$2,000 gearless 16″ wind turbine provides 20% of household electricity
The lack of a traditional gear box reduces friction and allows the WindTronics turbine to begin generating power at 3 mph of wind speed. Standard wind turbine technology allows power to be generated above 8 mph and cuts off when winds climb 30 mph or more. WindTronics has no upper wind speed restrictions.
“Our goal is to supply power in the 3-15 mph wind range; we can accomplish that,” Adams said. “We want to be less than $2,000 per unit. We know we are there right now.” – article
Still a little too expensive for ordinary usage, but if it takes off and some economies of scale get going on this ultra-simple device, man. It looks neat, too. ;)
That’s actually not bad, I’m sure there’s diminishing returns, but stick 5 or 6 of those on your house at build-time and you’re good to go. An extra ten grand up front isn’t that much when you’re buying a new house.
Unless you’re living in the southeast or southwest, where average wind speed is less than 3 mph.
http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/maps/chap2/2-01m.html
I wonder how that may be different now, since it was created in 1985.
Not much, according to the agency that developed it. There are higher resolution maps available, but the outlook is much the same:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/windpoweringamerica/wind_maps.asp
very expensive, doesn’t provide much output :(
*shrug* It’s the closest we’ve come to a wind turbine cheap enough to use in the home. Solar power has done much better at reaching economies of scale than wind has, so far. The nearest wind turbine competitor costs 15 grand, whereas it would be 10 grand to power a home with 5 of these.
Also, no great box should hopefully mean that it would be much less likely to break down and need repair.
I don’t plan on buying it anyway – not yet. :D I just like to keep track of the latest in alternative energy, y’know?
yeah. it just makes me sad that in order to move toward a renewable energy resource in your home, you have to have thousands of dollars to even begin. we should build our own!
from baling wire and string, totally! :D
lol
I had to call my mom about this. They have the 15k model. It just got hit by lighting so they are down. No electricity.
6 or so of these should power an average house, for 12k instead of 15k. Pretty cool.
More to break that way tho. Their 15k bought the whole system and installation. Not sure which one would be better. But hooking one up to get the little bits of wind on slow days would at least mean they might not have to drain the batteries or use the generator.
They don’t have a typical house either. It was built to work on wind power and hopefully soon solar as well.
Sweet. And yeah, at least this one gets some juice from winds at 3mph.
I would imagine that having multiple units would provide some failsafe – might not be able to power everything if lightning hits one, but you’d still have 5/6 of your power.
As you’ve probably noticed, I’m a big fan of solar, though :)
Nanosolar is finally printing off solar sheets in volume. No immediate residential applications, but maybe it’s time to petition my local EMC to setup their own solar stations.
http://www.nanosolar.com/blog3/#post-33
Heh, see my post at 8:30 this morning.
Solar doesn’t work as well up north. They don’t get as much sun as they do wind. But they do want a solar system as well because generally windy days are cloudy and sunny days aren’t windy.
Hmm. What’s the actual output?
Sorry I forgot to link to the actual article here, each turbine in the initial run is 200-watt, though it sounds like they’ll be increasing that as time moves on.
Two grand doesn’t cover the tower though (50m is pretty darn tall,) and then you need to stagger them to get greater efficiency. $2K is just for the unit. Getting better, but still not there yet for the ultimate off-grid house.
50 meters? Everything I’ve seen points to this being a rooftop device – especially when they’re talking about it being used in rural third-world countries, I can’t see people building towers for something this light and small.
It’s not going to be too useful when all the wind it needs is blocked by trees and houses. Essentially, if anything is upwind of the turbine it causes turbulence and significantly effects the performance of the machine.
Add to that the fact that near-ground level wind isn’t steady and that your neighbors likely won’t be too happy with the whirring noise they make on your roof and it all adds up to needing a tower.