Affordable Starter Turbine?

System
System Posts: 2,511 admin
My husband and I are considering dipping our toes into the waters of wind power, but we're pretty overwhelmed by how prohibitive the costs seem to be.

In my searches, I stumbled upon this Wind Turbine and I'm wondering if anyone here can offer some feedback on this unit and overall general advice to a wind power newbie. TIA!

Comments

  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    Re: Affordable Starter Turbine?

    Welcome to the forum.

    Have you had a chance to read through the wind sub section of this forum? It's informative, albeit fairly discouraging. The short form goes like this:

    1). Most sites don't actually have enough sustained wind to make turbines practical. Put up an anemometer first and see what sort of readings you get.
    2). Most small-scale wind turbines are poorly made and are promoted with wildly exaggerated power claims.
    3). Site installs are often done wrong. Turbines need to be up in the air with nothing much around them. Nothing kills a turbine's output like turbulent air.
    4). There's other sites the delve into DIY wind turbines. Like Otherpower or Hugh Piggott. Often the homemade turbines will outperform commercial units. At least there are no extreme expectations to begin with!
    5). The cost of the tower & rigging is often much more than the cost of the turbine itself. And the good ones cost a lot.

    May I ask why you're thinking of turbines? Is this in addition to an existing solar install, or an entirely separate system?
  • Peter_V
    Peter_V Solar Expert Posts: 226 ✭✭✭
    Re: Affordable Starter Turbine?

    Small turbines almost never pay off, the "affordable" turbines NEVER do unless you build them yourself.

    The main problem is that most locations are never as windy as people think they are.

    Your first step should be to make SURE you have good wind. Buy an anemometer that you can connect to a computer and log the wind data over several months (a year would be best)
    Small turbines basically produce zero power in winds below 12 mph, and almost no power in winds over 12 mph

    The one you've linked to will barely light one(1) light bulb with 12 mph winds. It won't produce 550 watts until the winds get up to 35 mph!!!
    This is of course assuming that they are being honest with their ratings which is extremely rare for turbines like this.

    As was pointed out below the towers for these turbines can get expensive. Even to just get the little bit of power this is rated for you'd need a tower that is at least 50' higher than ANYTHING within 100 yards: trees, buildings, anything.

    For the same amount of money as this turbine and it's tower you could install solar panels that would produce 20 times as much energy per year, probably more.
  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    Re: Affordable Starter Turbine?

    Can you watch YouTube videos?
    NewYorkMan wrote: »

    These show the analysis and actual results for a turbine that is roughly similar to the one you are looking at...

    Basically, not a lot of power, especially at low (reasonable wind speeds.

    We usually come back and ask what are your loads, and have you done as much conservation as possible (it is almost always better/less expensive/better use of funds to conserve vs trying to generate power).

    Here is a thread with various DYI solar/conservation projects and ideas.

    If you are in a place where wind is your only useful option (Alaska/northern Canada, etc. where the sun virtually does not rise during the winter; or where you have a lot of wind and not much sun), wind can be useful--but I would humbly suggest that it is for off-grid sites where your only other choice is a genset.

    Starting around post #19--Here is a fairly happy wind turbine customer... Gives you an idea of the amount of work and landscape to use wind successfully. While I am not a big fan of small wind--there are people out there that have had their successes.

    Add links about wind power:

    Wind Power Links
    www.otherpower.com (good forum for DIY Wind Power)
    Hugh Piggott - Scoraig Wind Electric site for tons of info (from mike90045)
    www.greenpowertalk.org (added from "russ"--Like here but more wind/less solar)
    Small windpower a scam ? Survey says SO
    Truth About Skystream & SWWP
    Windmax HY-2000 2kW Wind Turbine (apparently, some vendors don't sell spare parts--just new turbines)

    And a general DIY Solar Builder site:

    www.builditsolar.com

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • russ
    russ Solar Expert Posts: 593 ✭✭
    Re: Affordable Starter Turbine?

    Come on guys - the turbine in the link would surely work well as a boat anchor!

    Hi Hannah - Please read the following article by Rob Beckers before starting with wind. Rob owns Solacity and likes RE but he doesn't like that so many people get led down the garden path by less than honest sales people and companies.

    This should be a must to read before anyone jumps into the wind game. If you are still interested after reading the article then full power to you!

    http://www.solacity.com/SmallWindTruth.htm

    Like has been pointed out, you need to really know what the wind speed is at your location. Few locations in the US average over 10 to 12 mph wind.

    Virtually all small turbines are rated at 25 mph wind which happens to be a strong storm. That rating is an out and out lie but that is the bench mark so all companies use it.

    Russ
  • E-dub
    E-dub Registered Users Posts: 13 ✭✭
    Re: Affordable Starter Turbine?

    Hannah,

    I think what everyone means to say about the turbine in the link your posted is umm, "no".

    If you need someone to stand up and take a bow, with the introduction, "I bought a wind turbine and had absolutely no idea what I was doing", I'm the guy. All I knew back a few years ago was that we loose most solar in November and see it again in late January. And, the wind blow in abundant portions during those dark months.

    Though I am involved in wind energy generation, if I could be rid of the turbine, it would handily find its way to a new home. People are always intrigued by our wind turbine but don't realize that solar is doing most of our RE generation over the course of a year.

    But don't get the wrong idea. Wind systems can be great. However, as everyone has said, do your homework and understand the work involved. There are a lot of nice fluffy sales brochures out there that have little meaning in terms of production at the end of the day.

    Rick
  • waynefromnscanada
    waynefromnscanada Solar Expert Posts: 3,009 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: Affordable Starter Turbine?
    E-dub wrote: »
    Hannah,

    I think what everyone means to say about the turbine in the link your posted is umm, "no".

    If you need someone to stand up and take a bow, with the introduction, "I bought a wind turbine and had absolutely no idea what I was doing", I'm the guy. All I knew back a few years ago was that we loose most solar in November and see it again in late January. And, the wind blow in abundant portions during those dark months.

    Though I am involved in wind energy generation, if I could be rid of the turbine, it would handily find its way to a new home. People are always intrigued by our wind turbine but don't realize that solar is doing most of our RE generation over the course of a year.

    But don't get the wrong idea. Wind systems can be great. However, as everyone has said, do your homework and understand the work involved. There are a lot of nice fluffy sales brochures out there that have little meaning in terms of production at the end of the day.

    Rick
    E-dub, are we related? Must be, our lives with wind are an excellent match, only now the alternator from my "affordable" wind turbine has a second life - - producing power 24/7 from my little hydro project. The wind turbine blades lived in under my bed for a couple of years until I finally GAVE them back to the people I bought them from just to get them out of the way. They should have gone in the garbage, but after what I paid for them, just didn't have the heart:(
    Don't get me wrong, the wind turbine wasn't a total disaster, it was totally awesome to lay back in the tall grass and watch it go round and round against the clear blue sky. Didn't produce any usable power, but sure was pretty to look at, and attracted a lot of attention. :p