Domestic Wind Turbines Blog

photo: flickr.com/photos/neilsharp

For people thinking of installing domestic wind turbines, I have to tell you something important you must consider before you go any further.

A recent UK report has just changed the rules of the game by releasing some surprising findings about their effectiveness.

First the bad news: it has been found that urban areas are generally a bad place for a domestic turbine. This is because home wind generators are very sensitive to turbulence and therefore work at their optimum in open spaces i.e. away from built up areas.

Up until now, the potential of residential wind turbines in urban areas has been over estimated according to the study published by the Energy Saving Trust (EST). This explains why many city folk who’ve installed their own turbine have been disappointed by the feeble amount of electricity produced.

Now for the good news: the EST also found that home wind generators on the whole have more potential than previously thought. In the UK, a massive 800,000 homes could be powered in this way if fully exploited. This doesn’t include large scale wind farms; just small residential turbines.

As an avid enthusiast of domestic wind turbines, I was very exited by these findings. In recent years, wind power has been down played as not making economic sense. While this may be true in cities, in locations where the wind is right this simply isn’t true.

The Guardian newspaper covered the story well:-

”Generally, pole-mounted in areas of good, clean air with unobstructed air flow gave better than expected performance,” said Green. Those in the most exposed rural parts of Scotland gave the best results, generating in excess of 18,000 KWh (or £2,300 of electricity) and save 7,500kg of carbon dioxide a year.”

The full article can be found at: – http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/08/domestic-wind-turbines

The lesson learnt here is crucial if you want to know just how much electricity you could potentially save. Before you make up your mind whether to get a turbine or not, you first need to seek expert advice.

For UK locations, the EST have launched a wind speed prediction tool on their website: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Can-I-generate-electricity-from-the-wind-at-my-home

US residents can contact the American Wind Energy Association site: – http://www.awea.org/faq/wwt_potential.html#How%20much%20energy

Technorati Tags: DOMESTIC WIND TURBINES

A fast pitch softball player does a "windmill" pitch, moving her hand through a vertical circular arc to pitch a ball at 68 mph. The 0.20 kg ball is 55 cm from the pivot point at her shoulder.

Just before the ball leaves her hand, what is its centripetal acceleration in m/s^2? answer in two significant figures

At the lowest point of the circle the ball has reached its maximum speed. What is the magnitude of the force her hand exerts on the ball at this point? Answer in Newtons and two significant figures

( 68 mph ) ( 1609 m / mile ) ( 1 hour / 3600 s ) = 30 m/s.

centripetal acceleration = v^2 / r = ( 30 m/s )^2 / ( .55 m )^2 = 1600 m/s^2

F = m a = ( .20 kg ) ( 1600 m/s^2 ) = 330 N

We are said to make a chemistry model and I’m planning to make a wind turbine which converts wind energy into electrical energy
Our teacher said that we can choose this topic but said to make it somehow a little related to chemistry
I’m planning to make a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine ( VAWT )
I will be making the model from these site addresses in which the instructions are given :

http://www.re-energy.ca/t-i_windbuild-1.shtml

http://www.re-energy.ca/pdf/wind-turbine.pdf

It is a simple model in which when the turbine moves ( the big plastic thing in the middle of the Generator in the picture ), the movement is converted to electrical energy which lights up the LED light

Please tell anything which i can add to my model so that it relates to chemistry somehow
even suggestions of putting some chemical substances on the turbine to move it smoothly or some other topic on chemistry with references or anything relating to that will be appreciated

Read here, it will help you:

http://www.google.de/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Ade%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=de&source=hp&q=Wind+turbine+model+relating+to+chemistry&meta=&btnG=Google-Suche

Is it economically efficient to have wind power as your source of electricity?

They are as efficient as the average generators however, air being the sorce of energy, besides maintenance, it’s free and environmentally friendly. Calculate your maintenance and compare it to your electricity bills.

I have at home a generator in my shed with all the cable install to my house. I have a second panel in my house when the electricity cut i can start the generator and used pretty much everything in the house except the big appliance…

Well i was thinking to install a wind generator on my land and use the set up i have right now for my emergency panel to use like everyday use. I was wondering if on the market we have some inverter who can have just 1 outlet 240 volt one so i can use the cable i use usually for the generator?

If not what my option?

My generator 6000 watt and the output its 240 volt 30 amp

If you have any website to suggest don’t be shy !

Thank you!

This might work:

Here is a site with some of what you may be looking for. http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/03/21/micro-wind-turbines-small-size-big-impact/

then place it in the path of outside air flow , if you did these things how much if any electric power could you produce, if it worked out then add one or two more in line with the air flow side by side in order to catch and use most all of the airflow to make power, could this work and what could be the biggest problem with this Idea, thanks for your time and answers.

You could build a generator(alternator) like that but it would probably not work in any less than hurricane force winds. The designs I have seen on the net(Google Wind power) start with 7-8 foot windmills. The 42 inch fan simply would not catch enough energy to make any worthwhile power.

Although seen from far I don’t recall seeing power lines leaving the sites of those wind turbines that generates electricity as in the case of water dams. How do they get the electricity to the power company.

Each wind turbine has a transformer that steps up the generator voltage from 480 or 600 V to around 34,500 volts. This transformer is either at the base of the tower, or designed to fit inside the housing at the top of the tower (the nacelle).

Underground high-voltage cables daisy-chain multiple wind turbines and bring the power to a collector substation. This is where the interconnection is made to the local utility or the transmission system.

Modern wind turbines are up to about 2.5 MW each. Even a wind farm with 100 wind turbines is only 250 MW. This is small compared to most modern hydro-powered generating stations.

Does a wind turbine ever collect anoff electricity to run (motor) the rotor at the same speed w/o wind?

I think by ‘anoff’ you mean ‘enough’.

The power that is required to run the wind turbine at the same speed normally comes for the grid; (grid integrated wind turbines). You are refering in this case to the fixed speed wind turbines, where it’s speed is governed by the synchronous speed of the AC frequency of the national grid. Normally this does not require much power without wind, because there is little drag and the rotation continues mainly by inertia; only little power is required to maintain this rotation against resistance. When there is wind, depending on wheather the turbine is direct drive (gearless) or with a gear, it is adjusted to give the optimal torque on the generator.

A fast pitch softball player does a "windmill" pitch, moving her hand through a vertical circular arc to pitch a ball at 68mph . The 0.19kg ball is 51cm from the pivot point at her shoulder.
Just before the ball leaves her hand, what is its centripetal acceleration?
At the lowest point of the circle the ball has reached its maximum speed. What is the magnitude of the force her hand exerts on the ball at this point?
At the lowest point of the circle the ball has reached its maximum speed. What is the direction of the force her hand exerts on the ball at this point?

i know yo. you are the kid in the new braunfels physics class. i am gowning to tell the teacher you cheater.