I have an idea...
Posted on 10/16/2009 9:57:31 AM PDT by Lurkina.n.Learnin
Has Affordable, Efficient Rooftop Wind Power Arrived? Of the 10,500 small wind turbines installed last year, 99 percent were attached to giant constructed towers in rural areas. Rooftop wind turbines—constituting 1 percent of the market—have a huge potential in urban and suburban areas. But the products, which are heavy, noisy and require permanently attaching wind-catching blades to homes, have not yet caught on. One inventor thinks his unique turbine is just what the market is looking for. Are rooftop turbines set to take off?
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
Interesting article. Some day may even be feasible.
That's the flaw in the deal. I'd love to have wind power, but plugging into the grid remains the cheapest source.
Maybe just add heat pumps here in NY....to replace regular heat source during severe temps.
If you’re talking about the heat pumps used to heat houses in the South. They don’t work in the real cold of northern climates.
Geothermal systems do help.
It only makes sense if you have no electricty now. The thing I like about this is it is a lot quieter. I have a freind who has one with conventenal blades and it’s noisy.
How does one re-shingle their roof with solar panels, windmills, and hot water panels installed on the roof? Just a question. Average roof is re-shingled every 10 years. Does this mean you would incurr re-installation costs for all systems mounted on your roof? Will the systems installed today be continually supported with spares for the next 10 to 20 years? Lets be real here folks.
Price Per Watt /// $2.25 per watt without installations (where costs vary). Expect that price to roughly double with installation. With the 30 percent federal tax credit, the price works out to about $1.58 per watt without installation. This price reflects only one year of use. Given five years without repair costs, the price drops to 22.5 cents per watt, just roughly double the current national average.
Interesting, here in NM I have plenty of wind and sun. I’d like enough independant capability to power my well pump. That’s the only thing I don’t have backup for when the power goes down.
Keep in mind that any maintenance you do to the unit will extend that payback period.
There are very few mechanical devices that will function flawlessly for 20 years.
I have an idea...
I kinda noted that...I live in NY but lived in Va for a year. A friend here in NY had a heat pump plus...
Will it work on one 350’ deep?
If you live on a hill, a turbine is a good idea. If you live low, like I do, there’s no wind at roof level most of the time. Too many trees. Same with solar panels. At this point, the cost/benefit ratio is too high.
“Will it work on one 350’ deep?”
Lol Work being the key word here.
Our geothermal heats and cools the house, heats the floor in the main level and is 300 percent efficient. Not cheap going in but was paid for (vs. traditional system) in about four years.
I was at my friends house and we were talking and all of a sudden I hear this loud noise. I asked “whats that”. He says “Oh thats the windmill”. I can’t imagine them in an urban or even suburban setting.
Imagine you have one of these generators up on a tower, ten feet or 50 feet or some distance above your house. Imagine the thing breaks down.
There is virtually no power available in a 1 mph wind so the claims of low startup speed don’t have any practical implication. The power available is proportional to the cube of the wind velocity. So an 8 mph wind speed contains four thousand times as much power per unit area than a 1 mph wind speed. If the system produces 200 watts at 8mph it will create just milliwatts at 1 mph, enough maybe to light a couple of LEDs.
The quiet aspect is significant though. It has been known for a long time that more blades lead to slower turning and quieter operation. Moving the alternator out to the periphery to obviate the need for “gearing up” is a clever trick.
But this could only work for very small turbines. Putting all those magnets at the periphery of a large turbine would lead to stress failures flinging magnets out at high velocity.
So this is probably no more than a clever curiosity with limited commercial application.
There is virtually no power available in a 1 mph wind so the claims of low startup speed don’t have any practical implication. The power available is proportional to the cube of the wind velocity. So an 8 mph wind speed contains four thousand times as much power per unit area than a 1 mph wind speed. If the system produces 200 watts at 8mph it will create just milliwatts at 1 mph, enough maybe to light a couple of LEDs.
The quiet aspect is significant though. It has been known for a long time that more blades lead to slower turning and quieter operation. Moving the alternator out to the periphery to obviate the need for “gearing up” is a clever trick.
But this could only work for very small turbines. Putting all those magnets at the periphery of a large turbine would lead to stress failures flinging magnets out at high velocity.
So this is probably no more than a clever curiosity with limited commercial application.
What if its not windy outside?
You are mixing measurements.
Installation costs can be measured in the price per watt. And yes, you want to know how long that watt CAN be generated before you need to replace the generating capability.
But once you are past the installation costs, the measurement you are looking for is Kilowatt-Hour, not “watt”.
The typical cost is around 10-12 cents per kilowatt/hour.
As you said, if you have ZERO maintenance costs, and can run this thing continuously for 5 years, it would be at $2.25*1000/24/365/5, or 5 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Of course, there would be maintenance costs, and you wouldn’t get power 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, so the actual cost per kilowatt hour would be higher.
That is the problem with most “alternative” energy. It works great theoreticly speaking, strictly of course from a hypothetical stand point. In the real world, not so much.
Its mainly driven by money too.
If I sold those fan blades for a living, I’d be here saying they were the greatest thing in the world and come up with 10 reasons every house must have them. I’d lobby Washington to make it a law.
“GREEN” is a cash cow and will never go away as long as someone stands to make a dollar off of it and as long as someone is dumb enough to give them a dollar.
elbow grease, lots of elbow grease.
Seriously, it takes a lot of wattage to lift water that far and then pressurize it. A gasoline generator is probably your best back up.
““GREEN” is a cash cow and will never go away as long as someone stands to make a dollar off of it and as long as someone is dumb enough to give them a dollar.”
I don’t really have a problem with that. It’s the politicians giving them my dollar that drives me insane. So far wind and solar are nice hobbies but are not economically viable.
With a submerged piston, it will for this guy! HA!!
...the products, which are heavy, noisy and require permanently attaching wind-catching blades to homes, have not yet caught on. One inventor thinks his unique turbine is just what the market is looking for.
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