WIND POWER !!!!

[Tatius]

I found a neat site where you hook up 10 windmills to a forklift battery then to an inverter to power your home, though i have a few doubts weather or not it could power your central heat and air, cloths dryer and oven but i have an idea that might work i want to see what yall think about it, i want to hook the windmills up to run the lights in the house the hot water heater the tank less kind and electrical fixtures then hook up to the grid and use it to power the oven, stove, central a/c, washer and dryer, could this work and would it be a major pain to wire everything separately.

[rreidnauer]

Possibly.

If you provide the web address, I'll look it over and provide any insight I may gather from it. To start you off, always remember a watt is a watt, and nothing is 100% efficient.

A simple example: Brand X clothes dryer requires 1500 watts, and runs for one hour to dry clothes. (1.5 Kwh of energy) One fairly efficient 10 ft. diameter windmill, in a fairly common continuous 10 MPH breeze produces about 157 watts. (0.16 Kwh of energy) That would require around 10 hours of charging when figuring in efficiency losses. (but only about 3 hours at 15 MPH)

In a nutshell, renewable energy sources, and electrically heated anything are not good bed-partners. Also, if wind generation is your sole source for battery charging, you must consider an alternate charging source when wind is not available and the batteries are running below 80% capacity, or else run the risk of sulphation damage.

[Tatius]

rod thanks for your input and help here is the website http://www.hydrogenappliances.com/windturbinetypes.html i think it to be a neat idea all but for the propane to run the dryer and so on i wouldn't want to go that route having to call somebody out to deliver it all.

[rreidnauer]

OK

Yea, Hydrogen appliances is a bit infamous in the RE community for stretching the truth or just making false claims. I'll give one example, their "Condor" wind turbine, claiming 10 Watts @ 1.8 MPH. The power that can be extracted from wind is a mathematical equation worked out long ago. Back in 1919, German physicist Albert Betz figured out that the most you can possibly get out of wind turbine is around 59% for a "perfect" wind turbine. So, making the calculations, and giving the Condor is "perfect", it can only produce 0.7 watts at their given windspeed. Personally, I doubt if it could even overcome magnetic and mechanical resistance at that speed, little on make any power. The best advice I can give for those just starting off, is to research wind power for a while, preferably from sources that aren't trying to sell you something. Www.otherpower.com is a pretty candid site.

Oh, you could always get a solar powered clothes dryer. ;-) (they've been sold online for $50+, but you could probably go to the hardware store and make your own for just a couple bucks)

[2 cents]

Hehe, solar-powered clothes dryer. I get it :)

LOL

2 cents

[Will Dye]

Hey Rod I am probably wasting my time telling you this cause you already know about it. LOL Utterpower.com is a pretty interesting site for an off grid/backup possibility.

[Tatius]

well jeez i have been looking at wind turbines for a year or so i was going to buy a few hornets to hook up to the house im in now but i ran into code problems with the city of Lubbock, im sure glad i did now lol after reading your reply, the other wind turbine systems ive looked at would take 20 years to recoup the cost of getting the system, that doesn't sound like a sound plan to me, do you have any ideas on how to get off grid and make the recoup time alot shorter ? i knew a guy one time in Arizona that put a 4X8 solar panel in his back yard he said most months his electric bill was around 5 to 10 bucks and that some months the electric company sent him a check but his system cost him 20k to get it up and running thats still a long recoup time and would be even longer if something broke, is there a good solution to this? i would like to have a plan just in case our economy went real bad it seems that the U.S government is dead set on messing things up for us, trade policies and all.

[rreidnauer]

Yea, cost recuperation is a tough bill to fill, especially when you start looking into "real world" outputs on many of the commercial units for sale. Despite wind generation being around for a while now, it's still considered new technology in general consumer minds, and most people don't have a clear understanding of them. Unfortunately, this allows a lot of companies to prey on the ignorance (not meant as an insult) of the consumers, and make unrealistic claims. For one example of this, I did a pretty good write up about 3/4 down this page (http://www.loghomebuilders.org/wind-power?page=1) about Skystream wind turbines, and how money could have been better spent on solar. (which reminds me, I got to stop by there and see how well that turbine's done over the last 13 months)

Presently, if you're going into wind generation (or any RE) for cost recuperation or sell-back, you're not going to do well while commercial electric costs are running $0.05~$0.15 per Kwh. It's simply too cheap to compete with. (and why Americans are so wasteful with it) If you're using RE because you are not within reasonable distance to receive grid power, then you have a legitimate reason. But, it's inevitable that in the (near?) future, electric costs will be much higher, especially if government applies more pressure for commercial generation companies to use more RE production, and the aging transmission lines and equipment begin to require replacing. You also have the same supply and demand scenario as gasoline going on these days, with rolling blackouts being common during the Summer months. More demand than supply, you can expect only higher prices. Where I'm at, the electric generation cost contracts expire the end of the year, and it's said to expect the price to go up three fold!!!

Unless you live in a perpetually windy and cloudy place, I still believe solar is far superior to wind generation in small scale (home) applications. Though, I still believe wind plays a necessary part, as there are still many windy, cloudy Winter days here in the North-east.