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@The Way, The Truth, & Life Right! I don't care about global warming. Am I going to impoverish myself by 25% in order to "fight global warming"? No. What are the consequences of global warming? 1) A 1-2 degree increase in average temperature: I don't care. I can deal with that by turning down the temperature on the AC thermostat (and I prefer milder winters). 2) A 1.2 inches per decade rise in sea level: again, I don't care becuase: a) Most people live well enough above that for that to be of any concern to anyone alive today. b) In 100 years time, this may be a concern for people living on beachfront property, but they are the most wealthy people among us and I'm not impoverishing myself by 25% to preserve their vacation homes. Coastal cities that haven't already built their waterfronts to handle a 1.2 foot rise in sea level have 100 years to deal with the problem. c) Poor and low lying subsistence agricultural lands have a tough row to hoe, but sea levels have been rising for more than 100 years, and their circumstances would be better improved by moving out of subsistence agriculture and into higher value added (and mobile) occupations. 3) Oceans becoming less basic (currently 8.1 pH; 7.0 is neutral, i.e. tap water): again, I don't care. a) I don't care if clam shells become more fragile at this level of pH. b) I find it preposterous to hear that clams, with billions of years of evolution behind them in a hostile environment (sea water), can't handle a 0.1 decrease in basic ("alkaline", not "acidic") pH -- which is a movement toward neutral, i.e. "fresh" water. [The term "ocean ACIDITY" is used by climate hustlers to incite fear for political and personal gain.] Have I missed anything? Melting glaciers? Sorry, I'm not impoverishing myself by 25% over receding glaciers. Sorry, but I don't care. The costs and power grabs behind this issue are astounding. So are the lottery-ticket benefits, unless you are in on the scam: the politicians, enforcers, and renewable energy opportunists. If you feel so strongly about global warming, you should lobby for THORIUM MOLTEN SALT REACTORS -- not only for electricity, but for manufacturing synthetic gasoline -- all carbon neutral. If not already familiar with it, here is a playlist for it: kzclip.org/p/PL6JjafE5gsb9nSmudoj5MUKxX8LTKO0-J
New people do realize that all of these products are made from gasoline right they are made from the same source.. You fools carbon isn't going anywhere but your freedom is
I have a turbine on my off-grid property that complements the solar nicely. It cost me very little to install and zero maintenance cost since I did the install myself and perform the almost non existent maintenance once a year myself as well. My turbine is 1800 watts and can outperform the solar during bad weather producing as much as a kilowatt/hour of electricity on those days, witch may not sound like much but when you are off-grid it can make all the difference. The cost of the turbine was less than $1000 plus the cost of the tower and the charge controller/diversion load. The charge controller I use is about $600 and I built the diversion load myself for under $500. I constructed the tower myself and I'm not totally sure on the cost of it, but it was one of the smaller costs. There is also wire and hardware of course. Once constructed the turbine system costs me nothing more than the solar array to maintain, although eventually I will have to replace bearings but I have them on hand and they were cheap. You just need to be willing to do everything yourself. I am planning to do a video on my install this spring to post on my channel.
@Paul Ogden Actually off grid + in the middle of nowhere is key here. No one wants to see an ugly wind turbine jutting up into the sky in a typical urban or suburban setting. Furthermore, very few urban and suburban settings have sufficient wind to make wind turbines very useful. People like living in sunny places (which are good for producing solar energy); people generally dislike living in windy places (which are good for producing wind energy). On the other hand, wind turbines are excellent at utility scale in, say, windy mountains passes or the on windswept great plains which have seemingly endless fields of row crops but are very sparsely populated. It's not an accident that the USA generates about ten percent of its electricity from wind, that Texas produces the most electricity from wind, and that Iowa produces around sixty percent (over 1/2 of its) electricity from wind. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_States Producing electricity from wind is great, but not for most residential uses in the USA. Sure, if you have 40 acres off grid on which you built a rustic cabin, then yeah, wind power might make a lot of sense. Chopping your own firewood, fishing, and building an outhouse might make a lot of sense too. But solutions for off grid cabins are an edge case (a rare case) that are irrelevant for the vast majority of folks living in the USA.
@hg2 to answer your Pop Quiz, you. You are all the reasons it is bad to have politics on education. Have you supported efforts to ban any books or curricula lately?
Thanks for another informative video. One alternative option not considered here is community ownership of large scale wind; where as others have pointed out the payback is much better due to the larger rotors and taller base. It’s an option worth exploring in many windier areas, either to compliment Solar and make up any shortfall you may have due to limited roof area for your panels or where there are total restrictions in apartment blocks etc. In these situations clubbing together to build a co-operatively owned wind farm (and or solar farm) are great options. We have a number of regional projects in the UK, where cloudy days are common on our small island but the wind blows a lot. There is also an innovative company called Ripple energy that is using its expertise to help develop new wind farms and offer them to the public for shared ownership through a co-operative model and partnering with energy suppliers to take the costs of the energy generated off those owners bills.
What a brilliant video, I loved this and found the information fascinating. Its such a shame that domestic wind applications don't make sense for us right now in urban environments. Solar looks to be the way to go. I was recently quoted £6300 (around $8220) for a 14 panel solar installation (about 5kw) with no VAT, so solar in the UK is far cheaper than across the pond! Thanks for this, I really appreciate your effort.
To-the-point and credible, as always. Matt Ferrell is likely the best and most "well-rounded" KZclip technical expert. Your ability to explain a wide range of challenging scientific topics is unsurpassed.
As always great info. A friend in a remote cabin needed some power. I built a small solar panel that incorporated small squirrel cage fans on top connected to a generator, munted on tp of the 4 solar panels. Beneath the panels I looped black poly pipe for passive hot water and heating. As small as it was/is it worked. Thanks. Don
Very nice presentation Matt and team! Wind is an awesome compliment to solar. Great to see some nice innovation in the industry! But IMHO solutions/designs/implementations will need time to be field tested for best designs and practices to be proven, so it's still early in the home wind solution space. And like anything to do with engineering, the answer is always: It depends :)
Having worked in the small wind industry for 12 years, selling ~4000 small wind turbines, having one in my own yard for 14 years now, I would encourage everyone to install solar and forget wind, for the reasons Matt gave here. The 3 small wind manufacturers I worked for are long ago bankrupt and the goofy designs shown in the video won’t produce hardly any energy but will cost a lot. Large, utility wind makes sense because they’re hundreds of feet in the air with massive rotors.
Both are too expensive and impractical... with solar you are basically just paying your electric bill for the next couple decades upfront compared to just standard monthly... The solution is nuclear power per its cheaper, cleaner, and safer than all other forms and has been around for decades
Good to hear of new developments in wind generation! Just recently had solar installed and we're happy with the energy. Had a slight issue when it was windy with one panel rattling, which I've had fixed since. It gave me the idea that what if under each panel there was a way of capturing the wind. Seems like future solar panels could be made to capture the wind as well with vents under each panel leading to a micro turbines. Not sure if this would be feasible, but worth an experiment.
This makes so much sense. I have experimented with horizontal drum fans for energy generation and found this visually attractive over propeller fans including and the ease of protecting the fan drum with damper blades at high wind velocity's. The idea came to me some years ago from my heating and ventilation back ground.
I've been following the development of the archimedes turbine with hope for several years. Imagine every home in the neighborhood with one of those 'flowers' producing electricity. my concerns about solar are post-use pollution from toxic ingredients.
A well thought out and informative presentation. I would always recommend a wind/solar power combo. Vertical Axis wind turbines proved their effectiveness at the 2012 London Olympics. Unless you have very good damper system, then fitting a wind turbine to your property isn't a good idea. I haven't seen the top of roof system before and would appreciate some more information about that.
Good video and I appreciated the information about the RidgeBlade and Joe Doucet's Wind Wall. I'm surprised you didn't include Tesup (Atlas 4 or AtlasX) as their technology has been around for a number of years and seems to have a pretty solid power curve and only stands about 4 feet tall which could easily be attached to the top of a home making installation and connection to a home inverter (especially if you have solar already) pretty easy.
I like that the Ridge-Blade can be installed right along the ridge of a roof where you likely wouldn't have any solar panels; it allows both systems to be installed in parallel.
Fire Department will not allow a ridge install in my area. (That is why there is no solar on the ridge in most places) The fire department wants to be able to "walk" the top of the roof to fight fire. Otherwise this sounds like a great idea. (other than possible constant noise echoing in the attic cavity).
One factor that could be major is orientation. Sun prefers a north/south orientation of the roof in most of North America to optimize sun angles on the panels. Something like the ridgeblade would ideally be placed on an east west roof to take advantage of prevailing winds. So if ridgeblade can be on par with solar cost wise, then it becomes an attractive option based on your roof orientation
Apologies if you covered this and I managed to miss it twice: What about surface area concerns? A vertical turbine could be an option where there's surface area necessary for panels (whether roof or ground-installs), giving it more potential. I don't think that would overcome the challenges you talk about in this video, though, and I am hard-pressed to think of a scenario where a turbine could be installed but have little potential for solar panels. The most immediate thing I can think of (aside from very weird one-offs) are homes built into hills or mountains, which don't really have a "roof" and available land to put the panels on might be limited still.
I think it makes sense to diversify your power sources, and the ridge based turbines look relatively unobtrusive. Think there's scope there for a mixed setup with solar panels on the same roof. There's nothing to stop you making a water turbine as well, if you have a small stream on your property. It all adds to your energy resiliance, and removes reliance on increasingly expensive utility providers.
Thanks for the insight on wind power. A huge problem I have is both roofs on the house and garage are covered by big trees. So, I figured while solar panels on the lawn is a pretty limited option, I could supplement with wind power. For now, I am trying to make sure that sunk cost fallacy attitude I worry about is in check. So, the only direction I have taken thus far is building a decorative garden windmill if only to get an idea on how practical wind is for me. As a bonus, I could even repurpose the derrick the windmill comes with to install a proper wind turbine. Even though the derrick is a meager 12 feet tall, I have seen some promising signs to move forward. Getting the entire property off-grid is probably unlikely no matter what wind and/or solar kit I try to install, but if I can get a few power-hungry toys running off this build, that would be stellar.
Only through continued development and testing can we see meaningful results. Your video of the various Wind Generators was fascinating and thought provoking. Great job. It appear to me that ridge top wind power generation could be the most attractive as well as effective. With Solar Panels do we have facilities to recycle or dispose of the ones that have ended their useful life cycle? I personally am in favor of 'at location' power generation for every home and business. We need to preserve farm land for food and livestock production. An army indeed marches on its stomach; so does civilizations. Wind and water in my opinion are by far the most effective and sustainable power solutions unless we produce enough methane from animal and human manure.
2:24 The thing is, the area the blades cover doesn't affect the energy generates linear, but squared. Which means increasing the length of the blade increases the energy generated exponentially. So bigger wind turbines are way more cost effective than what you can put on your home.
@Andrew W Kay Having taken up to 2nd year university level math, I'm still kind of surprised that you are right about this. I mean, i knew what a quadratic function was, but I didnt realize that there was such thing as quadratic growth. I have always thought a = b^2 was simply exponential, even though it can also be quadratic. lol
The biggest thing with small scale wind is the same as with sex. Location, location, location. Since small scale wind by definition using small blades (sweep area 2*pi*r*r so double length is 4 times the output), and flow rate. Because of interaction with ground, trees, structures height has a massive impact on flow rate. Of course if you live on a large hill ridge line or where wind gets funneled thru a gap, this increase flow.
I live in an area that has ~10-25mph wind on avg/month next to water and I might as well make use of the wind. The ridgeblade's roof turbines really seems like the best idea, although I hope people calculate the wind directions before installing them fixed on a roof.
Some of us are limited by solar with existing structures like dormer windows on the roof or not ideal orientation of the roof. Despite what we are told about angles, I have solar panel on my gable wall on my house. Hugely increasing my solar panels area and very little difference in output. We need to start covering our outside walls in solar. That windwall you showed, I'm currently building a fence using the same idea . A row of vertical turbines encased in a fence frame. (Many thanks to Robert Murray smiths channel and TNT) look how much fencing you have around your home. Quite a lot of lineal length. So even small amounts will add up. We need to start looking at our homes as a power plant. Where can we squeeze power out of our home, through wind, solar rain power, gravity power, any little amount as long as it doesn't cost a fortune to get 10 watts. it all adds up.
🔥 *Thanks Matt, this was an excellent and practical comparison of solar to wind and the differences of generators.* _Keep making content like this to help people make smart choices!_
Hi Matt, a very informative and topical video, thank you. Have you made one regarding how to use or setup a storage system to save the energy one generates from solar/wind and to keep most it rather than send it to the grid. With the rising cost of electricity, it makes sense to use some battery storage system instead of receiving the relatively small feed in tarriff. However, battery systems and the logistics of installing one seem daunting. Your clarity here would be very helpful. 😊
I'd like to have one that looks like a smaller version of the old water pump windmills, that would look like a nice lawn ornament while producing electricity. I've seen them put together by do it yourself-ers, with great results. Seems to me the smart thing is to get away from mass produced power and unreliable grids. No one can shut off your power if you're not on thier grid.
Love the ridge blade design , looks like it has a future , quietness and servicing costa would need to be low for home owners. Larger buildings with pitched roofs such as public buildings may make it more cost effective along side solar
@Rinus Hi Rinus, I'm the Technical Manager for RidgeBlade. We are aware of the issue. That installation was completed by the previous RidgeBlade owners. We have since taken it over and upgraded all the power electronics and PMG design. The previous issue was that the inverter was not properly matched to the PMG, hence it could not efficiently convert mechanical power to electrical energy. We have a pilot site in the UK now where testing is being carried out to optimise the power output of the RB2 five rotor system.
Pretty sure they're out of business - their phone numbers are all defunct and their social websites are all down. Tried to fill out their form to get a quote and that was broken too.
@OldMech i have used chicken wire for years to keep small birds and critters out of my chimney (we have a weather cover that is sort of like a little roof over it with the chicken wire covering the gaps between the cover and the chimney itself.). the mesh of the wire is small enough that i don't even think a humming bird could get through. you can get it in rolls in a number of sizes as well as differing sized mesh at most any hardware store. (fyi i also use it to form cages around my tomatoes to keep the critters out while still letting pollinators in)
@Vee'Ot_Dragon The screen would have to be small enough to keep the critters from camping out when there is no wind. I know there are places where the wind never stops, but those places usually don’t have a problem small birds, or squirrels
I quite like the idea of the Ridgeblade wind turbine, but I'm wondering if a similar system could be installed _within_ the roof space. If you have a tiled roof and installed an inner roof, then the existing outer roof tiles could be refitted to act as a diffuser. The entire roof sides now act as an air intake / exhaust, with the gap between the roof layers now acting as a huge duct, carrying air into the Ridgeblade at practically the same angle, no matter which way the wind was blowing against the outer roof. I'm thinking that with some clever sizing of the duct to accelerate the airflow and generate more of a pressure difference, you may not need so many Ridgeblade units. The inside roof layer would have to act as your rain barrier, so you'd have to install a drainage system to mitigate that, but it could be done. You'd still have some inner roof space for storage, perhaps for a battery pack to store energy when you aren't at home or the demand isn't as high? Also, easy access for maintenance, just pop into your loft even if it's raining outside.
This option might work with plenty of sound insulation which would double as thermal insulation. Another option might be a small "steeple" on the roof to capture wind from any direction and focus it onto a small turbine. Something that can be built into new houses to constantly trickle in energy at nightime and during winter.
We live in San Francisco and in our precise location we get verrrrry little sun but and a relentless amount of wind. This was a really helpful video, and I think in a few years our house may actually be in the small minority of homes that would benefit from wind power and not from solar as long as we aren't depending on it alone.
Matt, you make the best videos! This was very enlightening. I really hope someone develops the right wind technology for residential use, as the combination of wind and solar power can truly shits us off of fossil fuels!
Thanks for this video. It gives me a reasonable feel for the cost difference between the two generating systems. What I’d really like to see is a solid video on an off-grid installation that approaches these technologies as complementary parts of a system instead of competing business models. Imagine an integrated wind/solar generating system with an integrated battery system. That’s a package that can capture peak generation, whether wind or solar, and carry the load when either or both fall short. And that system could be presented as a scalable design so larger or smaller systems would be relatively easy to get to. Finally, do me a favor and pick one location for the video. All the double talk about “results may vary” is just a distraction. We get that. We just need more information.
Thanks for another great and informative video. I hope to someday be able to have solar and wind together.. I am interested in the less conventional designs of turbines, though. There are some very interesting designs out there. Also, if you live near running water, you might be able to make use of that also!
I've been a consultant on wind and solar for ten years. Wind is not practical for 99 pct of homeowners due to the steady high winds needed to make small turbines economic. Wind makes sense at utililty scale, but at homeowner scale it's a niche application, used only in very windy places or as a supplemental source for long winter months with no sun. So basically your video is correct!
@Shady Island Chronicles The number one issue with any alterative home owned power generation scheme is needing to get paid for what is generated by monopolies that really don't want you making your power rather than buying it from them. That is, of course, if you wish to remain hooked to the grid. As with almost everything else, the government is friendly to the monopolies so home producers' are not paid at the same rate and in my state, have to pay for utility hook up. A decent federal government that actually worked for its citizens and the citizens of earth is what is truly needed.
@Jokerwolf I do but it's illegal to stop the flow of water or even tamper with it. I would like to put a water turbine on the small creek on my property which feeds the larger creek, I could probably get some power after the rains come. The large creek is off limits, a water wheel may be ok since I can bottom feed without stopping the flow or slow it down. Birds are in danger with all windmills. Unless you put a screen in front of the blades then you will lose some power due to resistance from the screen. I think the problem is not the heavy winds it's the lighter winds bird usually don't fly well in heavy winds. 73
Really seems best mostly for installations in rural / semi-rural areas in places with lots of cloud cover that need a bit of "base load" reliability (compared with solar) during the cloudy seasons
Wind could make sense in high rise buildings without a lot of roofspace for solar compared to the number of residences. Ideally the building could be designed to catch wind energie from the drawing board.
The roadside wind turbine you researched sounds amazing.and the principle would be perfect for roof tops also. As always, enjoy your work and presentation
I'd definitely like to go for a Ridgeblade here in the North of England, if they become available. I think there are pretty tight planning permission restrictions in the UK though for this, and all onshore wind alas.
I'm purely solar at this point with battery back up, but the idea of having something generating electricity when the sun is down definitely appeals to me. Been thinking about small scale vertical axis for some time now. That roof mounted system looks like it could be game changing, along with the wind wall. If you think about it, you don't really need to generate a ton of electricity at night, so having even a small windmill can help decrease your storage/battery capacity while keeping the lights on.
Great video! I live in Tuscany, Italy and despite it being an extremely windy place it would probably make more sense to invest in residential geotermal rather than wind for now. Still looking forward to new development
This was very informative. The residential market really seems to need more of a technology focus in this space. It’s an area I keep peaking at over time, but doesn’t seem to be growing by any great leaps..
I'm usually suspicious of home-scale wind power on account of the inherent way wind generation works: having the wind apply work over the surface area of the generating system. Most of these concepts, even the ones with working models, don't usually address this inherent issue, and they end up being significantly less efficient than a large turbine due to their small surface area. That said, I'm particularly impressed with the ridge turbine for using the slope of the roof to add surface area to the system to force more air through the turbine. It's a solution that's so deliciously simple, you wonder why you didn't think of that. The fact that they have working models and even ones that are going for sail is just the cherry on top. Still don't think it can replace home-level solar, but with the majority of the roof left to place solar panels on, they're definitely a reasonable addition.
Friend installed one on the roof of his off-grid house. The house is basically a large garage shed on a concrete slab. Anyway the thing lasted up there less than a week before being moved well away from the house. The vibration set the whole place humming and rattling. I conclude that turbines are best installed on their own well-grounded tower.
I could see a wind system as more practical in cold weather: On a typical winter day solar is decreased (assuming you can even keep snow free), and heat loss from a home is proportional to wind speed. Reduced foliage on local trees would also help. My main concern would be accessing the turbine for maintenance, having the room to drop it down to ground level is a big plus.
have you considered 'night time', which I guess could be considered colder weather... or also during cloudy days. Interesting how so many people dismiss the complimentary effect of wind power... forgetting how many decades of research have promoted solar over wind for residential application
@crazyfvck There are icing issues with wind power in snow, and the heating often costs more than the solar is worth. In cold climates renewables at the home scale is quite tricky- carbon neutral wood burning/gasifier is often a much better option. Fine environmental dust is also an issue with solar, so keeping them washed is important, like you say some way to clean them is good.
Thanks! That's the exact video I was looking for, and it simply answered all my questions. At the first glance, a small wind turbine sounds like a perfect solution for a solar-powered house in my region, where it's often cloudy and during the winter solar panels are dead, covered by snow. But the problems and costs that such a turbine brings are making all this so unprofitable, that there is no surprise you don't see individual wind turbines around...
Agreed. It is a very niche solution. I was considering it for my cabin to complement the solar installation. Being the idea that usually a rainy week meant wind. But registered the wind on a whole year plus the costs and it simply didn’t make any sense. For the occasional long rainy week the backup propane generator it is just fine.
The design of the ridgeblade seems like one of the more practical residential designs. An idea i like is using the turbine wall as really unique fence line along the front of a property. You still gave all of the issues of it being low and blocked by other structures. Not sure if the wake from cars going by makes up for all that xd
One additional con for home wind: If your house is in a windy corridor sufficient to generate a respectable annual energy yield, there's a really good chance that you (with insistence from your wife) really don't want to live there very much longer.
Thank you Matt I love the video it was very informative and after watching a couple other videos on KZclip in the science project I did in the fifth grade I believe I'll be able to power my whole neighborhood for free at least after parts and labor
This was really informative! I recently moved closer to the coast and it's more windy, and I already have solar, so I was wondering about the state of small home wind turbines. Would you consider doing a video on solar hot water, for domestic hot water or even space heating? I'd love to see a comprehensive video on where that stands today, it seems to be less popular than a decade ago, and that surprises me with how much more energy can be thermally collected from the sun vs PV panels. Maybe PV combined with the latest heat pump tech is a better way to go now in terms of simplicity, maintenance free, and efficiency?
I endorse what @Anand Vaidya has mentioned. The ROI starts from day 1 itself. No need for heat pumps, I have looped the supply through a standby heater, such that constant hot water is available 24/7. (Return on Investment)
In India, Solar Water Heaters are very common. With a 200Ltr storage we get enough hotwater even in winter /rainy season when there is not much direct sunshine. There are 2 types: Evacuated Glass Tube based and Copper Plate based. Glass tube performs the best. Should work in most of the southern US.
@Save Money Save the Planet I was about to say the same. Rooflines have limited space for solar panels, and it often makes more sense to use that space for PV instead of heat. geothermal heaters plus water heater systems are advertised a lot (or use to be... now that I think on it, I haven't heard an ad about that in a while)... I would assume you can do the same with 'normal' heat pumps as well.
I’m not positive, but I think that heat pump efficiency has progressed so much that many people don’t want the cons that can come with those other solutions anymore. That may be why you feel like you don’t hear about it as much these days.
Fascinating video & very helpful. A friend built a wind turbine/power generator just large enough to power electric heaters for a lake house that was unoccupied in the winter. That was 1979. They have updated it, but the basic design still remains.
We are just now adding storage batteries to our solar panels in Australia. We tried to find out information about adding wind generation but couldn't get any information about generation at lower wind speeds. We do get quite a lot of wind but, in the end, decided that there was just not enough information available for wind generation at sub optimal speeds. Your video is very interesting and I think we made the right decision, at this stage, not to add a wind generator. When technology has improved we will relook at adding a wind generator. You provided more information than we were able to glean from the manufacturer. We asked direct questions about sub optimal wind strength but they couldn't or wouldn't give us a graph of diminishing production for diminishing winds - very disappointing.
Both wind and solar depends alot on where you live, like here on the western coast of Norway we have almost no solar power during the winter months, and alot of solar in the summer. And the opposite is true for wind, where we have alot during winter and not so much during summer, so a combination is very nice for self sustainability, Also the prices you have listed for wind is alot higher than what you can get it for if you do a bit yourself, you can get genuine 1500-2000w turbines for like 800 dollar.
I agree that, due to the intermittent availability of natural wind at many sites, wind turbines might best be used to provide the "intermittent load" portion of one's energy budget, such as for driving a cistern intake pump or the low-wattage, nighttime-only devices such as lighting.
I came up with a small ridge tile generator, which had one rota fitted to each tile. These have an 360 degree movement. So you could have a string of them all along your roof. The roof catches & compresses the wind upwards into the rotors, so that any direction will spin them. These were 12v, so you could attach them to a pear of + & - wires running parallel from one end to the other mounted under the ridge tiles. Yes you will need an inverter to manage the flow. But there are plenty of experts who could improve their efficiency. Thanks for the info, have a great day.
Matt, thank you for this video - this is an area that we definitely need to explore. There are some unexpected applications - like a row of vertical axis turbines on top of a traffic barrier. The traffic going by in both directions can get them all spinning. An interesting aspect of vertical axis turbines - when they are place closely together, they actually benefit from the turbulence of the other turbines around them. With horizontal turbines, if they are too close together, they lower the overall output, because the turbulence prevents the downwind units from working as well.
, Nu le pui dese. Nu sunt electrice, ci pe compresoare centrifugale de aer comprimat, unite intr_o rețea comună + rezervor. Compresoarele pot fi și înseriate. Vor consuma aerul de la unul la altul ( cu aceeași forță necesară). Cucalculul debitului in functie de ce putere oferă vântul(raport de compresie). Ultimul din rețea va avea cea mai mare presiune si cel mai mic debit.
@Godfrey Poon You're over thinking it. This doesn't add drag - it is taking energy that is wasted - a typical car for every mile has to push 4.5 TONS of air out of the way. And once that air is moving, getting some of that energy back - IS A GOOD THING. And we need to make all the cars electric, anyway.
@Neil Blanchard Oversimplified explanation: The wind is caused by the air getting out of the way of the cars. The turbines work by harnessing this air flow, i.e. they make it harder for the air to get out of the way of the cars. So the cars have to work harder to push through the air. But it's worse than that - because the energy is transferred though such an indirect process, it is an incredibly inefficient transfer. Apparently there is something like a 20-fold loss in the transfer and this makes the overall CO2 impact several orders of magnitude worse than coal power. It gets even worse - because the extra fuel consumption is spread out over every car that passes, no-one is ever going to be able to notice. But the impact is still there, it has just been made inconspicuous. The situation has been made much, much worse, but because it's hard to see the impact everyone will think it's great. Bottom line is that there is no free lunch. That's a consequence of the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy).
"The traffic going by in both directions can get them all spinning." So it's powered by the traffic... Yeah, it's an outrageously inefficient petrol generator.
Matt, very informative. I wind power and unlike a lot of people I like wind farms are a spectacular and beautiful sight. My current project is to electrify a travel trailer for as long an off grid stay as possible. One major factor of course it my roof top PVs, which I have just learned that I can get thermal electricity from them with a hot to cool transfer plate behind them and a small fan pushing the heat away from the cool plate. It's not a lot of power, but I'll take what I can get. My question for you is, what to do to a piped flow of hot air forced from the back of my trailer roof.... certainly there must be some type of additional generator that the rising hot air can be used to fill small sails like a small wind/water mill generator. The trick will be in not creating an back flow to the solar panel system. I just hate to see this hot wasted when I need more power.
Thanks Matt. Have been thinking about Wind as my primary source here as I am coastal, caught in a dip in the middle of town on a street with many houses. So sticking a small wind turbine wouldn't work for fear of it crashing through the surrounding area. looking in to the future would look like the ridge top to generate power would be the way to go. but living here with a neighbour sharing the roof. In a semidetached home brings other problems. But another great video and lots to think about.
I installed a 4Kw PV system in 2016. It produces more than sufficient electricity during the summer months (November to March), but through July to September usage outweighs production significantly. I run undertile heating through the winter 24hrs a day and charge an EV year round usually overnight. I live in an area considered a high wind zone, and it would seem to make sense to use that wind to produce electricity at times when solar is not productive. A few years ago I looked at a vertical axis wind turbine that could be pole or roof mounted and the new business that was advertising the product was convinced it could organise the consenting process with the local council, but seem to have disappeared. I do like the idea of the ridgeline turbine but would suggest that the home would need to be built in the correct orientation to maximise production which may not suit solar production.
One thing that is being overlooked is that wind turbines are easy to make and can be made from almost anything I would seriously recommend making your own wind turbine if you want one
After watching a few of your videos on renewable power generation, my thought has stayed the same. We're designing buildings to be more efficient in power use, but not power generation. Is there a future where a building is designed in an unconventional way where power generation is more efficient? As in, walls and roofs that collect wind and solar, basements that collect geothermal, floors and doors that collect kinetic, etc.
This is the fault of architects and city rules.. also if nations would make the common sense move to nuclear power none of this empty talk would happen per nuclear is the cleanest, cheapest, safest energy source we have
Forget the neigh Sayers. This is exactly what needs to happen innovation, from the ground up. Or walls in. Or roof in or outward. Why does it not happen? People boo hoo about it, but change always makes people uneasy. When you find a place that people have abandoned, you see nature rebounding based on similar concepts to what you've mentioned here. Plenty of $$ in what you've said as well
There was a system called "Wells Walls" in Australia about 40 years ago, but people were turned off by how it looked so it never took off - it involved having external louver blinds in front of glass over a blackened brick wall, with closable vents internal top and bottom. These cavities becomes a passive heater. Clever, but you house sort of looks like a shed.
It is incorrect, at least in the UK we are moving towards heat pumps, many of which use ground heat- it is NOT geothermal, as that requires drilling a few kilometres down to find a magma chamber- to both heat and cool homes. You are wasting your time to collect door kinetic energy. We aren't really designing buildings to be more power efficient at all- these "eco houses" are unsustainable and inefficient - often with flat rooves which have very poor thermal performance- concrete constrution also thermally poor, with many points of thermal bridging. They use short lifespan materials and construction methods and often have huge windows that lack curtains, making them too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, massively increasing costs. Modernist architecture is completely incompatible with power efficiency and green living - it is simply associated with socialism and thus a shared inspiration with eco architects. For efficiency a house should have low surface area- ie be similar to a cube- or be terraced or semi detatched. The roof should be self cleaning and long lasting - a pitched roof will last 30 years, a flat roof is only specced for 10. it should have strong structurally rigid long lasting weather protection on the outer face in a material that will last hundreds of years- such as stone, brick, block, etc. It should have a cavity to protect from damp and add extra insulation. It should have a very insulative inner wall. Windows should be thickly curtained, to keep the heat in during the night time, or the heat out during the summer days on the sun side of the house. Radiators (or heat vents in canada) should be directly under windows to provide a stable temperature and prevent window frosting. Ceilings should be low to keep the heat closer to the occupants. All space in the property should be utilised to allow for a smaller physical property for the same space. All internal walls should be insulated too and smoke seals around the doorframes so each room can maintain a separate temperature. Heat producing appliances such as a kitchen or fire if you require one should be central and low- basements if you have them - (though logistically you do not want to take shopping down stairs and garbage up) If you are serious about being green, you would forgo both clothes dryer and dishwasher - invest in a mangle a maiden and a pair of marigolds. in terms of transport you would replace your push bike and car with an efficient moped which will produce less co2 than a cyclist. a tuk-tuk for example if you need extra space for some reason. You will have no pets. you will grow much of your own produce in your garden- which is far better than solar panels in your garden due to the carbon consumption of food production. If you are even more serious you will build a cistern underground and collect your own water not rely on high pressure mains water. Of course we could also all live in small apartments in big concrete block buildings like the soviet union too.
I think it's a win win if I add Wind and Solar to my home. I live in Georgia and we get a lot of rain, so Solar will probably be effected quite a bit. Having the Wind turbines around will compensate for those rainy days when Solar is diminished but wind will be abundant!
I currently line in Fairfield, Ca where we can get at least a breeze of a few mph on 95% plus of days. I think that if you could find a small, yet efficient wind turbine and pair it with solar and a home battery pack (ex: Tesla Powerwall) it could make a decent 1-2 punch. I mainly see wind turbines “take over” power production from solar especially during nighttime or during times of severe overcast where solar cannot produce power or is very minuscule. Living on a coast or near a highway/large road or even a train line could also help produce some extra energy
My biggest worry is that the winds in my area might be to strong. I know some of the wind operators in the area say they have to shut down with the wind gets over a certain speed to protect the gearing.
There are a few regions where wind turbines work the best, especially at the home level. Too little wind and the turbines don't move too much wind and the turbines will brake or turn to protect themselves. So you have to be deliberate when looking into wind. You can find maps showing where there is optimal conditions. Honestly, offshore and the midwest are the best locations.
Great analysis. I often contemplate this issue and it appears, solar is by far much better. Even in a relatively southern section of Australia. (South being North for the US). Regretfully it's not worth the investment. BTW . . . .love your work.
I like the idea of combining the ridgeblade wind turbine to the apex of my house roof and having solar panels on the roof too. I hope that when the residential ridgeblade is available it will be able to coexist with solar and make homes much more self reliant. Combining that with a home battery and an EV, it makes it much easier for travel costs and home heating / electrical use to be factored into the purchase price of the panels and turbines, making it much more cost efficient. I would be interested to see what other mini wind turbines are actually available as a lot in this video are concept/ not widely available.
If you are both powering a car and a home, you will need a lot of solar. You could also reduce your heating/cooling energy use with a geothermal system and solar water heating.
The roof ridge format makes the most sense for residential use. The actual one posted appears to be sized for industrial use versus residential. From a practical perspective a residential contractor normally does not need a boom. Also in New Enland, as you probably already know the roof ridge support air flow on the underside of the roof. I suspect the amount of power generation capacity, durably and materials drove the design size to a more industrial scale and cost. Also I read there are vibration style units under development.
Here in west Michigan, during about 3 to 4 months in the winter, we have dark, heavy clouds or snow on the solar panels. However, often when it is overcast, the wind will blow for days. No solar power, but plenty of wind potential... I am convinced that there are areas where having both makes sense.
That Ridgeblade was first developed in Devonshire ( ?) UK. Then it disappeared and it was very difficult to find out about it. Now it's under the Power Collective (Ontario) and seems to have only one installer in Europe which is in Spain. As far as I can discover it costs upwards of 30k dollars to have installed on an average sized roof. 😔
We are developing a new type of roof top wind turbine expressly to address many of the issues that you covered and a few you didn't. It will be good to see a few new manufacturers and startups get into the wind space because competition will drive innovation. Another huge issue is parallel integration especially when dealing with managed lithium and other types of managed battery technologies. This is also an issue we are prototype solutions for. Great video and I look forward to the developments in this space.
Thanks for covering this Matt. I self installed Solar over 5 years and now all of my roofs are covered and I am getting more EVs (Kids are driving now). I started looking heavily at Wind as an option a year or so ago so this is very timely. Thanks
As you said the payback period is too long and the cost of servicing. If both were 50% cheaper it may be worth exploring. I did like the system added to the roof ridge to gather wind. Looks better than the others perched on a 20M pole or big and fat design.
Also, I don't know if it is different there in the USA, but in some places, it's not possible to install a wind turbine for fauna protection reasons. About the windspeed, it is worth mentioning that even 5 m/s at the height that micro and pico wind turbine systems are usually mounted it's really hard to reach in most places, without considering the fact that at lower height turbulence is more common too. Before considering a windturbine I would consider to take a good anemometer and collect data for about an year in the position you intend to place it and make your consideration on that. Also there are many software that will help you estimate the annual production of the system once you've inserted the data you collected, not to mention the type of windturbine, cut-ina and cut-off are important but also check the Power diagram to understand where you more common windspeed fall, it makes a big difference
I am a little worried that those wind models may kill a lot of birds. We live in a rural area in Northern Norway, and every day we have small birds of different kinds visiting the feeders just outside the living room's windows, and it's so nice to sit inside and watch them. I wouldn't install anything that could be dangerous for them.
Wind turbines are banned in my (suburban) area because of the noise they generate. But it's disappointing because we live in an area with consistent wind and inconsistent sunshine. I plan on trying on a vertical wind turbine to see what sort of noise it produces though.
Good presentation of the goods and correct conclusions in my opinion. Nice to hear about the ridge-type. Theoretically, you could double up and have panels on the roof too!
Thank you for coming back to this topic Matt. We live in rural Missouri. There are times when it's cloudy/overcast for days in a row and we're considering supplementing our solar. I was totally unaware of the yearly maintenance. I'm now confounded about how I would do maintenance if our windmill were 65 feet (19.5 m) high! After watching I still feel I'm not ready to take the step to wind power. I'm going to root for the ground based (edit typo: vehicles) vertical systems to become .... Everything we need.
@angrydragonslayer is he in northern Utah? and or engineering wise did it make sense? and with average 15 to 30 mph is it a good fit 9 month's out of the year?
i'm not sure about laws in missouri but i helped set up a turbine for a friend while i was staying at his place in utah, he paid ~$1200 (total) for a 2.4kw unit from thermodyne systems. as for prices mentioned in this video, ask for some quotes and you'll likely find that you can't even find someone asking anywhere near 5k per kw without it being extremely hyped or something like a full install (likely including arranging legal stuff)
I have installed both. It all depends on your wind zone. I prefer solar since wind power is generally only realistic when installed on a problematic tower. I’ve had a tower fall over in extreme wind conditions.
There's a reason wind turbines are big: yield raises with area --> double the diameter, get 4 times the yield wind speed raises with height. Double the wind speed, get 8 times more yield (kinetic energy is proportional to v² + more air flowing through) These turbines only really make sense for remote places far from the equator where you simply have to complement missing sunlight in winter.
I'm off grid, with a solar array that can charge our roughly 2days of battery storage before noon on a clear day. The problem with solar is clouds, and it's generally more windy when they're denser, so wind seems like a good supplement. Thank you for the sobering video.
Smaller turbines spin faster and kill more birds. We had a local supermarket install a 3m diameter turbine and they took it off after less than a year, in part because of that. We also installed some 'indestructible' vertical units on telecoms high sites but it didn't last past the first storm. Worked really nice for about two weeks. It can help A LOT to extended battery life on solar-only sites by reducing battery cycle depths, but it's definitely a hobbyist hands-on endeavour.
Hi Matt thanks for the great video! I've invested the n Harmony Turbines and Halcium but both are still in development. Tesup is another UK VAWT I'm considering to compliment a Hybrid solar w/VAWT residential (City) system. A KZclip on Hybrid controllers would be great info also.
Could you do a video on small scale hydro power for ocean side or river/creek side properties? I think that could be more cost effective because of the higher energy density that water has with respect to wind. Although it's rare to see it because of the location restrictions.
In most of the world your right, solar makes far more sense. However in Canada, most of the country is too far north to be ideal for solar and it's super windy. Its interesting that one of the companies you mentioned was from Ontario, I could definitely see the future application for more northern countries.
I have always considered wind for homes as nearly worthless unless in the country or off grid. Still there is another use that might make more sense. If you set up a small voltage system for night lighting outdoors and indoors (6-volt systems usually) you can use just car batteries as your storage. You lose the advantage of selling power back to the grid. But you gain a constant lighting system that even in low winds should generate enough to cover your needs daily. Note this can also be used to charge most portable devices as they often run at less than 6 volts. Another consideration is if you live along a freeway or highway. Might sound crazy but the air pushed around by traffic can be an effective way to turn a smaller low resistance turbine. This would be more useful with the wind wall model show above.
That large 25 blade wind turbine looks cool.it could be an architectural artifact for homes ,if architects are on boarding and work with. Rich blade integrates properly with home and sounds good option.
I already knew if I am ever able to own a home, I would try to get a VAWT installed before solar would be considered. The game SimCity actually is what turned me to the idea of wind power long ago.
The Archmedies wind turbine sounds interesting & in my home area of Devon the UK would surely make a lot of sense & be a breakthrough. Can you follow the success or otherwise of this design. The tilted roof design sounds interesting depending on how it develops. I feel the UK apart from the West Country is pretty far north for solar panels to be effective, unless there are greater breakthroughs to come.
Matt, at 9:05 you didn't account for maintenance costs when calculating payback of wind. If you deduct $75 (1.5% of 5k) per year the payback period increases by over 50% increasing from 22yr to 34yr! That said, it took solar a long time to reach its current economic viability and I look forward to seeing where the winds of advancement take this technology!
@tin2001 That's not a sound argument. Just look at the history of flight. The ancient Chinese tried to make kites that could carry a human, da Vinci fantasized about flying machines. People desired to fly for millennia. But nobody seemed to be able to create a machine that could successfully transport people via the air. Before the arrival of the airplane, it probably seemed impossible. But now we live in a world where we can't imagine NOT traveling by air. I think the small scale wind turbine is an inevitability as long as engineers and scientists keep working toward it.
People have been regularly and commercially harnessing the wind for thousands of years. Solar has only really happened in the last century or so. If we were going to see some major new wind turbine design that is more efficient at capturing the wind, I'm sure we would have seen it already.
I noticed this too, although he stated maintenance costs of about $160 giving an almost 90yr payback, the turbine will not last that long is you'll never break even
I like the ridgeblade design, it looks very promising for Tony homes with a combination of solar with them it would be a good concept for better offgride living.
I've gotten interested in solar powered yachts. There are a few on the market now & more being developed. I saw a video of one in development, that has a couple of wind generators on them to augment the solar.
my own home gets a steady breeze from one direction, and so would probably be well served with the hidden design of a wind turbine, in that it could offset my solar at night, or during overcast times. I had actually designed my roof, not yet built, for the one type of wind turbine design , and planned on using VAWT as well, with solar also, as I do not want on the Grid..lol
Great video as always Matt. I think this really highlights how broken energy pricing is. Carbon emissions are basically free to the emitter, but massively expensive for society as a whole. In any sane world, this would be priced-in for the emitter as a carbon tax, forcing them to pay the real, actual cost of every watt they consume. The fact that climate impact is *not* priced-in to grid power amounts to a massive national coal subsidy; you pay for the energy, someone else will pay to build a sea wall in Manhattan. Small-scale wind can't compete with subsidized coal, but it might compete with unsubsidized coal.
Absolutely not; why should individuals pay extra tax for no reason? It is not our fault gov refuses to allow widespread nuclear power plants (the safest, cleanest, cheapest power source)... emissions from transportation is only 15% of all emissions thus a non issue, why should ppl pay extra fees over nothing? Also every EV and renewable company is only focused on profit margins not cost effective solutions; instead of tesla offering ev conversion kits for gas cars they only want ppl to buy their over priced impractical cars... obvious fact is nobody cares about emissions or cost effectiveness but rather sjw politics... Germany shut down all its nuclear power plants to switch to "renewables" thus made it absolutely dependent of rus oil/gas...
And what would that tax even do? There is no method for extraction of carbon that’s viable, so those dollars would do what exactly? Funnel more money to an ineffective federal government to waste? I don’t think a carbon tax is a good idea at all.
Agree. Consider though that all materials have an embedded CO2 production cost, which is currently not paid by the consumer (nor producer of course). If your goal with a local wind turbine is to cut down on CO2 production, the calculation becomes very difficult, because that wind turbine required energy to dig, refine the materials, produce, assemble and transport etc. There isn't any easy way to measure just how much energy that all used, but we can confidently assume (at the moment) that it was all done with fossil fuels - and the larger the device, the more CO2 was released in creating it. My guess is that whatever the financial payback period is, you should double it to account for the original carbon cost (utility scale production of power is nearly always MUCH less carbon intensive than local production).
A small wind turbine to support solar seems like a good idea, especially if you're going off-grid or otherwise battery supported, it would help to increase the life of the batteries.
It's interesting that the conditions which make solar work less effectively usually mean wind is better. Rain, cloudy weather and night time usually mean high winds. At least where I live. Good to have more options.
Because of the angle of our roof areas, we can’t get great sun exposure in the winter (Toronto suburb). Our yard has windy days of about 75% of days of at least 16 km/h with 50% being at least 24 km/h not including gusts. I like the idea of several small helix type turbines, horizontally mounted with some sort of screening to protect birds going in or bugs gumming it up.
Appreciate the number crunching. Some graduate students, researchers, engineers, back-shed inventors etc somewhere are working on fixing the downsides of local wind generation. Moving parts, noise, lower efficiency, cost etc. Just something to be overcome and then we'll have a great solar/wind combo for houses.
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If you liked this, check out Why Don’t We Have Solar Powered Cars? kzclip.org/video/SgQ2T5g3Rn8/бейне.html
@The Way, The Truth, & Life
Right!
I don't care about global warming.
Am I going to impoverish myself by 25% in order to "fight global warming"?
No.
What are the consequences of global warming?
1) A 1-2 degree increase in average temperature: I don't care. I can deal with that by turning down the temperature on the AC thermostat (and I prefer milder winters).
2) A 1.2 inches per decade rise in sea level: again, I don't care becuase:
a) Most people live well enough above that for that to be of any concern to anyone alive today.
b) In 100 years time, this may be a concern for people living on beachfront property, but they are the most wealthy people among us and I'm not impoverishing myself by 25% to preserve their vacation homes. Coastal cities that haven't already built their waterfronts to handle a 1.2 foot rise in sea level have 100 years to deal with the problem.
c) Poor and low lying subsistence agricultural lands have a tough row to hoe, but sea levels have been rising for more than 100 years, and their circumstances would be better improved by moving out of subsistence agriculture and into higher value added (and mobile) occupations.
3) Oceans becoming less basic (currently 8.1 pH; 7.0 is neutral, i.e. tap water): again, I don't care. a) I don't care if clam shells become more fragile at this level of pH. b) I find it preposterous to hear that clams, with billions of years of evolution behind them in a hostile environment (sea water), can't handle a 0.1 decrease in basic ("alkaline", not "acidic") pH -- which is a movement toward neutral, i.e. "fresh" water. [The term "ocean ACIDITY" is used by climate hustlers to incite fear for political and personal gain.]
Have I missed anything? Melting glaciers? Sorry, I'm not impoverishing myself by 25% over receding glaciers.
Sorry, but I don't care. The costs and power grabs behind this issue are astounding. So are the lottery-ticket benefits, unless you are in on the scam: the politicians, enforcers, and renewable energy opportunists.
If you feel so strongly about global warming, you should lobby for THORIUM MOLTEN SALT REACTORS -- not only for electricity, but for manufacturing synthetic gasoline -- all carbon neutral.
If not already familiar with it, here is a playlist for it:
kzclip.org/p/PL6JjafE5gsb9nSmudoj5MUKxX8LTKO0-J
New people do realize that all of these products are made from gasoline right they are made from the same source.. You fools carbon isn't going anywhere but your freedom is
I have a turbine on my off-grid property that complements the solar nicely. It cost me very little to install and zero maintenance cost since I did the install myself and perform the almost non existent maintenance once a year myself as well. My turbine is 1800 watts and can outperform the solar during bad weather producing as much as a kilowatt/hour of electricity on those days, witch may not sound like much but when you are off-grid it can make all the difference. The cost of the turbine was less than $1000 plus the cost of the tower and the charge controller/diversion load. The charge controller I use is about $600 and I built the diversion load myself for under $500. I constructed the tower myself and I'm not totally sure on the cost of it, but it was one of the smaller costs. There is also wire and hardware of course. Once constructed the turbine system costs me nothing more than the solar array to maintain, although eventually I will have to replace bearings but I have them on hand and they were cheap. You just need to be willing to do everything yourself. I am planning to do a video on my install this spring to post on my channel.
@Paul Ogden Actually off grid + in the middle of nowhere is key here. No one wants to see an ugly wind turbine jutting up into the sky in a typical urban or suburban setting. Furthermore, very few urban and suburban settings have sufficient wind to make wind turbines very useful. People like living in sunny places (which are good for producing solar energy); people generally dislike living in windy places (which are good for producing wind energy).
On the other hand, wind turbines are excellent at utility scale in, say, windy mountains passes or the on windswept great plains which have seemingly endless fields of row crops but are very sparsely populated. It's not an accident that the USA generates about ten percent of its electricity from wind, that Texas produces the most electricity from wind, and that Iowa produces around sixty percent (over 1/2 of its) electricity from wind. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_States
Producing electricity from wind is great, but not for most residential uses in the USA. Sure, if you have 40 acres off grid on which you built a rustic cabin, then yeah, wind power might make a lot of sense. Chopping your own firewood, fishing, and building an outhouse might make a lot of sense too. But solutions for off grid cabins are an edge case (a rare case) that are irrelevant for the vast majority of folks living in the USA.
@hg2 to answer your Pop Quiz, you. You are all the reasons it is bad to have politics on education. Have you supported efforts to ban any books or curricula lately?
Thanks for another informative video.
One alternative option not considered here is community ownership of large scale wind; where as others have pointed out the payback is much better due to the larger rotors and taller base. It’s an option worth exploring in many windier areas, either to compliment Solar and make up any shortfall you may have due to limited roof area for your panels or where there are total restrictions in apartment blocks etc. In these situations clubbing together to build a co-operatively owned wind farm (and or solar farm) are great options. We have a number of regional projects in the UK, where cloudy days are common on our small island but the wind blows a lot. There is also an innovative company called Ripple energy that is using its expertise to help develop new wind farms and offer them to the public for shared ownership through a co-operative model and partnering with energy suppliers to take the costs of the energy generated off those owners bills.
Community ownership.. sound like a great Idea!
What a brilliant video, I loved this and found the information fascinating. Its such a shame that domestic wind applications don't make sense for us right now in urban environments. Solar looks to be the way to go. I was recently quoted £6300 (around $8220) for a 14 panel solar installation (about 5kw) with no VAT, so solar in the UK is far cheaper than across the pond! Thanks for this, I really appreciate your effort.
@Al Als 2-4x higher than in the states
Yes, UK solar install is far cheaper than USA but what are your average electricity costs there, in the UK? Just curious
To-the-point and credible, as always. Matt Ferrell is likely the best and most "well-rounded" KZclip technical expert. Your ability to explain a wide range of challenging scientific topics is unsurpassed.
As always great info. A friend in a remote cabin needed some power. I built a small solar panel that incorporated small squirrel cage fans on top connected to a generator, munted on tp of the 4 solar panels. Beneath the panels I looped black poly pipe for passive hot water and heating. As small as it was/is it worked. Thanks. Don
Very nice presentation Matt and team! Wind is an awesome compliment to solar. Great to see some nice innovation in the industry! But IMHO solutions/designs/implementations will need time to be field tested for best designs and practices to be proven, so it's still early in the home wind solution space. And like anything to do with engineering, the answer is always: It depends :)
yes, once more money is pumped into wind energy, we will reap the reward. good point Chuck
Having worked in the small wind industry for 12 years, selling ~4000 small wind turbines, having one in my own yard for 14 years now, I would encourage everyone to install solar and forget wind, for the reasons Matt gave here. The 3 small wind manufacturers I worked for are long ago bankrupt and the goofy designs shown in the video won’t produce hardly any energy but will cost a lot. Large, utility wind makes sense because they’re hundreds of feet in the air with massive rotors.
Both are too expensive and impractical... with solar you are basically just paying your electric bill for the next couple decades upfront compared to just standard monthly... The solution is nuclear power per its cheaper, cleaner, and safer than all other forms and has been around for decades
@scott mcshannon huh?
max out for solar before solar?
Good to hear of new developments in wind generation! Just recently had solar installed and we're happy with the energy. Had a slight issue when it was windy with one panel rattling, which I've had fixed since. It gave me the idea that what if under each panel there was a way of capturing the wind. Seems like future solar panels could be made to capture the wind as well with vents under each panel leading to a micro turbines. Not sure if this would be feasible, but worth an experiment.
I love this idea ... I've got too many irons in the fire but otherwise I would definitely look into a solution like this. 👏
This makes so much sense. I have experimented with horizontal drum fans for energy generation and found this visually attractive over propeller fans including and the ease of protecting the fan drum with damper blades at high wind velocity's. The idea came to me some years ago from my heating and ventilation back ground.
I've been following the development of the archimedes turbine with hope for several years. Imagine every home in the neighborhood with one of those 'flowers' producing electricity. my concerns about solar are post-use pollution from toxic ingredients.
A well thought out and informative presentation. I would always recommend a wind/solar power combo. Vertical Axis wind turbines proved their effectiveness at the 2012 London Olympics. Unless you have very good damper system, then fitting a wind turbine to your property isn't a good idea. I haven't seen the top of roof system before and would appreciate some more information about that.
Good video and I appreciated the information about the RidgeBlade and Joe Doucet's Wind Wall. I'm surprised you didn't include Tesup (Atlas 4 or AtlasX) as their technology has been around for a number of years and seems to have a pretty solid power curve and only stands about 4 feet tall which could easily be attached to the top of a home making installation and connection to a home inverter (especially if you have solar already) pretty easy.
I like that the Ridge-Blade can be installed right along the ridge of a roof where you likely wouldn't have any solar panels; it allows both systems to be installed in parallel.
@Robert Pruitt It can 'work' but not be economic. A $1000 install to generate 20cents of power a day.
Problem is it can not overcome the height issues, nor the size issue.
@Andrew Tschesnok never heard that before. Where is this that they told you it was because of fire dept.?
Fire Department will not allow a ridge install in my area. (That is why there is no solar on the ridge in most places) The fire department wants to be able to "walk" the top of the roof to fight fire. Otherwise this sounds like a great idea. (other than possible constant noise echoing in the attic cavity).
One factor that could be major is orientation. Sun prefers a north/south orientation of the roof in most of North America to optimize sun angles on the panels. Something like the ridgeblade would ideally be placed on an east west roof to take advantage of prevailing winds. So if ridgeblade can be on par with solar cost wise, then it becomes an attractive option based on your roof orientation
Here in Central TX, the wind is almost always southerly in summer and north in winter. With that said, it seems like we get endless sunny days here.
Apologies if you covered this and I managed to miss it twice: What about surface area concerns? A vertical turbine could be an option where there's surface area necessary for panels (whether roof or ground-installs), giving it more potential. I don't think that would overcome the challenges you talk about in this video, though, and I am hard-pressed to think of a scenario where a turbine could be installed but have little potential for solar panels. The most immediate thing I can think of (aside from very weird one-offs) are homes built into hills or mountains, which don't really have a "roof" and available land to put the panels on might be limited still.
I think it makes sense to diversify your power sources, and the ridge based turbines look relatively unobtrusive. Think there's scope there for a mixed setup with solar panels on the same roof. There's nothing to stop you making a water turbine as well, if you have a small stream on your property. It all adds to your energy resiliance, and removes reliance on increasingly expensive utility providers.
Thanks for the insight on wind power. A huge problem I have is both roofs on the house and garage are covered by big trees. So, I figured while solar panels on the lawn is a pretty limited option, I could supplement with wind power.
For now, I am trying to make sure that sunk cost fallacy attitude I worry about is in check. So, the only direction I have taken thus far is building a decorative garden windmill if only to get an idea on how practical wind is for me. As a bonus, I could even repurpose the derrick the windmill comes with to install a proper wind turbine. Even though the derrick is a meager 12 feet tall, I have seen some promising signs to move forward.
Getting the entire property off-grid is probably unlikely no matter what wind and/or solar kit I try to install, but if I can get a few power-hungry toys running off this build, that would be stellar.
Only through continued development and testing can we see meaningful results. Your video of the various Wind Generators was fascinating and thought provoking. Great job. It appear to me that ridge top wind power generation could be the most attractive as well as effective. With Solar Panels do we have facilities to recycle or dispose of the ones that have ended their useful life cycle? I personally am in favor of 'at location' power generation for every home and business. We need to preserve farm land for food and livestock production. An army indeed marches on its stomach; so does civilizations. Wind and water in my opinion are by far the most effective and sustainable power solutions unless we produce enough methane from animal and human manure.
2:24 The thing is, the area the blades cover doesn't affect the energy generates linear, but squared. Which means increasing the length of the blade increases the energy generated exponentially. So bigger wind turbines are way more cost effective than what you can put on your home.
@Andrew W Kay Having taken up to 2nd year university level math, I'm still kind of surprised that you are right about this.
I mean, i knew what a quadratic function was, but I didnt realize that there was such thing as quadratic growth. I have always thought a = b^2 was simply exponential, even though it can also be quadratic. lol
@Paul Ogden Except perhaps off gird, depending on location.
So they make sense for tall apartments
Breezy 5.5 kw system, at 60 feet minimum, is a starting point for real power generation for single family home IMO.
The biggest thing with small scale wind is the same as with sex. Location, location, location. Since small scale wind by definition using small blades (sweep area 2*pi*r*r so double length is 4 times the output), and flow rate. Because of interaction with ground, trees, structures height has a massive impact on flow rate. Of course if you live on a large hill ridge line or where wind gets funneled thru a gap, this increase flow.
I live in an area that has ~10-25mph wind on avg/month next to water and I might as well make use of the wind. The ridgeblade's roof turbines really seems like the best idea, although I hope people calculate the wind directions before installing them fixed on a roof.
Some of us are limited by solar with existing structures like dormer windows on the roof or not ideal orientation of the roof. Despite what we are told about angles, I have solar panel on my gable wall on my house. Hugely increasing my solar panels area and very little difference in output. We need to start covering our outside walls in solar. That windwall you showed, I'm currently building a fence using the same idea . A row of vertical turbines encased in a fence frame. (Many thanks to Robert Murray smiths channel and TNT) look how much fencing you have around your home. Quite a lot of lineal length. So even small amounts will add up. We need to start looking at our homes as a power plant. Where can we squeeze power out of our home, through wind, solar rain power, gravity power, any little amount as long as it doesn't cost a fortune to get 10 watts. it all adds up.
🔥 *Thanks Matt, this was an excellent and practical comparison of solar to wind and the differences of generators.* _Keep making content like this to help people make smart choices!_
Plant!
Hi Matt, a very informative and topical video, thank you. Have you made one regarding how to use or setup a storage system to save the energy one generates from solar/wind and to keep most it rather than send it to the grid. With the rising cost of electricity, it makes sense to use some battery storage system instead of receiving the relatively small feed in tarriff. However, battery systems and the logistics of installing one seem daunting. Your clarity here would be very helpful. 😊
I'd like to have one that looks like a smaller version of the old water pump windmills, that would look like a nice lawn ornament while producing electricity. I've seen them put together by do it yourself-ers, with great results. Seems to me the smart thing is to get away from mass produced power and unreliable grids. No one can shut off your power if you're not on thier grid.
Love the ridge blade design , looks like it has a future , quietness and servicing costa would need to be low for home owners. Larger buildings with pitched roofs such as public buildings may make it more cost effective along side solar
@Rinus Hi Rinus, I'm the Technical Manager for RidgeBlade. We are aware of the issue. That installation was completed by the previous RidgeBlade owners. We have since taken it over and upgraded all the power electronics and PMG design. The previous issue was that the inverter was not properly matched to the PMG, hence it could not efficiently convert mechanical power to electrical energy. We have a pilot site in the UK now where testing is being carried out to optimise the power output of the RB2 five rotor system.
Pretty sure they're out of business - their phone numbers are all defunct and their social websites are all down. Tried to fill out their form to get a quote and that was broken too.
@Vee'Ot_Dragon Wow. I will absolutely accept your real world experience. Thank you
@OldMech i have used chicken wire for years to keep small birds and critters out of my chimney (we have a weather cover that is sort of like a little roof over it with the chicken wire covering the gaps between the cover and the chimney itself.). the mesh of the wire is small enough that i don't even think a humming bird could get through. you can get it in rolls in a number of sizes as well as differing sized mesh at most any hardware store. (fyi i also use it to form cages around my tomatoes to keep the critters out while still letting pollinators in)
@Vee'Ot_Dragon The screen would have to be small enough to keep the critters from camping out when there is no wind. I know there are places where the wind never stops, but those places usually don’t have a problem small birds, or squirrels
I quite like the idea of the Ridgeblade wind turbine, but I'm wondering if a similar system could be installed _within_ the roof space.
If you have a tiled roof and installed an inner roof, then the existing outer roof tiles could be refitted to act as a diffuser. The entire roof sides now act as an air intake / exhaust, with the gap between the roof layers now acting as a huge duct, carrying air into the Ridgeblade at practically the same angle, no matter which way the wind was blowing against the outer roof. I'm thinking that with some clever sizing of the duct to accelerate the airflow and generate more of a pressure difference, you may not need so many Ridgeblade units.
The inside roof layer would have to act as your rain barrier, so you'd have to install a drainage system to mitigate that, but it could be done. You'd still have some inner roof space for storage, perhaps for a battery pack to store energy when you aren't at home or the demand isn't as high? Also, easy access for maintenance, just pop into your loft even if it's raining outside.
This option might work with plenty of sound insulation which would double as thermal insulation.
Another option might be a small "steeple" on the roof to capture wind from any direction and focus it onto a small turbine.
Something that can be built into new houses to constantly trickle in energy at nightime and during winter.
We live in San Francisco and in our precise location we get verrrrry little sun but and a relentless amount of wind. This was a really helpful video, and I think in a few years our house may actually be in the small minority of homes that would benefit from wind power and not from solar as long as we aren't depending on it alone.
Matt, you make the best videos! This was very enlightening. I really hope someone develops the right wind technology for residential use, as the combination of wind and solar power can truly shits us off of fossil fuels!
Thanks for this video. It gives me a reasonable feel for the cost difference between the two generating systems.
What I’d really like to see is a solid video on an off-grid installation that approaches these technologies as complementary parts of a system instead of competing business models.
Imagine an integrated wind/solar generating system with an integrated battery system. That’s a package that can capture peak generation, whether wind or solar, and carry the load when either or both fall short.
And that system could be presented as a scalable design so larger or smaller systems would be relatively easy to get to.
Finally, do me a favor and pick one location for the video. All the double talk about “results may vary” is just a distraction. We get that. We just need more information.
Thanks for another great and informative video. I hope to someday be able to have solar and wind together.. I am interested in the less conventional designs of turbines, though. There are some very interesting designs out there. Also, if you live near running water, you might be able to make use of that also!
I've been a consultant on wind and solar for ten years. Wind is not practical for 99 pct of homeowners due to the steady high winds needed to make small turbines economic. Wind makes sense at utililty scale, but at homeowner scale it's a niche application, used only in very windy places or as a supplemental source for long winter months with no sun. So basically your video is correct!
Niche application. Like every farm and small town on the prairies?
@Shady Island Chronicles The number one issue with any alterative home owned power generation scheme is needing to get paid for what is generated by monopolies that really don't want you making your power rather than buying it from them. That is, of course, if you wish to remain hooked to the grid. As with almost everything else, the government is friendly to the monopolies so home producers' are not paid at the same rate and in my state, have to pay for utility hook up. A decent federal government that actually worked for its citizens and the citizens of earth is what is truly needed.
@Jokerwolf I do but it's illegal to stop the flow of water or even tamper with it. I would like to put a water turbine on the small creek on my property which feeds the larger creek, I could probably get some power after the rains come. The large creek is off limits, a water wheel may be ok since I can bottom feed without stopping the flow or slow it down.
Birds are in danger with all windmills. Unless you put a screen in front of the blades then you will lose some power due to resistance from the screen. I think the problem is not the heavy winds it's the lighter winds bird usually don't fly well in heavy winds. 73
@Robert Pruitt take a look at the DOE/NREL wind resource maps. they're pretty accurate for avg annual wind speed at height
@Bruno George Moraes sure, if it's the only tall building around and it's very skinny, like a tower but the roof has to be reinforced.
Really seems best mostly for installations in rural / semi-rural areas in places with lots of cloud cover that need a bit of "base load" reliability (compared with solar) during the cloudy seasons
Wind could make sense in high rise buildings without a lot of roofspace for solar compared to the number of residences. Ideally the building could be designed to catch wind energie from the drawing board.
Once again thanks Matt. You are the only producer out there that makes sense of things
The roadside wind turbine you researched sounds amazing.and the principle would be perfect for roof tops also. As always, enjoy your work and presentation
I'd definitely like to go for a Ridgeblade here in the North of England, if they become available. I think there are pretty tight planning permission restrictions in the UK though for this, and all onshore wind alas.
I'm purely solar at this point with battery back up, but the idea of having something generating electricity when the sun is down definitely appeals to me. Been thinking about small scale vertical axis for some time now. That roof mounted system looks like it could be game changing, along with the wind wall. If you think about it, you don't really need to generate a ton of electricity at night, so having even a small windmill can help decrease your storage/battery capacity while keeping the lights on.
A small vertical axis mounted on the roof knock should also be more efficient. The classic horizontal ones seems bad for private use due to noise.
Great video! I live in Tuscany, Italy and despite it being an extremely windy place it would probably make more sense to invest in residential geotermal rather than wind for now. Still looking forward to new development
This was very informative. The residential market really seems to need more of a technology focus in this space. It’s an area I keep peaking at over time, but doesn’t seem to be growing by any great leaps..
I'm usually suspicious of home-scale wind power on account of the inherent way wind generation works: having the wind apply work over the surface area of the generating system. Most of these concepts, even the ones with working models, don't usually address this inherent issue, and they end up being significantly less efficient than a large turbine due to their small surface area. That said, I'm particularly impressed with the ridge turbine for using the slope of the roof to add surface area to the system to force more air through the turbine. It's a solution that's so deliciously simple, you wonder why you didn't think of that. The fact that they have working models and even ones that are going for sail is just the cherry on top. Still don't think it can replace home-level solar, but with the majority of the roof left to place solar panels on, they're definitely a reasonable addition.
Thank you for performing the quantitative analysis on this, and making the relative choice of solar over wind clear.
Friend installed one on the roof of his off-grid house. The house is basically a large garage shed on a concrete slab. Anyway the thing lasted up there less than a week before being moved well away from the house. The vibration set the whole place humming and rattling. I conclude that turbines are best installed on their own well-grounded tower.
I could see a wind system as more practical in cold weather: On a typical winter day solar is decreased (assuming you can even keep snow free), and heat loss from a home is proportional to wind speed. Reduced foliage on local trees would also help.
My main concern would be accessing the turbine for maintenance, having the room to drop it down to ground level is a big plus.
I live in Britain - UK planning sucks @ss.
What about vertical turbines
@Carbon 12 turbines in Greenland a tartic
have you considered 'night time', which I guess could be considered colder weather... or also during cloudy days. Interesting how so many people dismiss the complimentary effect of wind power... forgetting how many decades of research have promoted solar over wind for residential application
@crazyfvck There are icing issues with wind power in snow, and the heating often costs more than the solar is worth. In cold climates renewables at the home scale is quite tricky- carbon neutral wood burning/gasifier is often a much better option. Fine environmental dust is also an issue with solar, so keeping them washed is important, like you say some way to clean them is good.
Thanks! That's the exact video I was looking for, and it simply answered all my questions.
At the first glance, a small wind turbine sounds like a perfect solution for a solar-powered house in my region, where it's often cloudy and during the winter solar panels are dead, covered by snow. But the problems and costs that such a turbine brings are making all this so unprofitable, that there is no surprise you don't see individual wind turbines around...
Nice one and tracking for better choices. Thank you so much.
Agreed. It is a very niche solution. I was considering it for my cabin to complement the solar installation. Being the idea that usually a rainy week meant wind. But registered the wind on a whole year plus the costs and it simply didn’t make any sense. For the occasional long rainy week the backup propane generator it is just fine.
The design of the ridgeblade seems like one of the more practical residential designs. An idea i like is using the turbine wall as really unique fence line along the front of a property. You still gave all of the issues of it being low and blocked by other structures. Not sure if the wake from cars going by makes up for all that xd
One additional con for home wind: If your house is in a windy corridor sufficient to generate a respectable annual energy yield, there's a really good chance that you (with insistence from your wife) really don't want to live there very much longer.
Thank you Matt I love the video it was very informative and after watching a couple other videos on KZclip in the science project I did in the fifth grade I believe I'll be able to power my whole neighborhood for free at least after parts and labor
This was really informative! I recently moved closer to the coast and it's more windy, and I already have solar, so I was wondering about the state of small home wind turbines. Would you consider doing a video on solar hot water, for domestic hot water or even space heating? I'd love to see a comprehensive video on where that stands today, it seems to be less popular than a decade ago, and that surprises me with how much more energy can be thermally collected from the sun vs PV panels. Maybe PV combined with the latest heat pump tech is a better way to go now in terms of simplicity, maintenance free, and efficiency?
I endorse what @Anand Vaidya has mentioned. The ROI starts from day 1 itself. No need for heat pumps, I have looped the supply through a standby heater, such that constant hot water is available 24/7. (Return on Investment)
In India, Solar Water Heaters are very common. With a 200Ltr storage we get enough hotwater even in winter /rainy season when there is not much direct sunshine. There are 2 types: Evacuated Glass Tube based and Copper Plate based. Glass tube performs the best. Should work in most of the southern US.
@Save Money Save the Planet I was about to say the same. Rooflines have limited space for solar panels, and it often makes more sense to use that space for PV instead of heat. geothermal heaters plus water heater systems are advertised a lot (or use to be... now that I think on it, I haven't heard an ad about that in a while)... I would assume you can do the same with 'normal' heat pumps as well.
I’m not positive, but I think that heat pump efficiency has progressed so much that many people don’t want the cons that can come with those other solutions anymore. That may be why you feel like you don’t hear about it as much these days.
Fascinating video & very helpful. A friend built a wind turbine/power generator just large enough to power electric heaters for a lake house that was unoccupied in the winter. That was 1979. They have updated it, but the basic design still remains.
We are just now adding storage batteries to our solar panels in Australia. We tried to find out information about adding wind generation but couldn't get any information about generation at lower wind speeds. We do get quite a lot of wind but, in the end, decided that there was just not enough information available for wind generation at sub optimal speeds. Your video is very interesting and I think we made the right decision, at this stage, not to add a wind generator. When technology has improved we will relook at adding a wind generator. You provided more information than we were able to glean from the manufacturer. We asked direct questions about sub optimal wind strength but they couldn't or wouldn't give us a graph of diminishing production for diminishing winds - very disappointing.
Both wind and solar depends alot on where you live, like here on the western coast of Norway we have almost no solar power during the winter months, and alot of solar in the summer. And the opposite is true for wind, where we have alot during winter and not so much during summer, so a combination is very nice for self sustainability, Also the prices you have listed for wind is alot higher than what you can get it for if you do a bit yourself, you can get genuine 1500-2000w turbines for like 800 dollar.
I agree that, due to the intermittent availability of natural wind at many sites, wind turbines might best be used to provide the "intermittent load" portion of one's energy budget, such as for driving a cistern intake pump or the low-wattage, nighttime-only devices such as lighting.
I came up with a small ridge tile generator, which had one rota fitted to each tile. These have an 360 degree movement. So you could have a string of them
all along your roof. The roof catches & compresses the wind upwards into the rotors, so that any direction will spin them. These were 12v, so you could attach
them to a pear of + & - wires running parallel from one end to the other mounted under the ridge tiles.
Yes you will need an inverter to manage the flow. But there are plenty of experts who could improve their efficiency. Thanks for the info, have a great day.
Matt, thank you for this video - this is an area that we definitely need to explore. There are some unexpected applications - like a row of vertical axis turbines on top of a traffic barrier. The traffic going by in both directions can get them all spinning.
An interesting aspect of vertical axis turbines - when they are place closely together, they actually benefit from the turbulence of the other turbines around them. With horizontal turbines, if they are too close together, they lower the overall output, because the turbulence prevents the downwind units from working as well.
, Nu le pui dese. Nu sunt electrice, ci pe compresoare centrifugale de aer comprimat, unite intr_o rețea comună + rezervor. Compresoarele pot fi și înseriate. Vor consuma aerul de la unul la altul ( cu aceeași forță necesară). Cucalculul debitului in functie de ce putere oferă vântul(raport de compresie). Ultimul din rețea va avea cea mai mare presiune si cel mai mic debit.
@Godfrey Poon You're over thinking it. This doesn't add drag - it is taking energy that is wasted - a typical car for every mile has to push 4.5 TONS of air out of the way. And once that air is moving, getting some of that energy back - IS A GOOD THING.
And we need to make all the cars electric, anyway.
@Neil Blanchard Oversimplified explanation: The wind is caused by the air getting out of the way of the cars. The turbines work by harnessing this air flow, i.e. they make it harder for the air to get out of the way of the cars. So the cars have to work harder to push through the air.
But it's worse than that - because the energy is transferred though such an indirect process, it is an incredibly inefficient transfer. Apparently there is something like a 20-fold loss in the transfer and this makes the overall CO2 impact several orders of magnitude worse than coal power.
It gets even worse - because the extra fuel consumption is spread out over every car that passes, no-one is ever going to be able to notice. But the impact is still there, it has just been made inconspicuous. The situation has been made much, much worse, but because it's hard to see the impact everyone will think it's great.
Bottom line is that there is no free lunch.
That's a consequence of the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy).
@Godfrey Poon If the traffic is there anyway - then its free, essentially.
"The traffic going by in both directions can get them all spinning."
So it's powered by the traffic...
Yeah, it's an outrageously inefficient petrol generator.
Matt, very informative. I wind power and unlike a lot of people I like wind farms are a spectacular and beautiful sight. My current project is to electrify a travel trailer for as long an off grid stay as possible. One major factor of course it my roof top PVs, which I have just learned that I can get thermal electricity from them with a hot to cool transfer plate behind them and a small fan pushing the heat away from the cool plate. It's not a lot of power, but I'll take what I can get. My question for you is, what to do to a piped flow of hot air forced from the back of my trailer roof.... certainly there must be some type of additional generator that the rising hot air can be used to fill small sails like a small wind/water mill generator. The trick will be in not creating an back flow to the solar panel system. I just hate to see this hot wasted when I need more power.
I like the idea of a wall of turbines. Have you looked at kite turbines yet? They are portable and can be used on land or sea. Love your videos
Thanks Matt. Have been thinking about Wind as my primary source here as I am coastal, caught in a dip in the middle of town on a street with many houses. So sticking a small wind turbine wouldn't work for fear of it crashing through the surrounding area. looking in to the future would look like the ridge top to generate power would be the way to go. but living here with a neighbour sharing the roof. In a semidetached home brings other problems. But another great video and lots to think about.
I installed a 4Kw PV system in 2016. It produces more than sufficient electricity during the summer months (November to March), but through July to September usage outweighs production significantly.
I run undertile heating through the winter 24hrs a day and charge an EV year round usually overnight.
I live in an area considered a high wind zone, and it would seem to make sense to use that wind to produce electricity at times when solar is not productive. A few years ago I looked at a vertical axis wind turbine that could be pole or roof mounted and the new business that was advertising the product was convinced it could organise the consenting process with the local council, but seem to have disappeared.
I do like the idea of the ridgeline turbine but would suggest that the home would need to be built in the correct orientation to maximise production which may not suit solar production.
One thing that is being overlooked is that wind turbines are easy to make and can be made from almost anything I would seriously recommend making your own wind turbine if you want one
After watching a few of your videos on renewable power generation, my thought has stayed the same. We're designing buildings to be more efficient in power use, but not power generation. Is there a future where a building is designed in an unconventional way where power generation is more efficient? As in, walls and roofs that collect wind and solar, basements that collect geothermal, floors and doors that collect kinetic, etc.
This is the fault of architects and city rules.. also if nations would make the common sense move to nuclear power none of this empty talk would happen per nuclear is the cleanest, cheapest, safest energy source we have
Forget the neigh Sayers. This is exactly what needs to happen innovation, from the ground up. Or walls in. Or roof in or outward. Why does it not happen? People boo hoo about it, but change always makes people uneasy. When you find a place that people have abandoned, you see nature rebounding based on similar concepts to what you've mentioned here. Plenty of $$ in what you've said as well
There was a system called "Wells Walls" in Australia about 40 years ago, but people were turned off by how it looked so it never took off - it involved having external louver blinds in front of glass over a blackened brick wall, with closable vents internal top and bottom. These cavities becomes a passive heater. Clever, but you house sort of looks like a shed.
It is incorrect, at least in the UK we are moving towards heat pumps, many of which use ground heat- it is NOT geothermal, as that requires drilling a few kilometres down to find a magma chamber- to both heat and cool homes. You are wasting your time to collect door kinetic energy.
We aren't really designing buildings to be more power efficient at all- these "eco houses" are unsustainable and inefficient - often with flat rooves which have very poor thermal performance- concrete constrution also thermally poor, with many points of thermal bridging. They use short lifespan materials and construction methods and often have huge windows that lack curtains, making them too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, massively increasing costs.
Modernist architecture is completely incompatible with power efficiency and green living - it is simply associated with socialism and thus a shared inspiration with eco architects.
For efficiency a house should have low surface area- ie be similar to a cube- or be terraced or semi detatched. The roof should be self cleaning and long lasting - a pitched roof will last 30 years, a flat roof is only specced for 10. it should have strong structurally rigid long lasting weather protection on the outer face in a material that will last hundreds of years- such as stone, brick, block, etc. It should have a cavity to protect from damp and add extra insulation. It should have a very insulative inner wall. Windows should be thickly curtained, to keep the heat in during the night time, or the heat out during the summer days on the sun side of the house. Radiators (or heat vents in canada) should be directly under windows to provide a stable temperature and prevent window frosting. Ceilings should be low to keep the heat closer to the occupants. All space in the property should be utilised to allow for a smaller physical property for the same space. All internal walls should be insulated too and smoke seals around the doorframes so each room can maintain a separate temperature. Heat producing appliances such as a kitchen or fire if you require one should be central and low- basements if you have them - (though logistically you do not want to take shopping down stairs and garbage up) If you are serious about being green, you would forgo both clothes dryer and dishwasher - invest in a mangle a maiden and a pair of marigolds. in terms of transport you would replace your push bike and car with an efficient moped which will produce less co2 than a cyclist. a tuk-tuk for example if you need extra space for some reason. You will have no pets. you will grow much of your own produce in your garden- which is far better than solar panels in your garden due to the carbon consumption of food production.
If you are even more serious you will build a cistern underground and collect your own water not rely on high pressure mains water.
Of course we could also all live in small apartments in big concrete block buildings like the soviet union too.
I think it's a win win if I add Wind and Solar to my home. I live in Georgia and we get a lot of rain, so Solar will probably be effected quite a bit. Having the Wind turbines around will compensate for those rainy days when Solar is diminished but wind will be abundant!
I currently line in Fairfield, Ca where we can get at least a breeze of a few mph on 95% plus of days. I think that if you could find a small, yet efficient wind turbine and pair it with solar and a home battery pack (ex: Tesla Powerwall) it could make a decent 1-2 punch. I mainly see wind turbines “take over” power production from solar especially during nighttime or during times of severe overcast where solar cannot produce power or is very minuscule. Living on a coast or near a highway/large road or even a train line could also help produce some extra energy
My biggest worry is that the winds in my area might be to strong. I know some of the wind operators in the area say they have to shut down with the wind gets over a certain speed to protect the gearing.
There are a few regions where wind turbines work the best, especially at the home level. Too little wind and the turbines don't move too much wind and the turbines will brake or turn to protect themselves. So you have to be deliberate when looking into wind. You can find maps showing where there is optimal conditions. Honestly, offshore and the midwest are the best locations.
Great analysis. I often contemplate this issue and it appears, solar is by far much better. Even in a relatively southern section of Australia. (South being North for the US). Regretfully it's not worth the investment. BTW . . . .love your work.
I like the idea of combining the ridgeblade wind turbine to the apex of my house roof and having solar panels on the roof too. I hope that when the residential ridgeblade is available it will be able to coexist with solar and make homes much more self reliant. Combining that with a home battery and an EV, it makes it much easier for travel costs and home heating / electrical use to be factored into the purchase price of the panels and turbines, making it much more cost efficient.
I would be interested to see what other mini wind turbines are actually available as a lot in this video are concept/ not widely available.
RidgeBlade is in receivership.
If you are both powering a car and a home, you will need a lot of solar. You could also reduce your heating/cooling energy use with a geothermal system and solar water heating.
The roof ridge format makes the most sense for residential use. The actual one posted appears to be sized for industrial use versus residential. From a practical perspective a residential contractor normally does not need a boom. Also in New Enland, as you probably already know the roof ridge support air flow on the underside of the roof. I suspect the amount of power generation capacity, durably and materials drove the design size to a more industrial scale and cost.
Also I read there are vibration style units under development.
Here in west Michigan, during about 3 to 4 months in the winter, we have dark, heavy clouds or snow on the solar panels. However, often when it is overcast, the wind will blow for days. No solar power, but plenty of wind potential... I am convinced that there are areas where having both makes sense.
That Ridgeblade was first developed in Devonshire ( ?) UK. Then it disappeared and it was very difficult to find out about it. Now it's under the Power Collective (Ontario) and seems to have only one installer in Europe which is in Spain. As far as I can discover it costs upwards of 30k dollars to have installed on an average sized roof. 😔
We are developing a new type of roof top wind turbine expressly to address many of the issues that you covered and a few you didn't. It will be good to see a few new manufacturers and startups get into the wind space because competition will drive innovation.
Another huge issue is parallel integration especially when dealing with managed lithium and other types of managed battery technologies. This is also an issue we are prototype solutions for.
Great video and I look forward to the developments in this space.
as always, Mr. Ferrell never disappoints...
Thanks for covering this Matt. I self installed Solar over 5 years and now all of my roofs are covered and I am getting more EVs (Kids are driving now). I started looking heavily at Wind as an option a year or so ago so this is very timely. Thanks
As you said the payback period is too long and the cost of servicing. If both were 50% cheaper it may be worth exploring. I did like the system added to the roof ridge to gather wind. Looks better than the others perched on a 20M pole or big and fat design.
Also, I don't know if it is different there in the USA, but in some places, it's not possible to install a wind turbine for fauna protection reasons. About the windspeed, it is worth mentioning that even 5 m/s at the height that micro and pico wind turbine systems are usually mounted it's really hard to reach in most places, without considering the fact that at lower height turbulence is more common too. Before considering a windturbine I would consider to take a good anemometer and collect data for about an year in the position you intend to place it and make your consideration on that. Also there are many software that will help you estimate the annual production of the system once you've inserted the data you collected, not to mention the type of windturbine, cut-ina and cut-off are important but also check the Power diagram to understand where you more common windspeed fall, it makes a big difference
I am a little worried that those wind models may kill a lot of birds. We live in a rural area in Northern Norway, and every day we have small birds of different kinds visiting the feeders just outside the living room's windows, and it's so nice to sit inside and watch them. I wouldn't install anything that could be dangerous for them.
Wind turbines are banned in my (suburban) area because of the noise they generate. But it's disappointing because we live in an area with consistent wind and inconsistent sunshine. I plan on trying on a vertical wind turbine to see what sort of noise it produces though.
Good presentation of the goods and correct conclusions in my opinion. Nice to hear about the ridge-type. Theoretically, you could double up and have panels on the roof too!
Thank you for coming back to this topic Matt. We live in rural Missouri. There are times when it's cloudy/overcast for days in a row and we're considering supplementing our solar. I was totally unaware of the yearly maintenance. I'm now confounded about how I would do maintenance if our windmill were 65 feet (19.5 m) high!
After watching I still feel I'm not ready to take the step to wind power. I'm going to root for the ground based (edit typo: vehicles) vertical systems to become .... Everything we need.
@angrydragonslayer is he in northern Utah? and or engineering wise did it make sense? and with average 15 to 30 mph is it a good fit 9 month's out of the year?
@Chuck Williams just a fair warning: do not expect much if you have low winds
this goes for literally any wind system
@angrydragonslayer Thank you much!
i'm not sure about laws in missouri but i helped set up a turbine for a friend while i was staying at his place in utah, he paid ~$1200 (total) for a 2.4kw unit from thermodyne systems.
as for prices mentioned in this video, ask for some quotes and you'll likely find that you can't even find someone asking anywhere near 5k per kw without it being extremely hyped or something like a full install (likely including arranging legal stuff)
I have installed both. It all depends on your wind zone. I prefer solar since wind power is generally only realistic when installed on a problematic tower. I’ve had a tower fall over in extreme wind conditions.
Maybe you don’t realize that solar panels in sunny areas like California ( no rain) have a relatively high cleaning cost.
There's a reason wind turbines are big:
yield raises with area --> double the diameter, get 4 times the yield
wind speed raises with height. Double the wind speed, get 8 times more yield (kinetic energy is proportional to v² + more air flowing through)
These turbines only really make sense for remote places far from the equator where you simply have to complement missing sunlight in winter.
I'm off grid, with a solar array that can charge our roughly 2days of battery storage before noon on a clear day. The problem with solar is clouds, and it's generally more windy when they're denser, so wind seems like a good supplement. Thank you for the sobering video.
Smaller turbines spin faster and kill more birds. We had a local supermarket install a 3m diameter turbine and they took it off after less than a year, in part because of that. We also installed some 'indestructible' vertical units on telecoms high sites but it didn't last past the first storm. Worked really nice for about two weeks. It can help A LOT to extended battery life on solar-only sites by reducing battery cycle depths, but it's definitely a hobbyist hands-on endeavour.
Hi Matt thanks for the great video! I've invested the n Harmony Turbines and Halcium but both are still in development. Tesup is another UK VAWT I'm considering to compliment a Hybrid solar w/VAWT residential (City) system. A KZclip on Hybrid controllers would be great info also.
Could you do a video on small scale hydro power for ocean side or river/creek side properties? I think that could be more cost effective because of the higher energy density that water has with respect to wind. Although it's rare to see it because of the location restrictions.
In most of the world your right, solar makes far more sense. However in Canada, most of the country is too far north to be ideal for solar and it's super windy. Its interesting that one of the companies you mentioned was from Ontario, I could definitely see the future application for more northern countries.
I have always considered wind for homes as nearly worthless unless in the country or off grid. Still there is another use that might make more sense. If you set up a small voltage system for night lighting outdoors and indoors (6-volt systems usually) you can use just car batteries as your storage. You lose the advantage of selling power back to the grid. But you gain a constant lighting system that even in low winds should generate enough to cover your needs daily. Note this can also be used to charge most portable devices as they often run at less than 6 volts.
Another consideration is if you live along a freeway or highway. Might sound crazy but the air pushed around by traffic can be an effective way to turn a smaller low resistance turbine. This would be more useful with the wind wall model show above.
That large 25 blade wind turbine looks cool.it could be an architectural artifact for homes ,if architects are on boarding and work with.
Rich blade integrates properly with home and sounds good option.
I already knew if I am ever able to own a home, I would try to get a VAWT installed before solar would be considered. The game SimCity actually is what turned me to the idea of wind power long ago.
The Archmedies wind turbine sounds interesting & in my home area of Devon the UK would surely make a lot of sense & be a breakthrough. Can you follow the success or otherwise of this design. The tilted roof design sounds interesting depending on how it develops. I feel the UK apart from the West Country is pretty far north for solar panels to be effective, unless there are greater breakthroughs to come.
Matt, at 9:05 you didn't account for maintenance costs when calculating payback of wind. If you deduct $75 (1.5% of 5k) per year the payback period increases by over 50% increasing from 22yr to 34yr! That said, it took solar a long time to reach its current economic viability and I look forward to seeing where the winds of advancement take this technology!
His point actually makes sense. We just need a breakthrough in that area that will domestic wind generation more feasible
@tin2001 That's not a sound argument. Just look at the history of flight. The ancient Chinese tried to make kites that could carry a human, da Vinci fantasized about flying machines. People desired to fly for millennia. But nobody seemed to be able to create a machine that could successfully transport people via the air. Before the arrival of the airplane, it probably seemed impossible. But now we live in a world where we can't imagine NOT traveling by air. I think the small scale wind turbine is an inevitability as long as engineers and scientists keep working toward it.
People have been regularly and commercially harnessing the wind for thousands of years. Solar has only really happened in the last century or so.
If we were going to see some major new wind turbine design that is more efficient at capturing the wind, I'm sure we would have seen it already.
I noticed this too, although he stated maintenance costs of about $160 giving an almost 90yr payback, the turbine will not last that long is you'll never break even
I absolutely love your videos. So informative, well researched and topical
I like the ridgeblade design, it looks very promising for Tony homes with a combination of solar with them it would be a good concept for better offgride living.
I've gotten interested in solar powered yachts. There are a few on the market now & more being developed. I saw a video of one in development, that has a couple of wind generators on them to augment the solar.
my own home gets a steady breeze from one direction, and so would probably be well served with the hidden design of a wind turbine, in that it could offset my solar at night, or during overcast times. I had actually designed my roof, not yet built, for the one type of wind turbine design , and planned on using VAWT as well, with solar also, as I do not want on the Grid..lol
Great video as always Matt. I think this really highlights how broken energy pricing is. Carbon emissions are basically free to the emitter, but massively expensive for society as a whole. In any sane world, this would be priced-in for the emitter as a carbon tax, forcing them to pay the real, actual cost of every watt they consume. The fact that climate impact is *not* priced-in to grid power amounts to a massive national coal subsidy; you pay for the energy, someone else will pay to build a sea wall in Manhattan. Small-scale wind can't compete with subsidized coal, but it might compete with unsubsidized coal.
Absolutely not; why should individuals pay extra tax for no reason? It is not our fault gov refuses to allow widespread nuclear power plants (the safest, cleanest, cheapest power source)... emissions from transportation is only 15% of all emissions thus a non issue, why should ppl pay extra fees over nothing? Also every EV and renewable company is only focused on profit margins not cost effective solutions; instead of tesla offering ev conversion kits for gas cars they only want ppl to buy their over priced impractical cars... obvious fact is nobody cares about emissions or cost effectiveness but rather sjw politics... Germany shut down all its nuclear power plants to switch to "renewables" thus made it absolutely dependent of rus oil/gas...
And what would that tax even do?
There is no method for extraction of carbon that’s viable, so those dollars would do what exactly? Funnel more money to an ineffective federal government to waste?
I don’t think a carbon tax is a good idea at all.
Agree. Consider though that all materials have an embedded CO2 production cost, which is currently not paid by the consumer (nor producer of course). If your goal with a local wind turbine is to cut down on CO2 production, the calculation becomes very difficult, because that wind turbine required energy to dig, refine the materials, produce, assemble and transport etc. There isn't any easy way to measure just how much energy that all used, but we can confidently assume (at the moment) that it was all done with fossil fuels - and the larger the device, the more CO2 was released in creating it. My guess is that whatever the financial payback period is, you should double it to account for the original carbon cost (utility scale production of power is nearly always MUCH less carbon intensive than local production).
A small wind turbine to support solar seems like a good idea, especially if you're going off-grid or otherwise battery supported, it would help to increase the life of the batteries.
It's interesting that the conditions which make solar work less effectively usually mean wind is better. Rain, cloudy weather and night time usually mean high winds.
At least where I live. Good to have more options.
it also makes sense depending on your location
Because of the angle of our roof areas, we can’t get great sun exposure in the winter (Toronto suburb). Our yard has windy days of about 75% of days of at least 16 km/h with 50% being at least 24 km/h not including gusts. I like the idea of several small helix type turbines, horizontally mounted with some sort of screening to protect birds going in or bugs gumming it up.
Appreciate the number crunching.
Some graduate students, researchers, engineers, back-shed inventors etc somewhere are working on fixing the downsides of local wind generation.
Moving parts, noise, lower efficiency, cost etc. Just something to be overcome and then we'll have a great solar/wind combo for houses.