree that it looks promising on the face of it. But I wonder of the ridge blade design will attract birds, bats, and squirrels in search of a nest.
Matt, at 9:05 you didn't account for maintenance costs when calculating payback of wind. If you deduct $75 (1.5% of 5k) per year the payback period increases by over 50% increasing from 22yr to 34yr! That said, it took solar a long time to reach its current economic viability and I look forward to seeing where the winds of advancement take this technology!
I noticed this too, although he stated maintenance costs of about $160 giving an almost 90yr payback, the turbine will not last that long is you'll never break even
People have been regularly and commercially harnessing the wind for thousands of years. Solar has only really happened in the last century or so.
If we were going to see some major new wind turbine design that is more efficient at capturing the wind, I'm sure we would have seen it already.
@@tin2001 That's not a sound argument. Just look at the history of flight. The ancient Chinese tried to make kites that could carry a human, da Vinci fantasized about flying machines. People desired to fly for millennia. But nobody seemed to be able to create a machine that could successfully transport people via the air. Before the arrival of the airplane, it probably seemed impossible. But now we live in a world where we can't imagine NOT traveling by air. I think the small scale wind turbine is an inevitability as long as engineers and scientists keep working toward it.
His point actually makes sense. We just need a breakthrough in that area that will domestic wind generation more feasible
After watching a few of your videos on renewable power generation, my thought has stayed the same. We're designing buildings to be more efficient in power use, but not power generation. Is there a future where a building is designed in an unconventional way where power generation is more efficient? As in, walls and roofs that collect wind and solar, basements that collect geothermal, floors and doors that collect kinetic, etc.
It is incorrect, at least in the UK we are moving towards heat pumps, many of which use ground heat- it is NOT geothermal, as that requires drilling a few kilometres down to find a magma chamber- to both heat and cool homes. You are wasting your time to collect door kinetic energy.
We aren't really designing buildings to be more power efficient at all- these "eco houses" are unsustainable and inefficient - often with flat rooves which have very poor thermal performance- concrete constrution also thermally poor, with many points of thermal bridging. They use short lifespan materials and construction methods and often have huge windows that lack curtains, making them too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, massively increasing costs.
Modernist architecture is completely incompatible with power efficiency and green living - it is simply associated with socialism and thus a shared inspiration with eco architects.
For efficiency a house should have low surface area- ie be similar to a cube- or be terraced or semi detatched. The roof should be self cleaning and long lasting - a pitched roof will last 30 years, a flat roof is only specced for 10. it should have strong structurally rigid long lasting weather protection on the outer face in a material that will last hundreds of years- such as stone, brick, block, etc. It should have a cavity to protect from damp and add extra insulation. It should have a very insulative inner wall. Windows should be thickly curtained, to keep the heat in during the night time, or the heat out during the summer days on the sun side of the house. Radiators (or heat vents in canada) should be directly under windows to provide a stable temperature and prevent window frosting. Ceilings should be low to keep the heat closer to the occupants. All space in the property should be utilised to allow for a smaller physical property for the same space. All internal walls should be insulated too and smoke seals around the doorframes so each room can maintain a separate temperature. Heat producing appliances such as a kitchen or fire if you require one should be central and low- basements if you have them - (though logistically you do not want to take shopping down stairs and garbage up) If you are serious about being green, you would forgo both clothes dryer and dishwasher - invest in a mangle a maiden and a pair of marigolds. in terms of transport you would replace your push bike and car with an efficient moped which will produce less co2 than a cyclist. a tuk-tuk for example if you need extra space for some reason. You will have no pets. you will grow much of your own produce in your garden- which is far better than solar panels in your garden due to the carbon consumption of food production.
If you are even more serious you will build a cistern underground and collect your own water not rely on high pressure mains water.
Of course we could also all live in small apartments in big concrete block buildings like the soviet union too.
There was a system called "Wells Walls" in Australia about 40 years ago, but people were turned off by how it looked so it never took off - it involved having external louver blinds in front of glass over a blackened brick wall, with closable vents internal top and bottom. These cavities becomes a passive heater. Clever, but you house sort of looks like a shed.
Forget the neigh Sayers. This is exactly what needs to happen innovation, from the ground up. Or walls in. Or roof in or outward. Why does it not happen? People boo hoo about it, but change always makes people uneasy. When you find a place that people have abandoned, you see nature rebounding based on similar concepts to what you've mentioned here. Plenty of $$ in what you've said as well
This is the fault of architects and city rules.. also if nations would make the common sense move to nuclear power none of this empty talk would happen per nuclear is the cleanest, cheapest, safest energy source we have
Not in the US. That type of innovation will be stifled with red tape.
Thanks for the great video.
I’m wondering where you got the CO2 emissions per kWh for gas (78 g) and coal (109 g) from?
On my quick research I found numbers like 350 g CO2 for a modern gas power plant and 700-900 g CO2 for coal plants depending on brown or hard coal.
Independent source or govt. source? The govt. went through 4 years of being pushed to lie, and that's still being undone.
I also found much higher numbers in co2 per kwh
I'm guessing he used the numbers for the newest most fuel efficient plants. I know the new stuff is definitely better than 20+ year old stuff. Not clean, just cleaner
Can confirm 350 g/kWh is in the ballpark for natural gas. We run a 510 MW combined cycle block where I work. Two General Electric 7F gas turbines and a D11 steamer. When we're at full load, each of the gas turbines pulls a little more than 21 pounds of gas per second. Do the combustion stoichiometry and that's 58 pounds of CO2 out the stack. Every second. So from both gas units, over the course of one day, that's 4,990 tons (or, the weight of about 2,500 Ford F-150s). So, with our 4,990 tons of CO2 per day, generating 510 MW, we can do all the fun unit conversions and we come out with 370 g CO2 per kWh.
@@jfbachmann residual heat usage included in numbers?
2:24 The thing is, the area the blades cover doesn't affect the energy generates linear, but squared. Which means increasing the length of the blade increases the energy generated exponentially. So bigger wind turbines are way more cost effective than what you can put on your home.
Exponentially? No, it’s still a squared law. But your point is correct. Elevation is also important. You gotta go high to get away from the surface friction. And it takes money to go high. So as you say, wind is not effective at homeowner scale.
@@paulogden7417 f(x) = x² is kind of the most basic exponential function. So yes, exponential. Height is also a factor (and you have to go higher to increase blade length), but blade length makes the output grow faster.
@@InfiniteLuke that's quadratic growth. exponential would be f(x)= a^x, where a is some positive number
@@marklion315 oh, you're right 🙈 I've always put those two in the same box.
And wind is much faster further up
Thanks for another informative video.
One alternative option not considered here is community ownership of large scale wind; where as others have pointed out the payback is much better due to the larger rotors and taller base. It’s an option worth exploring in many windier areas, either to compliment Solar and make up any shortfall you may have due to limited roof area for your panels or where there are total restrictions in apartment blocks etc. In these situations clubbing together to build a co-operatively owned wind farm (and or solar farm) are great options. We have a number of regional projects in the UK, where cloudy days are common on our small island but the wind blows a lot. There is also an innovative company called Ripple energy that is using its expertise to help develop new wind farms and offer them to the public for shared ownership through a co-operative model and partnering with energy suppliers to take the costs of the energy generated off those owners bills.
Community ownership.. sound like a great Idea!
Great idea. I live in a small village located atop a hill in the Weald in Sussex. We get loads of wind from all directions and this would be ideal to power the whole village.
Dude, i've been fantasising about a roofridge windturbine for years.. awesome to see its in the works.
in the USA it may not make sense but the turbine design from "the Power Collective" shown would work very well in the UK where we get far more wind than sun , if you look at the highlands of Scotland the viability shoots up compared to the average US install
Yea, I definitely expect there to be “best regional solutions” eventually as we continue down this path.
A very informative video, thanks.
I live in a hill top in north-east Scotland where it’s windy most of the year and very windy in winter. Ironically , I look out on many wind turbines at sea and in the mountains from my house but the cost of energy here at .28 pence per kilowatt is just outrageous. I use 8000 kws per annum.
I would love to install a ridge line wind generator to supplement my solar panels , air source heat pump and soon home battery.
I just don’t have the confidence just now in finding the right product to do that.
I was very impressed by the ridge wind turbine system you showed but wonder about the aesthetics and performance.
20 years ago, solar panels were $4/Watt, and small-wind had a price advantage. Today solar panels are one-tenth their former price: 40 cents/Watt. This ranch property in the Mojave Desert came with a 10 kW grid-tie wind turbine, which pays the electric bill here. You need at least a couple acres, in a high-wind area, with no trees, buildings, or obstacles to block a strong, steady wind. That rules out 99% of homes. Also, even the best wind turbines wear out. There is really only one model, of one brand, that has proven to withstand the test of time at all, and even those have multiple "issues". I had to buy an identical turbine used, so I would have two on hand - one to run, one to rebuild. You need to hire a crane and experienced crew to swap out a turbine or do maintenance. Figure about $3-4 thousand just to pull down a turbine and fix or replace it. This model weighs over half a ton (1000 lbs) on a 120-foot tower.
I also build my own small turbines, including the generators. This is an option if you are good with fabricating, are a naturally-talented engineer, and you know what you are doing. Again, that rules out 99.99% of people.
The other "goofy" designs in the video are all total non-starters. People who are not in the industry have NO IDEA how bad these "alternative" designs are. They are completely worthless products of ignorance, period. Seriously, no matter how great they look, like that ridge-whatever, don't fall for it. Don't believe any numbers claimed for such toys. You need propellers to make good power. There is a reason all windfarm turbines look nearly identical.
Dear Matt, Thanks for your informative videos every single time! I want to point out that the g /kWh that you mentioned in the video are off compared to the numbers I know. Yup, I know this is an wikipedia link, but these are quite representative. By nature, natural gas has an emission of around 200 g/kWh. This is without the efficiency loss at a power plant, making electricity from gas in a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant of around 58% efficiency already 350 g/Kwh emission.
Please continue on making these great videos. I sure enjoy watching them ;-)
*I work as a Dutch energy consultant
Link to CO2 emissions: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_energy_sources
Gas is worse than your figures if you include fugitive emissions/leaks in the gas supply chain. At a typical industry loss rate of 3% then if you take in the 20 year CO2e impact of this you end up doubling the effective emissions.
Thank you for coming back to this topic Matt. We live in rural Missouri. There are times when it's cloudy/overcast for days in a row and we're considering supplementing our solar. I was totally unaware of the yearly maintenance. I'm now confounded about how I would do maintenance if our windmill were 65 feet (19.5 m) high!
After watching I still feel I'm not ready to take the step to wind power. I'm going to root for the ground based (edit typo: vehicles) vertical systems to become .... Everything we need.
i'm not sure about laws in missouri but i helped set up a turbine for a friend while i was staying at his place in utah, he paid ~$1200 (total) for a 2.4kw unit from thermodyne systems.
as for prices mentioned in this video, ask for some quotes and you'll likely find that you can't even find someone asking anywhere near 5k per kw without it being extremely hyped or something like a full install (likely including arranging legal stuff)
@@angrydragonslayer Thank you much!
@@ChinaChuck just a fair warning: do not expect much if you have low winds
this goes for literally any wind system
@@angrydragonslayer is he in northern Utah? and or engineering wise did it make sense? and with average 15 to 30 mph is it a good fit 9 month's out of the year?
I've been following the development of the archimedes turbine with hope for several years. Imagine every home in the neighborhood with one of those 'flowers' producing electricity. my concerns about solar are post-use pollution from toxic ingredients.
I like the idea of combining the ridgeblade wind turbine to the apex of my house roof and having solar panels on the roof too. I hope that when the residential ridgeblade is available it will be able to coexist with solar and make homes much more self reliant. Combining that with a home battery and an EV, it makes it much easier for travel costs and home heating / electrical use to be factored into the purchase price of the panels and turbines, making it much more cost efficient.
I would be interested to see what other mini wind turbines are actually available as a lot in this video are concept/ not widely available.
If you are both powering a car and a home, you will need a lot of solar. You could also reduce your heating/cooling energy use with a geothermal system and solar water heating.
RidgeBlade is in receivership.
In my view small-scale wind power will never be able to compete with solar power simply because of the lower energy-density of wind compared to sunlight. Air moving at 4 m/s has a kinetic energy of less than 10 J/m^3. This means a hypothetical technology that can extract 100% of this energy receives about 40 W/m^2. Theoretically, the maximum efficiency of wind turbines (the Betz Limit) is about 59%, but in practice wind turbines achieve at most 45%. That leaves less than 20 W/m^2 of energy production. This compares poorly to PV panels. For example the panels on my roof (which is far from optimal) produce about double that.
So for a comparable amount of power you need an installation that is:
1. Larger
2. More complicated
3. Maintenance intensive
4. More fragile
The advantage wind has is that wind energy increases with the cube of wind speed, and system-losses decrease with larger turbines. This is why large turbines in windy places (e.g. at sea) make so much sense. Solar power, in contrast, is strictly linear: You want double the power, you need twice as many panels. So basically the physics of wind turbines favors large turbines, while the physics of solar places no penalty on smaller installations.
very well said, thanks
I'm not that good at physics so I won't even begin to question your math, but : 4m/s is very slow wind, basically the minimum wind speed to get any kind of power out of most wind turbines.. Also, you're saying your solar panels produce about double energy/m^2 .. At what times of day ? How sunny is it where you live ? There's a great many factors that go into this..
A small wind turbine to support solar seems like a good idea, especially if you're going off-grid or otherwise battery supported, it would help to increase the life of the batteries.
it also makes sense depending on your location
It's interesting that the conditions which make solar work less effectively usually mean wind is better. Rain, cloudy weather and night time usually mean high winds.
At least where I live. Good to have more options.
@@utubeape ruclips.net/video/SH3KQoZvafM/видео.html
@@ralphwarom2514 ruclips.net/video/SH3KQoZvafM/видео.html
Wind could make sense in high rise buildings without a lot of roofspace for solar compared to the number of residences. Ideally the building could be designed to catch wind energie from the drawing board.
This is a good idea, but the real issue with renewables isn't the production, it's intermittency. We in the Netherlands are literally putting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of solar-PV into the ground (disposal) because the grid cannot sustain it.
We need storage and an upgrade of the power-grid before thinking of new renewable energy sources. For this, we need government investments.
ruclips.net/video/NH4_2PFTzIY/видео.html
Apparently, some finnish folks are onto that, converting excess from solar into heat which is applied to underground sand pits, and used as heat batteries. They even propose it as a yearly cycle, used heat accumulated during summer through all the winter.
I just stumbled into it today, and thought "This should be on Matt's channel".
And there's at least one concentrated thermosolar project, called Gemasolar, which accumulates heat trough the day, and at night uses that heat to move a turbine to produce constant power.
Your electricity company just needs to pay customers who provide electricity when the grid needs it. They will build out their own distributed battery system in homes, business and electric cars that can plug back into the grid when needed.
Are you talking about wasting the excess electricity or actually removing working panels that are already installed? That seems crazy to do. You can just disconnect them from the grid when there is excess and there are always some times when the power is useful.
Go nuclear =)
If you could make a dream, self sufficient home on 1 acre of land, what systems would you want? i.e. Roof of solars, Green House with aquaponics, a windmill/windfall for more power and well pumping, with a geothermal for heating.
Mine would use solar thermal water-heating and sterling- engine electricity, an ice reservoir for literally storing cold at night, rain-capture water-storage for pressure and any task needing water just short of potable, and airspace allowing, an aerostat parafoil to catch the wind and turn propeller-generators for more power, with pumped water energy storage.
That depends largely on where you live.
There is no one-fits-all solution to this question.
@@thorndelwyn6528 I just know what I'd go for- stuff I could more easily design and maintain if needed
@@thorndelwyn6528 right?! I shoulda added that. A Fijord vs Woods vs Desert and so on.
I was hoping for a small ~1kW turbine that would be used to charge a storage battery similar to a Powerwall. Instantaneous power would be sourced from the grid or battery and the turbine would just provide a charging current. We are up at 57° North and for a lot of the year the weather conditions (Scotland - cloudy, windy) and limited sunlight hours mean solar just isn't as useful for us. Unfortunately, it looks like the technology isn't quite there yet for small turbines. Hopefully the products you highlighted will continue to be developed and put into full scale production over the next few years. Great video, thanks.
The thing here is physics - small turbines just cannot harvest a lot of power, but are still complex products. That's why the bigger the turbine, the better the economics look for it because it can provide a lot more power - making the turbine blades 2x longer gets you 4x the area that power can be harvested from meaning the turbine power grows 4x.
Considering you are in Scotland and it is pretty damn windy out there and winds are pretty stable on average, having a comunual big wind turbine owned cooperatively can be the difference between payback period being 22 years like in the video for not a lot of power produced to having like a 5 year payback period and producing so much power that you gonna have to sell a lot to the grid. The downside is the required investment upfront, sadly.
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The wind panel at 12:33 while it might not be that efficient, if positioned to block the sun on your home, could help reduce cooling cost. Not sure if it would justify the cost over just planting tree's or tall shrubs though.
Solar panels also shade your home ;)
I thought about that too, but the moving patterns of light you'd get from the blades could get annoying pretty fast, I'm afraid.
What a brilliant video, I loved this and found the information fascinating. Its such a shame that domestic wind applications don't make sense for us right now in urban environments. Solar looks to be the way to go. I was recently quoted £6300 (around $8220) for a 14 panel solar installation (about 5kw) with no VAT, so solar in the UK is far cheaper than across the pond! Thanks for this, I really appreciate your effort.
Yes, UK solar install is far cheaper than USA but what are your average electricity costs there, in the UK? Just curious
@@alals6794 2-4x higher than in the states
This was really informative! I recently moved closer to the coast and it's more windy, and I already have solar, so I was wondering about the state of small home wind turbines. Would you consider doing a video on solar hot water, for domestic hot water or even space heating? I'd love to see a comprehensive video on where that stands today, it seems to be less popular than a decade ago, and that surprises me with how much more energy can be thermally collected from the sun vs PV panels. Maybe PV combined with the latest heat pump tech is a better way to go now in terms of simplicity, maintenance free, and efficiency?
I’m not positive, but I think that heat pump efficiency has progressed so much that many people don’t want the cons that can come with those other solutions anymore. That may be why you feel like you don’t hear about it as much these days.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet I was about to say the same. Rooflines have limited space for solar panels, and it often makes more sense to use that space for PV instead of heat. geothermal heaters plus water heater systems are advertised a lot (or use to be... now that I think on it, I haven't heard an ad about that in a while)... I would assume you can do the same with 'normal' heat pumps as well.
In India, Solar Water Heaters are very common. With a 200Ltr storage we get enough hotwater even in winter /rainy season when there is not much direct sunshine. There are 2 types: Evacuated Glass Tube based and Copper Plate based. Glass tube performs the best. Should work in most of the southern US.
I endorse what @Anand Vaidya has mentioned. The ROI starts from day 1 itself. No need for heat pumps, I have looped the supply through a standby heater, such that constant hot water is available 24/7. (Return on Investment)
I imagine that when utilisation of solar goes down (cloudy/night) then it would often go up for wind. Utilisation of both sources is a major issue. Batteries are still small and expensive so having two sources of energy complimenting each other sounds like a good deal. Looking forward to some of the new techs (ps. I live in a windy area close to the sea)
Grid scale wind and community owned wind is the way to go if you want wind power
Check out sirocco energy - they have a new design for a turbine that supposedly
Produces significantly more power and less noise with minimal maintenance and low startup cost. They will be releasing them this year so may want to wait until the first testimonials drop before you spring a few thousand for it
I think you need a triad to form a robust off/on grid. You need solar, wind, the utility grid and/or a backup gasoline or diesel generator. My ideal system would be solar 50%-60% of the energy to charge the batteries, wind 10-20%, and the generator or utility grid 30%.=40%. The solar panels/wind turbine/electric grid/generator would charge batteries and be capable of powering all critical electrical devices even in the event of a prolonged power outage, or completely off grid.
With new panels you can still generate a decent amount on a cloudy day as long some light hits them. Battery storage costs on average 800-1000$ per kWh. So not sure if a turbine is worth all the hassle.
Again,Very knowledgeable and well explained video. Will u make similar kinda video on concentrated solar thermal vs solar PV for the residential/small scale use? Combination of solar thermal and Stirling engine seems very promising, & have some clear advantages over a pv like low initial cost, higher efficiency and thermal storage for night usage.
I could see a wind system as more practical in cold weather: On a typical winter day solar is decreased (assuming you can even keep snow free), and heat loss from a home is proportional to wind speed. Reduced foliage on local trees would also help.
My main concern would be accessing the turbine for maintenance, having the room to drop it down to ground level is a big plus.
@Merfax Yeah, I would need both solar AND wind here in Northern Illinois, if I want to be completely off grid. Some of my neighbors have installed a number of solar panels on their roofs over the past 2 years, and I was very disappointed to discover that they do not have a heating feature to melt off snow. If I went solar only, I would have to keep them out in my yard at an accessible height, so I could brush the snow off during the Winter.
@@crazyfvck There are icing issues with wind power in snow, and the heating often costs more than the solar is worth. In cold climates renewables at the home scale is quite tricky- carbon neutral wood burning/gasifier is often a much better option. Fine environmental dust is also an issue with solar, so keeping them washed is important, like you say some way to clean them is good.
have you considered 'night time', which I guess could be considered colder weather... or also during cloudy days. Interesting how so many people dismiss the complimentary effect of wind power... forgetting how many decades of research have promoted solar over wind for residential application
@@carbon1255 turbines in Greenland a tartic
What about vertical turbines
I am "Undecided" about solar based on 1. China makes the majority of solar panels, 2. The chemicals and minerals needed to make the panel are horribly polluting and toxic.
Please look into this and perhaps do a video on this subject.
Thank you.
I imagine it might be a better option for tall buildings, 5 or 6 stories or more, with less roof area for solar, but very exposed to wind than for individual homes
Would definitely be interesting to study that at some point.
Someone years ago found helical vertical turbines mounted on the edges of a skyscraper roof would capture not only direct wind, but also the updrafts from wind hitting the building itself...
So yes, it can be an option for tall buildings. But the output will still be very low in comparison to the power usage of the building, and the payoff time is still going to be roughly the same (IE decades).
So your proposition is to instead just place any old windpower plant on a building? This can 100% be done and requires 0 new tech or RnD. With cash you could take this idea to market in like a month's time.
That is an interesting thought! What future technology innovation are you most excited about?
As always great info. A friend in a remote cabin needed some power. I built a small solar panel that incorporated small squirrel cage fans on top connected to a generator, munted on tp of the 4 solar panels. Beneath the panels I looped black poly pipe for passive hot water and heating. As small as it was/is it worked. Thanks. Don
I'm interested in the impacts of snow and -30C weather on domestic solar panels and wind installations considering that those are our conditions for half the year where I live
Great question! Would also be interested in understanding the temperature impact on solar panels. What future technology innovation are you most excited about?
@@FUTUREDTECH Solar panels like it cold. Here in Southern England a cool clear windy day in March is almost as good as a warm still day in June or July . You just need something to poke the snow off (hardly any snow here) in the winter and you are all set.
@@rogerphelps9939 Good to know! Yeah snow-covered panels won't really work :P
Y'all need to go back to 1970 and take a subscription to Mother Earth News.
I quite like the idea of the Ridgeblade wind turbine, but I'm wondering if a similar system could be installed _within_ the roof space.
If you have a tiled roof and installed an inner roof, then the existing outer roof tiles could be refitted to act as a diffuser. The entire roof sides now act as an air intake / exhaust, with the gap between the roof layers now acting as a huge duct, carrying air into the Ridgeblade at practically the same angle, no matter which way the wind was blowing against the outer roof. I'm thinking that with some clever sizing of the duct to accelerate the airflow and generate more of a pressure difference, you may not need so many Ridgeblade units.
The inside roof layer would have to act as your rain barrier, so you'd have to install a drainage system to mitigate that, but it could be done. You'd still have some inner roof space for storage, perhaps for a battery pack to store energy when you aren't at home or the demand isn't as high? Also, easy access for maintenance, just pop into your loft even if it's raining outside.
This option might work with plenty of sound insulation which would double as thermal insulation.
Another option might be a small "steeple" on the roof to capture wind from any direction and focus it onto a small turbine.
Something that can be built into new houses to constantly trickle in energy at nightime and during winter.
Matt, thank you for this video - this is an area that we definitely need to explore. There are some unexpected applications - like a row of vertical axis turbines on top of a traffic barrier. The traffic going by in both directions can get them all spinning.
An interesting aspect of vertical axis turbines - when they are place closely together, they actually benefit from the turbulence of the other turbines around them. With horizontal turbines, if they are too close together, they lower the overall output, because the turbulence prevents the downwind units from working as well.
i remember i spent hours researched VAWT on many forums, most of them were focused on DIY
i never tried IRL bc i didn't have the means or the money to start a project myself
"The traffic going by in both directions can get them all spinning."
So it's powered by the traffic...
Yeah, it's an outrageously inefficient petrol generator.
@@godfreypoon5148 If the traffic is there anyway - then its free, essentially.
@@NeilBlanchard Oversimplified explanation: The wind is caused by the air getting out of the way of the cars. The turbines work by harnessing this air flow, i.e. they make it harder for the air to get out of the way of the cars. So the cars have to work harder to push through the air.
But it's worse than that - because the energy is transferred though such an indirect process, it is an incredibly inefficient transfer. Apparently there is something like a 20-fold loss in the transfer and this makes the overall CO2 impact several orders of magnitude worse than coal power.
It gets even worse - because the extra fuel consumption is spread out over every car that passes, no-one is ever going to be able to notice. But the impact is still there, it has just been made inconspicuous. The situation has been made much, much worse, but because it's hard to see the impact everyone will think it's great.
Bottom line is that there is no free lunch.
That's a consequence of the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy).
@@godfreypoon5148 You're over thinking it. This doesn't add drag - it is taking energy that is wasted - a typical car for every mile has to push 4.5 TONS of air out of the way. And once that air is moving, getting some of that energy back - IS A GOOD THING.
And we need to make all the cars electric, anyway.
Could you do a video on small scale hydro power for ocean side or river/creek side properties? I think that could be more cost effective because of the higher energy density that water has with respect to wind. Although it's rare to see it because of the location restrictions.
Matt could you link to the info that helped you determine the grams of Co2 per KwH for the power sources? I've always wanted your videos to have better quotation on your sources cause I'd like to seek them out
Yes! Yes! Me too! So hard to get a complete answer on net carbon cost of the various energy generation strategies.
ENERGY AUDIT --- BTU in (to produce, maintain, operate, and decommission/repurpose/recycle the generating installation) vs BTU out (what the installation generates over its lifetime).
CARBON AUDIT --- Total carbon released to produce, maintain, operate, and decommission/repurpose/recycle the "green" generating installation vs that released by production, maintenance, operation, and decommissioning of fossil fuel burning ones.
@@miaokuancha2447 The energy audit I think is primarily what the LCOE calculation considers when discussing cost per Kw/hr -- Carbon audit idk
@@cooper1507 Thank you! As far as I can tell, the LCOE calculations I have seen measure the costs in dollars -- not in BTU / Kwh, and not in carbon or climate impact. (But my sources are not very deep, so if anyone has better info, I welcome with open arms!!)
Measuring cost in terms of dollars invested vs dollars returned is what has shaped the extractive and cost-externalizing energy paradigms that have brought us to the climate catastrophes displacing and killing people in sacrifice zones around the world. Even measuring dollars invested vs reduction of carbon emitted by operating strategy A vs operating strategy B misses a great deal of the actual carbon (and therefore climate) costs incurred.
Living bodies have a built-in audit: if we do not balance nutrition to need, the body sickens, weakens, and dies. Our planet is showing us this audit in all of the disruptions of fire and water and temperature, and what lives and what dies and where. If we can turn our measurements and accounting to auditing the climate-critical metrics directly, rather than filtering them through financial metrics, I feel we will be better able to make choices for life instead of death. Or at very least, know the real cost.
Could you please convert the cult units into American units? Thanks.
I'd like to have one that looks like a smaller version of the old water pump windmills, that would look like a nice lawn ornament while producing electricity. I've seen them put together by do it yourself-ers, with great results. Seems to me the smart thing is to get away from mass produced power and unreliable grids. No one can shut off your power if you're not on thier grid.
To-the-point and credible, as always. Matt Ferrell is likely the best and most "well-rounded" RUclips technical expert. Your ability to explain a wide range of challenging scientific topics is unsurpassed.
Thank you for the interesting videos, Matt. It would be very interesting to hear about the combination of solar panels and a gravity storage tower for a private house or cooperative. Do such solutions even exist for small scales?
We have the means to quite easily generate the energy now but storing it in a good way, now that's interesting!
It would be an interesting video to examine wind turbines applied to a dense, urban environment that has more shadows on buildings (decreasing solar power generation), but can produce "wind canyons".
Great call out! What future technology innovation are you most excited about?
Downtown Chicago
*All practical tests show that small wind turbines hardly generate any electricity! And only at very high costs!*
Because there is hardly any wind close to the ground. It is also extremely gusty, which usually shortens the service life.
Only if you need to be self-sufficient from the power grid, you should buy a small wind turbine for the winter.
*With solar modules, on the other hand, reliably generate electricity for 25 years at approx. 3-10 cent/kWh!
Its not about comparing the cost and production of solar panels and wind turbines, where solar obviously has advantage. The advantage of the wind turbine, is that you can produce power and run your house (like mine which is offgrid), even during windy nights, and winter sunless nights. Especially when you run your house on batteries! So, wind turbines, are a big advantage only for offgrid living. My turbine is small, but still can support my refrigarator alone, and give some juice to my batteries when sun is not there...
I'm purely solar at this point with battery back up, but the idea of having something generating electricity when the sun is down definitely appeals to me. Been thinking about small scale vertical axis for some time now. That roof mounted system looks like it could be game changing, along with the wind wall. If you think about it, you don't really need to generate a ton of electricity at night, so having even a small windmill can help decrease your storage/battery capacity while keeping the lights on.
A small vertical axis mounted on the roof knock should also be more efficient. The classic horizontal ones seems bad for private use due to noise.
Only through continued development and testing can we see meaningful results. Your video of the various Wind Generators was fascinating and thought provoking. Great job. It appear to me that ridge top wind power generation could be the most attractive as well as effective. With Solar Panels do we have facilities to recycle or dispose of the ones that have ended their useful life cycle? I personally am in favor of 'at location' power generation for every home and business. We need to preserve farm land for food and livestock production. An army indeed marches on its stomach; so does civilizations. Wind and water in my opinion are by far the most effective and sustainable power solutions unless we produce enough methane from animal and human manure.
A few items that you missed or didn't specify enough on with both applications. First off, both applications can be significantly cheaper if doing a DIY setup. You can get 1KW of power from either application for around $1000, with solar slightly cheaper. Second, wind power is heavily reliant on constant higher wind speeds, which most houses simply don't have. Grid Wind Turbines are both in high wind areas and high off the ground, making them much more useful. And third, when wind speed is good or easily accessible, it is FAR, FAR better than solar at that point.
The big downside for solar is that all of the power comes within an 8 hour period or less. If your home plugs up to the grid, then it isn't a big deal as you can just sell that power back. But if you are trying to go off-grid or your a grid operator, you either need to capture that energy or it's wasted. This means batteries and a lot of them. With your example of 1KW of solar, you would need nearly 4kwh of batteries to support it. Wind is more constant, so you only need a small battery to offset when the wind dips or you use more power at that moment than the wind is generating. Still, most homes simply won't be able to get enough constant wind energy to be worth it.
On a side note, we really need to start building out many more grid scale battery systems. When power needs are too high, grids currently ramp up peaker plants that are horrible. Yet during lower demand times, efficient power plants and renewables all either ramp down production or have their extra energy curtailed. Complete waste. And you don't need several days of extra power either. Just 4 hours of backup is more than enough.
I completely forgot about the battery issue, if you gotta need a large battery bank to be able to handle the wind fluctuations then for a regular home isn't worth it.
@@makatron You still need a decent size battery bank for wind power, but not as much as you need for solar. You mostly need batteries to cover peak power demand and daytime usage.
The sad thing is that wind and solar compliment each other extremely well. A large amount of power is needed when the sun is out, so that solar energy can go straight the home usage while charging the batteries for evening use. Wind can supplement the batteries during evening times when usage is higher than solar input. And then wind can cover nighttime power needs while recharge the batteries to cover early morning. With that setup, you only need a small bank of LFP batteries to cover evening hours (fluctuations and morning are too small in comparison).
@@anthonypelchat sometimes I wish I was actually rich enough to get off grid
@@makatron lol. Agreed, though sometimes it seems like it's easier if you're not rich. If you're rich, you buy a bunch of crap you don't need that uses a ton of power. If you can avoid those, you then need less solar/wind, less batteries, and smaller inverters.
I'm actually trying to plan something out for my household. We cannot do so at current usage levels. But I might be able to go mostly off-grid if I only move the 110v connections and leave the large 220v items on grid (central ac and dryer mainly). Slowly convert the house to heat pumps instead of central ac/heat. Move any additional 220v it's over well after, or go to a lower power solution.
@@anthonypelchat where I live we get almost 7 hours of avg peak sunlight so in the long run my plan is to put 12 kw pv system in half my flat roof that could even offset the cost of me having the AC running constantly.
I don't understand the case for home wind turbines. At least in theory home solar makes sense because it's a way to collect solar without taking up useful land (eg land which might be used to farm) and you keep about the same efficiency. But it's relatively easy to colocate wind and farming uses and home wind power is much less efficient than large scale.
So why buy a wind turbine for your home instead of investing in a wind turbine company?
There is one more advantage to Solar Panels in the US Southwest areas: Air conditioning requirements are lower due to the shade produced by the Solar Arrays. This reduces Power Consumption significantly on warm days, as well as reducing wear on the AC, filters, etc.
Great point. People often forget about the cooling effect that they have!
I'm still interested in wind. I intend to eventually move to Ireland, and all of my Irish friends and relatives tell me that it's very windy there. So I think a combo of wind and solar would make sense.
Regardless of where I end up, I plan on getting a few of those Boxabls. They're supposedly energy efficient, so that will be helpful if even by a little. I was hoping something comes from Powerpod, but haven't seen much else from them lately.
I may be optimistic, but I am going to do my best to live in a home that can be self-sufficient without sacrificing too much convenience.
You might want to keep an eye on VERTOGEN. It's a V.A.W.T. by a U.K. co. They have videos on RUclips.
That is an interesting! What future technology innovation are you most excited about?
@@stevetennispro Cheers for that!
THERE YOU GO !!!!!!! HOW FAST CAN YOU GET YOUR FUCKING ASS OUT OF THE USA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love how you explore not only the standard horizontal blade systems, but the many alternatives, both current and upcoming. It gives me great hope for wind power's continued and future success.
Same here! What future technology innovation are you most excited about?
@@FUTUREDTECH Medium term: micro-fission powerplants. Not actually micro, but small enough to fit in a shipping container, and self-contained. Long term: Programmed-molecular solar thermal (MOST), Solid State Wind, and Lattice Confinement Fusion.
IF YOUR 'ALWAys' wind is from 1 direction this would work .. me? developed a floating barrel will take anything from any direction
A wind anything is excellent regardless!, in the winter the coldest days ARE windy! So proper selection and configuration means an excellent solution for houses! PERIOD!, no conversation due to laws of physics!
Thanks! That's the exact video I was looking for, and it simply answered all my questions.
At the first glance, a small wind turbine sounds like a perfect solution for a solar-powered house in my region, where it's often cloudy and during the winter solar panels are dead, covered by snow. But the problems and costs that such a turbine brings are making all this so unprofitable, that there is no surprise you don't see individual wind turbines around...
Nice one and tracking for better choices. Thank you so much.
One factor that could be major is orientation. Sun prefers a north/south orientation of the roof in most of North America to optimize sun angles on the panels. Something like the ridgeblade would ideally be placed on an east west roof to take advantage of prevailing winds. So if ridgeblade can be on par with solar cost wise, then it becomes an attractive option based on your roof orientation
Here in Central TX, the wind is almost always southerly in summer and north in winter. With that said, it seems like we get endless sunny days here.
This makes so much sense. I have experimented with horizontal drum fans for energy generation and found this visually attractive over propeller fans including and the ease of protecting the fan drum with damper blades at high wind velocity's. The idea came to me some years ago from my heating and ventilation back ground.
I have been pondering wind and solar power for decades now. Choose to believe me or not but I am in my mid 70's now.and I have been reminded by this types of articles that I've been thinking about this off and one sime my 20's. Pondering but not having the money to make the invstment over my lifetime and other things to spend income on.
Ridgeblade sounds fine but still doesn't seem as effective as it could be due to effects of the slope of roof, and home orientation to wind sources that aren't from the same consistent direction.
But one thing I have thought about application-wise that metropolises or even business just haven't thought about is something like a ridgeblade setup mounted on the four corners of tall buildings. Think of a city like Chicago having something like the ridgeblade mounted on any of the tall structures in Chicago. At those elevations, the wind would be almost constant. Each corner of the building would be a source of power no matter which way the wind would blow, each corner constantly generating electricity. With the wind velocities at those altitudes, the fan cage would not have to be that significant in size so aesthetics would not be affected that much. Build the fan cages in interconnectable modules in floor sizes so they could just be stacked as many as needed.
Why, after all this time, hasn't anyone thought of doing something like that. Due to the available wind, efficiencies would not be as impactful. Efficiency, size, heights, orientations, cost per generated watt have all affected home installations and independent home, "off-grid" applications, but if a power generating company wiould look at this type of structure, I think that company and any company on which it would be installed would look very favorably in the marketplace for a clean energy source.
Just thought I would put the concept out there for consideration and other monds to think about.
Thanks for your video. Sorry you live in Massachusetts! Here in Arizona we meet many men on their way to South America because of your fictitious income crazy divorce laws. Please stop doing this to you men! Your southern flow almost equals the northern flow from the border. Honestly what a waste of an American asset. You’re a Massachusetts man so I’ll see you passing through soon.
What about the whole life cycle of those? The rare earths materials needed for solar panels and how they're recycled or not after usage versus the wind turbine materials ? Do you have any info or sources about that aspect ? Thanks for your work, always food for thought 😉
Great video as always Matt. I think this really highlights how broken energy pricing is. Carbon emissions are basically free to the emitter, but massively expensive for society as a whole. In any sane world, this would be priced-in for the emitter as a carbon tax, forcing them to pay the real, actual cost of every watt they consume. The fact that climate impact is *not* priced-in to grid power amounts to a massive national coal subsidy; you pay for the energy, someone else will pay to build a sea wall in Manhattan. Small-scale wind can't compete with subsidized coal, but it might compete with unsubsidized coal.
Agree. Consider though that all materials have an embedded CO2 production cost, which is currently not paid by the consumer (nor producer of course). If your goal with a local wind turbine is to cut down on CO2 production, the calculation becomes very difficult, because that wind turbine required energy to dig, refine the materials, produce, assemble and transport etc. There isn't any easy way to measure just how much energy that all used, but we can confidently assume (at the moment) that it was all done with fossil fuels - and the larger the device, the more CO2 was released in creating it. My guess is that whatever the financial payback period is, you should double it to account for the original carbon cost (utility scale production of power is nearly always MUCH less carbon intensive than local production).
And what would that tax even do?
There is no method for extraction of carbon that’s viable, so those dollars would do what exactly? Funnel more money to an ineffective federal government to waste?
I don’t think a carbon tax is a good idea at all.
@@JohnBrowningsGhost well then you're an idiot. Try googling "how a carbon tax works" I'm not replying here again
Absolutely not; why should individuals pay extra tax for no reason? It is not our fault gov refuses to allow widespread nuclear power plants (the safest, cleanest, cheapest power source)... emissions from transportation is only 15% of all emissions thus a non issue, why should ppl pay extra fees over nothing? Also every EV and renewable company is only focused on profit margins not cost effective solutions; instead of tesla offering ev conversion kits for gas cars they only want ppl to buy their over priced impractical cars... obvious fact is nobody cares about emissions or cost effectiveness but rather sjw politics... Germany shut down all its nuclear power plants to switch to "renewables" thus made it absolutely dependent of rus oil/gas...
it take him 10 min to come ro the subject......
Shame on architects who have failed to design buildings, particularly skyscrapers, with wind generators built into the corners. It's not as if they were unaware of the incredible power of winds against the sides of the buildings. They've been forced to design specialized mounting systems for windows to resist the tremendous suction generated against the sides. Maybe they lack imagination, or perhaps financial incentive.
Good to hear of new developments in wind generation! Just recently had solar installed and we're happy with the energy. Had a slight issue when it was windy with one panel rattling, which I've had fixed since. It gave me the idea that what if under each panel there was a way of capturing the wind. Seems like future solar panels could be made to capture the wind as well with vents under each panel leading to a micro turbines. Not sure if this would be feasible, but worth an experiment.
I love this idea ... I've got too many irons in the fire but otherwise I would definitely look into a solution like this. 👏
Very nice presentation Matt and team! Wind is an awesome compliment to solar. Great to see some nice innovation in the industry! But IMHO solutions/designs/implementations will need time to be field tested for best designs and practices to be proven, so it's still early in the home wind solution space. And like anything to do with engineering, the answer is always: It depends :)
yes, once more money is pumped into wind energy, we will reap the reward. good point Chuck
Feasibility of home wind turbines scenario definitely depends on the area where you live. Ireland could be a great place, considering also the absence of sun pretty much all year long. Ebro's valley in Spain is also a place where wind blows like 300 days a year, also during night time where solar doesn't produce (as a matter of fact the area is full of industrial wind turbines). Price and legislation in this cases are the key for me.
Writing from Ireland, I agree in part. I live in a coastal location ideally orientated for a ridge turbine, as the prevailing winds in these islands are South-Westerlies.
I cannot get any feedback from Ridgeblade, and assume they are out of business.
Instead I am looking at air source heat pumps. The temperature here rarely drops to zero.
We get lots of sun in Ireland, but also lots of rain. That's good for PV, as it keeps the panels clean and cool. It is not California, but solar is as viable here as in the northern US.
This video should be 5 seconds long- no, you can not practically do this on a single-family home. Unless of course you want to spend 10's if not 100's of thousands for additional structure and various methods of sound attenuation. In separating the turbine from the home's structure you will lose vast interior space, and probably have a lot of leaks as the two systems can't touch for sound and structural reasons. Yes, he does touch on this in the video- but this is not a situation of pros and cons. It simply doesn't work for almost any home or budget. This is what happens when one RUclipsr makes videos about literally everything.
My dream is either a lovely 1 storey log home with vaulted ceiling in the centre where the living room would be and normal ceilings in the rest of the home, _OR_ a modern 1 storey Danish design brick house..._both_ fitted out with solar panels, wind turbine(s) and ground heating.
I live in a very windy area so it has crossed my mind many times. We have much more wind than sun here. In fact my uncle made his own wind turbine back in the early 80s that he has had on his farm. I think it ended up being more of a hobby than anything that made financial sense. By the end he had 3 generators but they were often offline due to maintenance and repair problems
We live in San Francisco and in our precise location we get verrrrry little sun but and a relentless amount of wind. This was a really helpful video, and I think in a few years our house may actually be in the small minority of homes that would benefit from wind power and not from solar as long as we aren't depending on it alone.
🔥 *Thanks Matt, this was an excellent and practical comparison of solar to wind and the differences of generators.* _Keep making content like this to help people make smart choices!_
Plant!
Here in west Michigan, during about 3 to 4 months in the winter, we have dark, heavy clouds or snow on the solar panels. However, often when it is overcast, the wind will blow for days. No solar power, but plenty of wind potential... I am convinced that there are areas where having both makes sense.
Thank you for the video this answered all my questions and kind of crushed my hopes of wind generated power a little bit😂😂😂 I think I need solar panels and wind turbines after watching this video🙌⚡️
Good morning Matt! I have considered this and looking forward on your take
Curious to hear your thoughts after the video.
@@UndecidedMF Sorry for the late reply. I was on a date with the wife. First off, I also noticed the lack of real choice in the DIY market unlike solar. The real problem I see is the return on investment time-line. My area we are prone to hurricanes but I have a 3 story cement building and I was considering mounting to the building. Again the selection of quality seems to be a very limiting factor.
Recently I installed a battery backup system with the ability to add panels as soon as my area has stock again. I was able to build a 30kw battery myself from raw cells.
Great video and I will look up some of your ideas when I get back from vacation. Thanks Matt 😊.
I'm usually suspicious of home-scale wind power on account of the inherent way wind generation works: having the wind apply work over the surface area of the generating system. Most of these concepts, even the ones with working models, don't usually address this inherent issue, and they end up being significantly less efficient than a large turbine due to their small surface area. That said, I'm particularly impressed with the ridge turbine for using the slope of the roof to add surface area to the system to force more air through the turbine. It's a solution that's so deliciously simple, you wonder why you didn't think of that. The fact that they have working models and even ones that are going for sail is just the cherry on top. Still don't think it can replace home-level solar, but with the majority of the roof left to place solar panels on, they're definitely a reasonable addition.