The Challenges of a Wind Turbine on Your Home

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[aloneinanearthship]

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.

[shadyislandchronicles]

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!

[MrArtist]

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.

[thomasdanielmincarelli]

I have a PIKA T701 1.7 kW wind generator from Maine that helps power my off-grid home. It’s been super efficient and reliable for over 5 years. Unfortunately GENERAC generator company bought the PIKA company and discontinued the wind generator line…but continued the battery and inverter line with their name on it. My machine is on the top of a ridge and uses a 30’ tilting tower. I sure hope someone picks up the rights to produce this beautiful-quiet-efficient machine. My system is a “hybrid” solar wind system and is 100% off grid. Winter brings helpful night and daytime wind generation. I’ve been a sustainable energy engineer for over 40 years…and will never be On-Grid. Good review!

[qmanb]

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.

[BluishGreenPro]

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.

[nealschmitt]

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.

[MyrKnof]

Dude, i've been fantasising about a roofridge windturbine for years.. awesome to see its in the works.

[slrs]

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.

[nobodynemoq]

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...

[InfiniteLuke]

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.

[nigelweir]

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

[ChinaChuck]

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.

[dougselsam]

20 years ago, solar panels were $4/Watt, and small-wind had a price advantage. Today solar panels are one-tenth their former price: 40 cents/Watt. This ranch property in the Mojave Desert came with a 10 kW grid-tie wind turbine, which pays the electric bill here. You need at least a couple acres, in a high-wind area, with no trees, buildings, or obstacles to block a strong, steady wind. That rules out 99% of homes. Also, even the best wind turbines wear out. There is really only one model, of one brand, that has proven to withstand the test of time at all, and even those have multiple "issues". I had to buy an identical turbine used, so I would have two on hand - one to run, one to rebuild. You need to hire a crane and experienced crew to swap out a turbine or do maintenance. Figure about $3-4 thousand just to pull down a turbine and fix or replace it. This model weighs over half a ton (1000 lbs) on a 120-foot tower.

I also build my own small turbines, including the generators. This is an option if you are good with fabricating, are a naturally-talented engineer, and you know what you are doing. Again, that rules out 99.99% of people.

The other "goofy" designs in the video are all total non-starters. People who are not in the industry have NO IDEA how bad these "alternative" designs are. They are completely worthless products of ignorance, period. Seriously, no matter how great they look, like that ridge-whatever, don't fall for it. Don't believe any numbers claimed for such toys. You need propellers to make good power. There is a reason all windfarm turbines look nearly identical.

[thisbushnell]

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.

[rossk]

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!

[BronyumHexofloride]

in the USA it may not make sense but the turbine design from "the Power Collective" shown would work very well in the UK where we get far more wind than sun, if you look at the highlands of Scotland the viability shoots up compared to the average US install

[HakunaMatata-osog]

I love how you explore not only the standard horizontal blade systems, but the many alternatives, both current and upcoming. It gives me great hope for wind power's continued and future success.

[jeffallinson]

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.

[potatoesindrag]

I building in Taiwan built a vertical wind turbine in the 28th and 29th floors of a office building, where the is a constant wind flow. The turbine provides 15% of the buildings energy needs and mostly use to power the ac units saving over 3 million a year in electrical cost. Wind technology does exist, just not as sexy as strapping big reflective panels to your home and hoping they don't get damaged. There also a wind pod shaped like a ships GPS receiver the big dome things, it has energy potential of 15kwh a day, mainly used on ships at sea to provide energy for life support systems like AC/Heat and lighting. This takes off load of the engines reducing fuel consumption. I love Matt but if you really dig deep you will find that there are a lot of practical wind turbines in used in everyday applications.