Generating Electricity

[Wictorian]

We want to construct a wind turbine. However wea re unsure about the cost and the power we would generate. Our local area is very windy. How much power can we get from the wind? What kind of engine do we need?

[AndreiArgeanu]

An average onshore wind turbine with a capacity of 2.5–3 MW can produce more than 6 million kWh in a year. But that is one of the standard sized ones. I don't think you will be building a 100m high turbine so that would be significantly lower and it's dependent on the efficiency of the components, the strength of wind and other factors.

[Wictorian]

we will build one on the top of our roof. Our house has two floors. So that is like 7 meters. 

[AndreiArgeanu]

Also I'll leave some pieces of information that could help you with this.

 

http://www.theorycircuit.com/small-wind-turbine-home/

[AndreiArgeanu]

3 minutes ago, Wictorian said:

we will build one on the top of our roof. Our house has two floors. So that is like 7 meters. 

A wind turbine of that size won't make a lot of electricity, you may be able to power a couple of appliances but nothing too much. To be honest you'd be better off installing solar panels because they're far simpler and they do not require maintenance

[AndreiArgeanu]

6 minutes ago, Wictorian said:

we will build one on the top of our roof. Our house has two floors. So that is like 7 meters. 

There is this you could take a look at which is better suite for your needs and is not very complicated. It's not exactly a step by step tutorial but it's a place to start from

 

[dizmo]

Have you checked with your local government to see if you're allowed? 

[Pixel5]

do you have anything in place already to make use of any renewable power like batteries, an Inverter and a charge controller?

 

you can buy ready made 300-500W wind turbines from China but you are going to need all the other stuff to make any food use of it.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Hobby Electronics

***

 

As pretty much said here. The height of turbine is key, so is size/span of blades. Actual big turbines are 50-200m in blade span. In some materials I happened to read recently it says that you need minimum of 4m blade span and 5-30m height to power average house. If you really live in windy area, and by windy I mean the wind is constant and good quality (15m/s), you can get away with lower tower.

[Enderman]

You can find all kinds of turbines and sizes.

Anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few million.

Depends how much you want to spend.

 

 

[Wictorian]

We are allowed to do it legally and we dont have anything in place like batteries.

[mariushm]

There are models on Amazon up to 1000-2000 watts for around 1000$+

Note that you would also need to spend money on a pole or something... ideally you want a turbine 5-10 meters above any obstruction  (including your house roof)

So you'd need a pole or something to mount a turbine on top of it.

 

Wind doesn't blow constantly so you need a battery or something to put that energy into, at one minute the turbine may make 50 watts, the next minute it may make 250-500 watts, depending on how much wind you have.

Battery buffers this ... charges , and then you can use an inverter to take energy from battery and power things.

 

Solar power is easier, as long as there's light the solar panels will produce electricity which again, goes into a battery

with wind, you may have long hours when there's no wind, or heavy storms where the wind may exceed the maximum supported by a cheap turbine, so you may have to go from time to time up the pole and remove the turbine before heavy storms or whatever.

[Wictorian]

Which will produce more electricity per dollar spent , solar panels or wind turbine?

[mariushm]

dude, this is stupid question.

 

Solar panels will produce energy only when there's light, so maybe 16 hours per day or something like that.

Wind turbines will produce energy only when there's wind, and strong enough wind .. could be 2-3 hours out of a day or could be 20-24 hours a day, depends where you live.

 

Solar panels may use more surface and need to be relatively oriented towards sun for highest efficiency and cleaned periodically, while wind turbines can somewhat self orient in the wind path for better efficiency, but a minimum amount of wind is required for them to produce power. 

 

Are you in a region that's relatively cloud free throughout the year, or are you somewhere with lots of rains or cloudly for long periods of year, do you have fog often?

There are sun radiation maps freely available, you can look for them, they will tell you how much potential solar energy per square meter or feet (imperial) is available in your area, and you can contact companies that install solar panels to tell you how much power an average person would generate.

 

As for wind turbines... if there's wind, I figure you get most energy the bigger the turbine you get, but it depends if you can get permission from your city or region to install big wind turbines, you may have to get approvals or to pay for studies to say you won't kill birds or wildlife in your area (and you may have some protected species around you)

 

[Wictorian]

well, I dont know whether the wind or sunlight overwhelms. mostly wind I guess

[boarder2k7]

Slight necro here but I did a lot of research into setting up wind vs solar on a property that also has good consistent wind. My conclusion is that wind just isn't worth it on a small scale. When I say small, I was looking at used 10 kW Bergey setups (to avoid the high initial cost), and even those don't have nearly as good payback as you'd hope once you factor in maintenance which is typically why they're being taken down. It's just become less hassle to replace with solar. Your available power increases off a squared function of both wind speed and blade length. Those little "500 Watt" turbines will only make that much in fairly high winds, usually 25 kph+

 

You're much better off from a longevity and power produced standpoint to go solar + batteries if you need constant renewable power based on all the calculations I did. Obviously ymmv based on location, but don't expect good longevity from the China magic 500 W units. We used to burn them out every couple years back at school with the one we had instrumented on one of the buildings as a learning tool.

[thrasher_565]

there also stem power but that's also sun and water... a solar tracker will make more use of a soler panel but in cress the cost and maintenance. a horizontal wind turbines runs slower and is more durable and can be made out of trash. alos you can make your own soler panel for cheaper.