"We'd like to think we can put a turbine on every rooftop." Reg Adams, WindTronics
Edison and a 1914 Detroit Electric, model 47
Posted on 11/03/2009 5:19:14 AM PST by Libloather
Innovation: A New Rooftop Wind Turbine
The WindTronics turbine can generate energy at low speeds.
By Nicole Marie Richardson
Oct 1, 2009
The answer is blowing in the (very gentle) wind
Generally, rooftop turbines can't produce electricity unless the wind is blowing six or eight miles per hour. This turbine is different. Developed by WindTronics, based in Muskegon, Michigan, it's only 6 feet in diameter and can generate energy at wind speeds of just two miles per hour. WindTronics moved the power-generating parts to the outside of the wheel, where the blades turn faster. Reducing the bulk in the center also allows the turbine to turn more easily. Says CEO Reg Adams: "We've turned traditional wind turbines inside out."
Aiming for the masses
Starting in November, WindTronics's turbines will be available for sale in Ace Hardware stores, under the Honeywell brand. The company hopes to sell 50,000 by the end of 2010.
Power production
The $5,499 device can produce up to 2,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, or roughly 18 percent of the average household's use, according to CEO Reg Adams. But that assumes an average wind speed of 12.8 miles per hour; most homes will see far less. Nevertheless, the machine brings wind power within reach for low-wind areas.
Edison and a 1914 Detroit Electric, model 47
Put the wind-turbines up in CONGRESS!
Pretty cool! Just take the batteries out of your volts-wagon, put this baby up on the roof, wire it up, and away we go! Perpetual motion for FREE! Don’t tell anyone before I submit my patent application.
Uh... buddy, can you give me a li’l push to get me going?
No need - the turbine would recharge those batteries.
6’ Dia. Well on a windy day this thing nailed down to your 1/2 “ thick plywood sheeting is going to tear your roof off and put it in your neighbors lawn.
Just for starters, The noise from it will drive your bride nut’s. It just won’t work. You need clean un obstructed wind as fuel. Too many currents around a building for that.
That said, people will buy them. Lawn art
When the price comes down in a year or two - I’m buying...
Why not just a good old fashioned sail?
If they give me a credit for $5,500 and free installation I may think about it.
“Power production
The $5,499 device can produce up to 2,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, or roughly 18 percent of the average household’s use, according to CEO Reg Adams. But that assumes an average wind speed of 12.8 miles per hour; most homes will see far less. Nevertheless, the machine brings wind power within reach for low-wind areas.”
That tells me everything I need to know right there. My calculations may be off, but it seems like it’d take about 20 years to pay for itself, probably more.
$5500 and it only produces 18 percent of what you need at its peak? What’s the payback on that?
“ideal for low wind areas”?
If you’re in a “low wind” area, the ideal power source is hydro, coal or nuclear, NOT WIND.
This green scam is getting bigger by the day.
Hats off to the hucksters that can make this sale.
The concept of these is actually a great inovation over other wind turbine designs. There are no gears and turbines to turn to create electricity. The fan has magnets around the perimeter of the fan and creates electricity similar to a copper coil on an electric motor.
PS. I am not an electrical engineer so feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
However, if these things are mass produced and cheaper(eventually) there really could be one on every roof.
Adding to the value are federal and state rebates covering anywhere from 30% to 100% of the overall cost.
The Honeywell Wind Turbine comes complete with a computerized smart box, inverter and inter connect switch to wire the system into a household panel.
http://www.earthtronics.com/honeywell.aspx
PFLR
$5400??? Damn, someones looking to make a little profit. It cannot cost that much to manufacture a 6’ windmill. Is it gold plated?
Why not buy stuff that works NOW?
The cost per kilowatt on this thing is enormous compared to “conventional” wind turbines and solar PVs.
I saw 2k kWh and thought “per day? that’ll do it!”, then I saw that it was per year. Not worth it in the least.
Folks, you need to be thinking “off grid”, because these bass turds are going to use the smart grid to cut you off. Guaranteed.
average cost of electricity = $0.12/kilowatt-hour from your utility
2000 kilowatt-hours/year x $0.12/kilowatt-hour = $240/year savings in electricity
$5499 / $240 per year = 23 years
23 years to recover your costs. If you put $240 a year into a savings account, with an interest rate of 2%, you'll have $7,061
Green Sucker Alert
It’s a decent idea that has some promise (I am a EE),
but the output is abysmal.
As soon as I saw put one on your car I knew it was phony. The best generators loose 10-15% and the batteries loose 10-15% efficiency so you put one on your car and you loose 20-30% of your energy. Charge up you car and drive 25% less far.
No battery bank, and that’s where a huge chunk of the cost of any wind/PV system resides.
IE, it’s still way overpriced.
But, what would be the environmental impact of all that slowing down of the wind, going thru fans everywhere? GLOBAL WARMING!
All electrical generators produce power through passing a wire(or vice/versa)through a magnetic field. The only difference is they moved the generator to the outside area of the fan. This will make it heavy on the outside edge and should cause big problems in a high wind, at least it appears that it would.
I doubt that it just snaps onto your roof so you probably need to add at least $1,000 for installation, shoring up the roof trusses, electrician etc. So you just went up to about 27 years for the payoff.
The only way to make the numbers look at all attractive is to calculate them using an unrealistic average wind speed -- and then sell the product as ideal for low wind areas.
Wind power is a scam.
notice how in DC the ONLY alt energy is “grid” energy.
There is nothing to make homes seamlessly independent of grid.
If you take that $5,499 and invest it at 3% interest, in a year you would have enough to buy 824.25 kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is probably more than you would get from the wind in most good locations.
The wind velocity where I live is above 5 km/hr only infrequently. Wind often dies down completely in the evening, and things are pretty still during the night. A few hours in the afternoon might be productive.
The cost of installation is not considered. Installation could easily match the cost of the windmill itself. Windmills need a substantial anchoring system to keep from being blown over when the wind really does blow.
Batteries are a major expense, and they must be replaced (like car batteries) every few years.
It would be fun to have one of these things, but I would count it as a toy — just for fun.
20 year “return on investment”.
And the service life of this thing is what?
The ROI is not counting any maintenance costs - how often to bearing need to be re-packed/replaced (latter in the case of sealed bearings), etc.
But Zero will fix that with the carbon tax! Double or triple the cost of electricity and the ROI will shorten. But then having your own windmill will imply some degree of self sufficiency, and we simply can’t have that in the Age of Obama! You must buy your electricity from the State owned windmill farm.
It is the concept that I like. It is much more of a simplified design than other electric generating wind machines. It is way too expensive to be economically feasable. However, ALL new inventions start off too expensive(ie the computer, calculator, dvd player,etc.) and eventually price is reduced.
bttt
A heavy perimeter on a rotating disk makes for a LOT of mechanically destructive energy potential.
Not to mention increased drag, hence lower mileage.
Now I would have to cut down all the trees around my house to get the wind. How will that set with the tree-huggers?
Your analysis neglects the the economic principle of time value for money. If you add the $5499 to your mortgage at 5% interest, for example, the first years interest on the $5499 would be $274.95. You would actually be in the hole $34.95. Your next year would be even worse, since now we have to calculate the cost on the new basis of $5533.95 ($5499 + 34.95). Compounded over twenty years results in a significant loss. The original cost is never recovered.
You can buy a heckuvan entry-level portable generator and the gasoline to run it for the next coupla years, and not spend the likely $10k this thing is going to cost with installation and peripherals.
And with the generator, you get power when you want it, no just when/if the wind blows.
I drive by a large windmill farm in Northern Indiana.
Usually, every single one of the things is just sitting there. Not one of over 100 is moving at all.
These systems are expensive when compared to more conventional electricity generation, but might come in handy on Gilligan’s Island. The problem is, they’re marketing this to the general consumer who already has reliable, low cost power.
Look for tax credits and subsidies to pull money from one pocket to give it to another.
Not worth it at the price, but it looks like something where they could reduce the price.
And it would be useful if paired with solar panels, in places where the grid is hard to get to, or where you have a lot of power outages. It’s getting into the reasonable backup-generator price range.
And if you believe our country is going to revert to the dark ages soon, having your own independent source of electricity would be useful.
Sans batteries, inverters, cables and installation the payback at “full” output is 38 years (assuming you will be lucky to get five years without any serious maintenance). More gerbil power.
You are correct.
>> Just take the batteries out of your volts-wagon...
>> No need - the turbine would recharge those batteries.
No kidding? Then it’s even BETTER than perpetual motion!
When you get back home with fully charged batteries, you put ‘em on the GRID and sell the extra juice back to the utility!
Man, with a scheme like this, driving would pay for itself! I’m going to order TWO of em.
Just like Health Care, if you DON’T buy their “green” technology, you will pay a fine or a very high tax to support those who have it, or are too “poor” to buy it.
Once they start controlling the population’s behavior, there will be no limits in what they will consider. And it all got started with Health Care.
I'm with you. I am a fan of distributed power (vs. centralized) as a partial solution to our continuing energy requirements. We, on average, use about 25-30kWh of power per day. This system would provide (in optimal conditions) about 1 month's demand per year. Not great but technology is trending in the right direction.
A benefit not mentioned that me and many of my FR friends would consider: You (with the addition of a battery bank and inverter) would have a small supply of "personal" energy in the event that the grid were to go down for an extended time. You could run a few lights and perhaps have a small refrigerator indefinitely.
Are you sure? per DAY?
2kWh is "average", so I could believe you would have 2.5 to 3.0 kWh per day with an "all electric" house (heat pump, electric water heater, etc).
If you're going "off grid", your appliances need to be gas, to the extent possible.
Your typical home circuit is rated for between 1.8 and 2.4 kilowatt-hours.
The average home uses 8900 kwh per year, or about 24kwh per day, or 1kwh per hour.
I think my yearly use is a little higher than average, because I have a large xmas light display in the winter. I used 12,900 KW/year, with 4000 kwh being in November-January.
It can also increase drag. making the electric drive motors use up all of the generated electricity.
Or is this another perpetual motion machine?
Shoot... nevermind, not awake yet.
A 1-2 kW (not hour) system is what I was thinking of.
24 kWh per day is not out of line for an efficient house.
This is so typical of “green energy” devices. The company hired a PR firm to make false claims about it’s performance before engaging in field testing. Where I live, a kwh of electricity costs less than ten cents. Notice that the PR release claims that it will be able to windmill will be able to generate up to 2000 kwh in a year. That is less than $200 in our area. But this is based on an average of 12.8mph wind 24 hours per day for 365 days. 12.8mph most likely is the optimum wind speed for this unit. Any faster and the unit probably has to dump the extra wind in some way to keep from damaging itself.
In the real world this $6000 unit will be lucky to generate $20 worth of electricity in a year. You can only get so much energy out of a six foot diameter windmill. This is just another in a long line of “green energy” scams. It is a useful study that should be used as an illustration when politicians talk about “green energy”. This thing is a bad joke.
Having ongoing electricity during a blackout = priceless.
True, but its a start. The more they sell, the cheaper they become, the more money gets pushed into research, the more efficient they become, the more cost-effective, which means more get bought.
I still dont think these things will be anything more than a supplement to conventional power systems, but supplements are good.
A neighbor has installed a wind turbine on his roof. It looks like a Mix-Master blade. We live in a dense neighborhood where we do get a good seabreeze most afternoons.
I also doubt that it really pays, but the attraction to me would be that we use very little juice. Our electric bill is less than $30 per month. I wonder if with this and a few solar cells one could go off the grid and have a degree of independence.
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