Domestic Wind Turbines Blog

Archive for the ‘WIND POWERED GENERATORS’ Category

What would create more power from wind or water energy? Multiple small generators or one large one?
Also, what determines the output of an electrical generator? Would size or speed of revolutions change the output?

I think the easiest way to explain this is to start at the beginning. Think of the flowing water (or air) as a momentum-carrying body that has kinetic energy that can be captured by your generators. The larger the area covered by your rotor (the blades of your wind or hydro generator), the more energy that can theoretically be produced. The swept area of the rotor is a circle – as you know from math, the area of a circle is pi multiplied by the radius squared. Therefore, the energy you can extract from generator increases proportionally to the square of the blade length (the radius). Therefore, it is generally much more efficient to have one large generator than it is to have multiple small ones. This is playing out in the wind industry today – 20 years ago the most cost-effective wind turbines were around 10-50 kW each, 10 years ago they were around 100-500 kW each, and today they are 1000-3000 kW each!

The output of a generator is dependent on the amount of torque that is applied to it and the speed at which it rotates. The generator needs to be sized appropriately according to the size of the rotor – you could but a 3000 kW generator onto a 50 m rotor diameter but it wouldn’t be very efficient. a 500 kW generator would be better sized to a 50 m rotor, just as a 3000 kW generator is appropriate for a much larger 100 m rotor diameter.

How big of a generator, Email me or IM me with details, I work for Regal-Beloit, manufacturer of Motors and Generators including Leeson, Marathon Electric, and Lincoln products.

I want to build a windmil to gererate power to reduce my electric bill

I think the below link will really help you, good luck!!!

How many of these wind power generators to power a house?
Generates 2kw per

Typical house has a load demand of at least 12 kW.

So you would need at least 6 wind-powered generators
to meet this average power demand.

White is chosen for surfaces for these reasons:
heat dissipation characteristics(less heat is absorbed in more time)
less prominent(fits in the line of sight)
easy to detect flaws and rust (easy inspection)

How many wind generators would it take to replace 50% of the power plants powered by coal and natural gas?

According to the Edison Electric Institute (eei.com), in 2005 there was 1,067,019 MW of capacity available. Of the energy generated, 49.7% came from coal and 18.7% came from natural gas.

Doing the math, that means to replace half of the power plants powered by coal and natural gas, we have to replace 364,920 MW of capacity.

Assuming that the average wind generator has a capacity of 250 kW, we need 4 of them for every MW of capacity. Once again, doing the math, we would need 1,459,680 250-kW windmills to replace 50% of the power plants currently powered by coal or natural gas.

If you can build the plants for $800 / kW (that might be too cheap), each turbine would cost $200,000. Since you need 1,500,000 of them (rounding to make the math easier, I only have an 8 digit calculator), you would have to find investment of $300 billion.

Assuming you found the space and the investors, you will NEVER get this past the environmentalists (ironic, isn’t it?). They will complain that the "whoosh whoosh whoosh" sound is noise pollution and that too many birds are flying into the turbine blades.

Does anybody know?

I really want to make a homebuilt wind generator power but have no idea how. Im a complete noob when it comes to this stuff lol

homebuilt wind power generators can be built with just a few parts that you probably already have laying around your home.

If you want to power household items like TVs, washing machine etc then you will need an inverter. These are quite cheap though.

I got my instructions on homebuilt wind power generators from http://www.earth4energy.com and it made life HEAPS easier for me.

And solar roof panels, and reflective roof or window insulation. They say changes like the above (along with rusted wrecks of autos in the yard, of course) will lower property values. So who’s right, the association or green living advocates? Let’s say moving to a dif neighborhood is not an option. Thanks.

The association is correct, both legally and logically.

I live in a wind mill happy state and there is no possible way a city would give you permission to build a wind mill in your bank yard.

You should be able to put in low-e windows, which do the same thing as the reflective ones without looking awful.

what does it do for your house

It’s basically a reverse electrical engine. The engine takes electricity and turns it into motion. The wind generator takes motion and turns it into electricity. However, if you don’t have a constant wind, they can sit idle for no apparent purpose. Most wind farms are situated where the wind is predictable in both direction and speed, like a mountain pass. If you live near a coast, you might get a sea breeze every afternoon but not necessarily enough to generate enough electricity to make the investment worthwhile.
The generator needs to be connected to the house electrical service, but must have cutoff to keep electricity from going into the grid if a power line goes down. (You don’t want to fry a utility employee.) Also, the wiring must be checked by the fire department and building department. For a tower holding a wind generator, a structural engineer might be required too.

It’s not impossible, just very impractical.

For example, North Dakota (in the U.S.) has enough developable wind resource to provide 300% of the present entire U.S. electric energy consumption.

But….wind cannot be scheduled or dispatched to follow the load as needed. So, some sort of dispatchable generation (perhaps including energy storage of various sorts) still must be employed.

Coal-fired power plants are one type of dispatchable generation.

There are other technical complications, such as the need for lots more power lines, but the fundamental issue is whether the electricity consuming populace is willing to pay 3x-10x as much for a power grid that uses exclusively renewable energy sources.