How We Solved The Home Wind Turbine Problem

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[UndecidedMF]

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[uncertainscientist]

I used to work in the small wind industry, and there is a huge problem that's been understated here. The wind available at a roof top is not only more turbulent, but as you get closer to the ground the wind velocity drops dramatically, and the power is related to the cube of the velocity. Putting a wind turbine on your home not only subjects it to a lot more vibrational forces that haven't been studied well, but it'd be like putting your solar panels inside a window. Sure you can improve the design, but the physics isn't on your side. You're also battling against all the wind shadows of buildings and trees nearby as well. The technology behind a savonius turbine isn't necessarily bad, but the marketing for small vertical axis turbines is very pyramid scheme like and many companies have defrauded their investors and closed. Get your turbines high, and get them away from trees and buildings. Friends don't let friends put wind turbines on their roof.

[walterpleyer]

The big advantage of the Savonius turbine is obviously that it is independent of the direction of the wind opposed to the Aeromine system

[marginbuu]

Savonius turbines look cool. If your neighbors ask, just tell them it's a kinetic sculpture. You'll sound so sophisticated.

[jharvey]

Yes, please, DO create more videos on residential wind power. There are so many wind power turbines you can find on Youtube, but getting reliable information on them is difficult. Some of the ones I am interested in are Liam F1 (Archimedes turbine), Solarwind Pro, Tulip wind turbine, and many others. It seems they keep popping up regularly. The Harmony turbine looks interesting for residential use. The Aeromine only seems practical for industrial or business applications. They don't seem practical for residential roofs. Please consider the noise level of the turbine. This will be an important factor in keeping the peace with your neighbors.

[QuintBUILDs]

I've been keeping my eye on Harmony's progress for years and am still waiting to see some real-world data on power output vs. swept area and wind speed. Granted it's clever and looks really cool, but viability is still a major question mark in my mind. You might say I'm a bigger "fan" of the Aeromine approach.

[judischarns]

I’m so glad there are companies continuing to explore the needs of homeowners with “dirty” wind. We have no hope for solar and being in a steep narrow valley all we have is dirty wind.

[xthegrim]

So happy to see harmony getting more exposure. I really think they've got the answer to wind generation for homeowners.

[Dan-Simms]

I really like Harmony's approach to this and I hope Aeromine makes more headway too. We need more small scale wind production.

[feuby]

This is so cool. Where I live, solar is not an option (Quebec, you know, too far north). But the wind is blowing so strong, each day of the year... we have to really secure our winter car protections in order to prevent it to be blown away. 2 years ago, the wind was so strong that like 20% of all of them were blown or at least, partially detached.

I'm even planning to plant a vegetal hay in order to limit wind damage to my fruit trees so they can grow more vertically instead of being pushed back. I don't know if they are looking for test beds, but this area is really well suited for it, especially because QC is not a traditionnal solar area.

[wirelesmike]

Yes. Please do more on this field and on Harmony. And, thank you for helping to get the word out that the data on these designs is and has been wrong. This has been holding back progress for long enough, and I'm not convinced that it hasn't been on purpose.

[Dark-Helmet]

Didn’t hear this mentioned in the video but one of the largest drawbacks to residential wind generation is the noise that most systems produce. Generally the higher the rpm the worse it is, especially if not maintained to laboratory standards.

[Fenthule]

Love to see Harmony turbines getting more attention, I've been following them for a while already. I love the design and how it's potentially still useable well beyond when traditional wind turbines have had to cease function. I actually had just watched this after watching a different video on building integrated PV panels, which makes me think of what it could be like to essentially turn a skyscraper into a power production facility, covering the glass with solar panels, using any maintenance floors as potentially giant airfoil's for Aeromine's style turbines, and I'd love to see Harmony style turbines running up the entire corner(s) of the buildings, just constantly feeding off of whatever prevailing winds are there.

[mattgirgenti]

Thanks for the video (update). There is no singular magic bullet for sustainable energy. Finding solutions that can be done in parallel covering multiple environments is awesome. The Harmony solution is very intriguing and I could see putting two them on our roof as soon as they are available. I hope they focus on simplicity to keep maintenance and manufacturing down. In aviation, we have leading edge slats on some airplanes that lower stall speed when deployed. The beauty is they automatically deploy at slow speed based on air pressure. No electronics, gears, motors, etc. Simple. Reliable. Effective .. and lighter and cheaper than an overly designed solution. Would love to see Harmony open and close using a similar approach.

[jimthain]

There is a company in Europe (The Netherlands to be precise), called Ibis Power, that has a system similar to the Aeromine company you featured.
The biggest difference is that they marry solar directly on top of their wind turbines.
So when you buy there system you get both.
They have been deploying them on tall buildings in Europe so far.

[joebusyguy]

This is the second time I have come across Harmony, and found the other company very intriguing. Would love a deep dive on residential wind power.Very interested. Thanks for breaking these topics down!!!

[ajemohaltom]

Fluid dynamics is a trip for sure. I like Zipline's drone delivery approach with their engineers which is an "assume you know nothing" approach. They came up with a wind prop/blade design that is way outside the box.

[michaelsohocki]

Matt,

Robert Murray Smith did a wonderful series of videos about variable speed transmissions, with the intent to employ these in wind turbines of various composition (horizontal and vertical).

This arrangement can be applied to deliver a steady stream of motion from an unsteady source--or, applied electrically, as in the case of a transformer, to exchange amps for volts, and alter the power delivery if that is what's required, rather like an infinite version of a ten-speed bicycle.

Rather than reduce the rotation--in which you are losing the potential of that resource--you can simply convert this to another form if a variable speed transmission were employed.

I wonder if there is a residential or small scale wind energy research team working on this concept.

[frederickheard]

Would love to see more videos on niche wind power (roadsides, rooftops, urban canyons, etc.). These applications might never make sense in grid scale operations, but the long tail of wind could provide a significant amount of on-site generation for a distributed future.

[ConorV]

What a shock to hear my alma mater, Bucknell University, mentioned on an undecided video 😱

Fun fact while in engineering school there I helped revive an old wind turbine that had been sitting on the campus farm, unused, after getting hit by lighting. I led a team which designed and installed a standalone energy conversion and storage system for the turbine which is still there to this day. The farm uses it to power all their tools from the power of the wind. 😁

That project really sparked my interest and love for wind energy and im so happy to hear about all the innovations coming in the near future for residential production!