Posted on 10/17/2007 6:27:41 AM PDT by Uncledave
Sounds like it would be best in places with mild summers and cold winters.
In SoCal, my electric bill during the ‘heating season’ is very low so I’d see little benefit. It wouldn’t help at all during summer when my electric bill hits $200/month.
That turbine in the picture gives me an idea.
Why not install a series of those along the ridgline of the roof lying horizontal ? They would be relatively unobtrusive that way. The wind that hits the roof would be intensified as it flows up to the ridgeline, so capturing it there seems most logical. You could have them all securely mounted to the ridge beam and connected so they all drive just one generator at the end of the line.
With the wind turbine units modular, you would istall as many modules as your typical windspeed dictates to drive one generator of 10KW.
I’d be interested in your thoughts on my idea in post 43.
Squirrel-cage type turbines are what I had in mind, except only 12” diameter and running for maybe 40 feet of ridgeline.
I saw a story on FR which I can’t find that had a European windmill for the home. It was shaped more like a vase. The story had a homowner who was trying to install on his house but the town didn’t approve it. It wasn’t large either.
I’ll look for the story.
There’s some modular roof-mounted concepts out there designed exactly how you describe.
“BTW, I don’t think it would be cost competitive with the grid. Hydrogen is very expensive to transport. In addition, fuel cells have a fairly limitted life span.”
Fuel cell technology as well as hydrogen production/distribution technology are both improving, as is consequent price/performance measurements. Fuel cells have already been in use for some small commercial buildings and that market has helped provide some of the revenue and demonstrable results leading to more R&D into the residential end. I expect continued technology improvements in the fuel cells themselves as well as in the production of hydrogen to make them very competitive.
One advantage of fuel cells is that a one step/phase process (with most fuel cells scaled for supplying power to buildings) produces the electricity and produces heat as a by-product - enough heat to supply the water and room heating needs of the building, which leaves the electrical power produced going directly to “electrical” requirements and not needed for heating as well. Most of the currently deployed fuel cells for buildings, commercial or residential, take advantage of this and have the fuel cells installed as part of a co-generation system.
A standard natural/propane gas electric generator can either supply some of its power output directly for heating or the building must used other resources.
Dang ! So much for making millions.
No, keep your idea but still mount the turbines vertically. If you mount them horizontally, it will only work when the wind is coming directly over the roof. If you mount them vertically, they will work with the wind coming from any direction, but get a “boost” if coming directly over the roof.
I live in Germany where they offered everyone tax credits (almost impossible to get) on wind farms. There are lots of investment groups who bought one or a dozen windmills....and make a four percent payback each year off their investment...sadly. They can count off more on their tax credits....so they might get another one or two percent somewhere else in the investment game. No one is putting wind mills in their backyards, and no German engineer is predicting that this will ever come.
But I do have neighbors who have bought into solar cells on the roof...and this appears to be a better long-term investment.
Thanks for the ping.
further excerpting:
Gipe wishes more Americans would do as some Europeans and pool their resources together to buy large turbines that could supply 500 homes or more.
“Americans are raised on the mythology of individual action,” Gipe said. “But not everyone can put a windmill in their backyard.”
The cost per kilowatt to build and maintain a large turbine is less than half that for a small turbine. That means large turbines pay for themselves at least twice as fast, and in some cases can even turn a profit for the owners, Gipe said.
***So, basically if we get a community of 500 homes to pool resources, they could cut their electricity bills in half with some kind of TIC (Tennancy In Common) relationship. The hard part there would be getting financing. TICs are big in some congested urban areas (for lower cost housing cheaper than condos), but they have not yet broken out.
FWIW, I see this entire thing — TICs + renewable energy, as a huge growth area. But there are major hurdles ahead. 30 years from now, people will be saying, well, DUH you should have invested in TICs + Renewables, but it ain’t so easy to do today.
Yes to both of you, though your login names would appear to be in opposition.
Right now the issue would be financing. With Silicon Valley breathing heavily over renewable energy, there could be something here.
Here are two links for the vertical design.
http://www.tangarie-energy.com/
The price seems to be 6500.00.
The concern I have with windpower is that it is an intermittent and diffuse energy source. A diffuse energy source means you have to work harder to gather energy in sufficient quantities to make it economical. Intermittent means it's lousy for any kind of grid-based system where baseload power demand must be met. I know, I have spent some time in the "hot seat" of a regional power dispatching center. The last thing you want when you're trying to meet demand and maintain grid stability is a variable baseload source. You're essentially placing your fate in the hands of the variability of natural phenomena.
A modern, technological society cannot get along solely on variable energy sources. There are too many things out there in an industrial society that need a steady, reliable source of electricity. You can't run an efficient chip-making operation, for example, if you're faced with shutting down and then restarting your production facility depending on whether or not the wind is blowing. Likewise things like food production and storage, petrochemical plants, heavy manufacturing, medical facilities, etc. For good reason, some of those have backup generator capability, but as a general rule you don't want to be running off of your backup generators on a regular basis. They aren't made for that.
My comment about evolving into a utility is to make the point that, gee, we have those now. Those systems provide extremely reliable energy at reasonable cost, and I think that is the goal. If you can come up with a competing system that does that, then fine, you're basically doing what we're doing now but in a different manner. But unless your system uses a primary energy source that is non-intermittent and economical, you're probably not going to get very far with it.
Nuclear and hydro make a great baseline source, solar is great as a counterbalance to daytime peak demand. Wind on the other hand really needs to be stored and used during peak hours or for load leveling.
Displacing NG and coal-fired generation with nuclear is probably the best way to go to attain reliable supply and help on the GHG/particulate emissions aspects. Solar? Again, another variable source, depending on where you are. In my locale, we haven't seen the sun in three or four days running, now. I doubt if a reasonably-sized storage system (something for home use) would have that kind of reserve. I really don't relish the thought of running out of power in the midst of a cold midwestern winter.
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