Small Wind Turbine: Success or Failure? Do not make those Mistakes
Small wind turbines can be a fantastic complement to photovoltaic systems when implemented correctly. In this video I clarify which mistakes are often made and how you can avoid them in order to successfully operate your own wind turbine. I go into important factors such as wind strength, mast height and site selection and give you practical examples and advice.
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Hi, my name is Patrick Juettemann, I am a German author and expert in the field of small wind power systems and renewable energy solutions. For around 15 years, I have been intensively involved with the market and technology for small wind turbines, solar power, electricity storage and systems for self-supply with clean energy.
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I bought a lantern style VAWT on eBay and it produces 1 to 5watts when spinning fast. I asked the company why do they call it a 3000watt unit and they said it is calculated over one year !!!! Enough said. André
VAWTs often look nice, but the problems start when it comes to electricity production.
That does not make sense
Your post does not make any sense because you are mixing up watts (power) with watthours (energy).
@@lingondraken no - the vendor is doing that, quite deliberately
@@JohnR31415 Really? That sounds like something illegal, then.
I worked for a number of years with small wind turbines of 5kw (UK manufactured). Positioning was ALWAYS taken into account and did the site was not suitable, we would not provide a turbine. Other salespeople were less scrupulous and would seem the client a different brand that simply would not work efficiently.
Exactly, the good and honest providers talk a prospective buyer out of the wind turbine if they do not have a windy location.
Thank you for sharing your experience
Thank YOU COOP ...
Another important aspect often overlooked by private owners is the maintenance and repair. Is it easy to access the turbine? Are parts such as bearings replaceable? Is it easy to do lubrication? Not many private owners would climb their 30 meter mast and open the device on that height. Are you calling a professional with a cherry picker or a crane to lift the device off altogether?
You can mount the turbine on a pipe that you can tilt down to do maintenance.
Yea the masts that you can lower are very important
Thank you for that and the wind site. Good old Northern Ireland, 240' windy as hell - always. It rarely slows down.
I think Northern Ireland is the only area in Europe where wind farms reach >70% of their annual energy production capacity. It's really amazing :D
Great information. Thanks for your efforts. Curious if there might be matrices reflecting the differences between the variables and power outputs? It would make the decision making process easier and more accurate.
Some great advice! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks!
Thanks for the explanaition. Here (Brazil ,São Paulo) we have many wind conditions and now i know where see this conditions .
Yes, you have a lot of coastline, where the wind is particularly strong.
If your turbine tower is 100ft or more expect it to be hit by lightning. To protect from lightning a low impedance conductor must provide a direct path to ground for the lightning or it will find it's way to your electrical equipment and burn it out. A low DC resistance conductor will not provide a low impedance path to ground for lightning unless the conductor has a large diameter (skin effect) which will reduce the inductive reactance. This is true because lightning is an impulse which has a large bandwidth (see Fourier transform). This is what I have learned as an Electrical Engineer working on lightning protection design of communications sites on mountain tops.
Low impedance means?
@@buddha2845 Low resistance in both AC and DC. In DC the current flows through the whole conductor. In AC it tends to concentrate toward the surface of the conductor, this is skin effect. Also, in AC the conductor acting like a coil and not like a pure resistor starts to become important. A coil opposes the increase of the current, meaning for a short while it looks like the coil has a bigger resistance than it really has. Now the last piece of puzzle, the Fourier transform: any signal of any form can be decomposed into a series of sinewaves (AC at different frequencies). Basically, the guy is saying that when you're dealing with lightning, your 4-inch diameter round and smooth solid-core conductor (it looks hefty, right?) used for grounding may not be enough if you don't do your math carefully.
Very helpful and informative sir. Thank you.
This is great information. Thanks!
I'm glad you found the information helpful!
Best Video on the subject thanks
Thanks!
Good video and great advice, thanks! Your neighbour from the Netherlands here :) I am really interested in small residential wind turbines.It is however really hard to get good solid advice. Everyone is advertising small wind turbines as 1 or 2 or even more KW. I am more interested in a wind turbine that will generate at normal wind speeds about 100 Watt and that I can plug in to an electrical outlet. That would allow me to install it myself, keep cost low and do some experimenting. Because the main purpose is experiments. During the night I think I can cut down my energy usage to about 100-200 Watt. Would just be fun to have days where I have no need to get power of the grid for a whole day. What I also really hate is the way people mix up Watt and Watthour. It is so simple! I am not interested in the kWh it'll potentially deliver over a year. I am interested in the Watt it delivers at any given moment. In a lot of cases the "nay" sayers continue to bash about it not being efficient and the ROI is way too long. I don't care about that. For the time being it is just for fun.
The problem is that you usually don't have enough wind in the residential area. I will publish a new video about this the next days. Especially when it comes to home wind turbines, there are some dishonest suppliers on the market. Beware of exaggerated advertising promises.
@@WindSunWisdom thanks! Looking forward to it
Patrick, thank you for this I found it most helpful. I have a question that I hope you can answer I’ve been seriously looking at adding a wind turbine to supplement my grid tied, domestic Solar PV system. I have been measuring the wind speed at the roof peak (measured using a Ecowitt anemometer mounted 300mm above the ridge tile, approximately 8 meters high) for eight months and our monthly average wind speed has ranged from 5.6m/s to 8.8 m/s with the sole exception being May when the monthly average was only 1.5 m/s.. My question: Do you have experience with any turbine that would suit the wind conditions?
I generally advise against installing them on the roof. Often too little wind and/or turbulences. Your wind data seems very high to me for 8 m heigth. Perhaps you are near the coast. There's a lot of nonsense on KZhead about home wind turbines on the roof. A new miracle wind turbine presented every month. But in practice, the systems do not catch on in the market.
For clarity, I do not intend to install the turbine on the roof, although the anemometer is installed up there@@WindSunWisdom
For clarity, the turbine would not be mounted on the house but for practical reasons, I mounted the anemometer up there. We are situated on the side of a long shallow hill at the end of a long dale (valley) in Derbyshire. @@WindSunWisdom Do you have experience with any turbine that would suit the wind conditions?
@@WindSunWisdomI had a company advising and installing, they want another 10K for the turbine and installation with all "power collected" going into my existing Solar installation and the battery. I think it is too much.. I also do not have achres of land, to have a wind turbine a size of medium bush at the front of my garden was also not acceptable.
Good info thanks!
Thanks!
I inherited a 3-story residential building with about 6 apartments that host small families or single individuals. The building is located near the top of an elevation, and I've experienced good wind flow when on top of it, but haven't measured it carefully, yet. My question is about transmitting the output of an equipment that I install on a tower over the roof (not necessarily too high, as the 3rd floor roof would grant a good altitude by itself), to the renters, so that they pay for the electricity, even though in a mixed system with the regular electricity provider in our region, a town in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Is there a way of measuring the individual consumption for each apartment? My idea is to charge them with a discount (20% or 25%) over the regular price of the electricity provider company. I wonder whether that would be feasible.
Thanks , very good video. Spainish
About 10 years ago I read a book by the guru of wind turbines and he basically said unless you have a huge commercial turbine it's not worth it . Maybe that has changed since then , Neighbor put one up and it ran for about one year now its a yard ornament
Small wind turbines may be a perfect complement to photovoltaics, as long as you have a location with enough wind. As far as grid-connected wind turbines are concerned, the turbines with an output above 10 kilowatts are more economical than the smaller turbines. But in fact, there are many poor quality small wind turbines. They then become decoration.
I have been using wind turbines for 15 years, the best is a 8 ft. Chinese manufactured because it provides 500 watts with a wind speed of 18mph. The problem however is that there are no wind controllers for LiFePo4 that include BMS , they must be manually adjusted and i don't like it.
How many years has the turbine been in operation?
Interesting. What is youre opinion on horizontal axis wind turbines ? So, basically a design like the VAWT, but then horizontal. It seems to me that a design like this would be ideal to mount on a rooftop. The roof effectively acts as a giant wind catcher, then the HorizontalAWT catches this wind, and dumps it easely on the other side of the roof where there is less pressure. I only found one former Canadian ( now English ) company I believe which makes these models, for an insane price. I bet I can build it myself. What are your opinions on this Mr. SWS ? The downside ofcourse is that this design only work optimal when the wind is optimal, since it cannot rotate. Maybe you can add a few small wind catchers to steer the wind into the turbine, but it wont be optimal. But, youre general opinion on a design like this please, im all new to this stuff. I don't like conventinal wind turbines because of the blades and the flickering shades it produces, hell insured for your neighbours !
According to my observations, VAWT has not yet been able to establish itself properly. Although there have been many attempts by various manufacturers. The state of the art is still wind turbines with a horizontal rotor axis.
Awesome.
Hello everyone i am a seller of wind turbine i have tested few sizes all turbines under 16kg are almost useless + most vawt turbines are not efficient. I have a 2kw turbine of 60kg and it peaks at 2.6kw . Wind turbines are helpful in winter when it's cloudy and windy . It's help the battery to hold on the cold weather nights of winter. My advice to anyone thinking of adding it to there solar system make sure it between 25kg to 60kg to be able to install it without big machinery and less cost for the tower of it. Good luck !😊
I agree, VAWT have not yet been able to really convince the market. HAWT are still the best choice.
any suggestions for someone in alaska. looking at primus air 40 maybe 2 of them. any power from wind is better than no power from the sun
Primus Air has been sold to Ryse Energy. Check their website. You could also check shops with sailing equipment. The small wind turbines that worked on a sailing ship are usually good. Superwind, Silentwind, Air etc.
I have a question if you could answer it for me . I have a 100ah LIFePO4 Redodo battery and 200w of solar .. I want to add a small VAWT. I've been looking at these educational vawt that rates out at 30w. Are these any good? Over the winter months, we have more than enough wind for such a small turbine that by the time morning came, or home after an overcast day would have possibly achieved a full or close to a full charge
To be honest: I would stick to a HAWT.
Producing electricity from wind is a clean energy source that encourages development. Thank you
Can you make a video of a DIY off grid wind turbine system?
Great video- I want one but my planning department are against it.
The authorities seem to tick in the same way in all countries. Also in Germany, there are often problems with the building authorities.
What about small wind turbines that can catch wind from all directions? Could the harmony wind turbine work ?How many VAWT would you need in a row to improve efficiency?
VAWT have not yet been able to really convince the market. HAWT are still the best choice.
Are there any 'off the self' battery systems that will accommodate wind, solar and grid?
You need a charge controller for the wind turbine and the solar system, both of which are suitable for the specific battery.
lift is a power phenomenon, created by speed ! ... drag is a torque phenomenon ! ... and both may have same output ! : power = speed x torque
Any makes and model turbines you can recommend in the 2-3m diameter range.
Consider for instance the smallest wind turbine from Bornay: www.bornay.com/en/products/small-wind-turbines/wind-plus-swt
Thank you.
Put a gas powered fan in front of it to keep it spinning when there is no wind.
What watt production do I need to run a hot water heater directly from the turbine?
That's a good and interesting question. You need a special control unit for this. Or an inverter that has an extra output for a heating element.
Thanks. I already have an adequate system in place, but I'm thinking about a dedicated turbine to directly heat up an uninsulated old-style hot water heater or a sand barrel to use for storing and releasing heat to supplementally keep the house warm. I'm not that concerned with the accuracy of how much or how little it generates as long as it generates enough to keep the house somewhat warm. @@WindSunWisdom
@@omarhomsy4843 They have heating coils for dump loads its not a matter of what turbine as much as it is are you allowed to put it high enough to make the amps you need
Do you suggest any supplier of the wind project in Karachi pakistan
Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with the market in Pakistan. But take a look at this, these are professional small wind turbines for do-it-yourself construction. windempowerment.org/
I live on Maui, the windiest county on average in the United States. The house that I'm currently building will be completely off grid with just solar and batteries. Even with the ridiculous amount of wind, I would prefer to just go with solar to minimize my moving parts in general hum associated with a wind turbine. The local electric company charges 42 cents per KWH, and unsubsidized solar system that I'm building myself will cost me $0.16 per KWH. The electric company charges $10,000 to hook up a new home to the grid and there was a 30% subsidy in the form of a tax credit on the system price. This generates an adjusted cost per KWH > $.08!!! The future of energy generation for most homes I think will be self-generation and storage. Grid costs are getting too high to be sustainable and there is so much inefficiency built into the system to keep a grid charged.
If you have enough sun all year round, then you don't necessarily need a wind turbine. Here in Europe you have the dark winter with little sun and a lots of wind, so small wind turbines are a good addition.
5:08 how to find out if there’s to much turbulence before final installation?
Nevermind I thought up a high tech a way to find out..streamer(s) along the pole/tower.
As a rough guide, you should have at least 200 m (600 feet) of clear visibility in the direction of your main wind direction. No high obstacles such as trees or buildings. In addition, there should not be any obstacles too close behind the rotor that could block the wind and cause turbulence.
I was thinking about getting a VAWT to power my chicken coop light/heat source.
Try HAWT.
Most important is that it can self protect it's self, like GRAVITY furling
Totally agree with you! You have to protect a wind turbine from too much wind.
Wind turbine for heating water in a heat battery??
Yes, you can. Some manufacturers offer such heating sets.
If I may just add a few things from a decade of experience living off a combination of wind and solar electricity. These all provide DC current which has to be run through an inverter before it can be used. Inverters are “low inertia” power generators so if you suddenly apply a large inductive load, which can do some weird things to the voltage and frequency of the electricity when they’re first turned on, especially if the inverter is just adequate in wattage. So the phase gets out of sync a bit and the voltage drops, it’s only momentarily but for some older more sensitive electronics, it could cause them to malfunction a bit (I had a computer that would switch off when I turned on the blender, but that was solvable with a small UPC) just something to consider. You’re also going to want a good deal of power storage, for the off peak hours, and for times when the load is temporarily larger than the generation capacity. Add a thousand AH of batteries and say you are generating say 400 watts @12v (which is only 40w at 120v) well that’s enough to run a light bulb but not a microwave. Fear not the battery has you it provides the extra watts to run the microwave, then gets recharged by whatever surplus of generation there is after the microwave turns off in a minute or two. If you’re clever you can play the average generation over time against your average use over time, make the generation a bit higher and dump the rest into batteries where you can use it later. That way you only have to size your inverter to cover your peak demand.
Watts is watts is watts. 400 watts at 12v is also 400watts at 120v and also 400 watts at 12000000v. The only thing that changes is the current. 400w at 12v is about 33A of current. That means you need a really thick cable to handle the current. At 120v it’s only 3.33A so a much smaller cable is needed. Both would be to little for a microwave but enough to run about 6 to 10 old school light bulbs that nobody should use anymore since led is cheap and available.
Biggest mistake is designed,blades are to shorth and to much mass ,si a solution,a big cone at least 2 to3 meters, this will redirect air to the edges doubling wind speed were 5 to 8 thin 1 meter blades will be place, steeper Angle to lower rotation speed and increase torque .
I know of eight installations of small wind turbines and they have been nothing but a trouble. The problems are: Council regulations, before even thinking of a small wind turbine the hurdle of council regulation enough to stop most projects dead in their tracks. The 8 small wind turbine installations I know of have all failed in less than a couple years. Two were closed down due neighbors complaining about the noise One had a direct lightning strike on the generator not only destroying the wind generator but whole solar system. Three failed because of mechanical failure, corrosion from living in a coastal area, metal fatigue and bearing failure. It seems that the manufactures haven’t taken into account the more powerful storm conditions due to global warming. Two were taken down, as you stated in your video, weren’t planned properly and produced very little electricity. I have just increased the number of solar which just keep on running and only need to run the petrol generator for about 15 hours year which is 10 years old and always starts. Thank for your interesting your video
Thank you for your experience reports. Many people have this practical experience. Always the same problems: unsuitable locations, often because there is too little wind. Then there is cheap technology that is not storm-proof. The secret to success is to plan thoroughly. If the location is not suitable, it is better to leave it alone.
Far more economical to add onto your array then to use wind turbines. At least in my area.
You always have to check the specific location to see if there is enough wind. There is often too little wind, especially in residential areas. Unfortunately, there is a lot of nonsense on KZhead about home wind turbines.
The best vawt is the QR6
Is the wind turbine officially still on the market? Do you know of any current projects?
@@WindSunWisdom these have been installed at the net zero carbon McDonald’s in market Drayton UK as well as dick Lovett Swindon and dales manor retail park in Cambridge. One is set to be installed at NTU Clifton campus in Nottingham
No buyer information, blog hasn't been updated since 2017; QR6 seems like another vawt dud, the way they all go. I have never seen anyone on youtube who has any first-hand experience with vawts say anything good about them. Why is that?
..The number one mistake of over estimation of the wind availability isn't restricted to private wind generation installations. When the figures are finally published most, if not all of the commercial installations show dramatically reduced power outputs against projected figures.
Anyone who plans a wind energy project professionally will be able to generate electricity well with a small wind turbine. The wind supply must be carefully checked. Another prerequisite is a high-quality turbine. Without a windy location, however, it won't work.
*All practical tests show that small wind turbines hardly generate any electricity! And only at very high costs!* Because there is hardly any wind close to the ground. It is also extremely gusty, which usually shortens the service life. Only if you need to be self-sufficient from the power grid, you should have the largest possible wind turbine for the winter on a high mast. *With solar panels, on the other hand, you can reliably generate green electricity for 25 years at approx. 3-10 cent/kWh!*
I see it differently. Of course, the prerequisite for a small wind turbine is a windy location. This will not be in the middle of a residential area, but rather in a rural area. If you have an average annual wind speed of over 5 meters per second, then you can generate electricity economically. In many climatic regions, this is precisely when the sun is weak. A small wind turbine should always be considered as a supplement to a photovoltaic system.
@@WindSunWisdom "If you have an average annual wind speed of over 5 meters per second," => 99,99% of ground-level surfaces in Europe have no " ANNUAL AVERAGE WIND SPEED 5 meters per second" = 18 km/h.
@@michaelvanallen6400Absolutly, in Germany it is about an average of 2,5m/s given that the energy from wind is is in cubic do it speed means, double wind speed 8 times the power. Wind turbines are basicly useless here, better get solar with a decent planned system you can get far more power for much less money.
So wind energy is will not produce the energy it cost. its only when ther is no other way. windenergy cant replace other energy in a good way.
A small wind turbine can make sense, but only in a windy location. Then you can generate electricity economically. The perfect complement to photovoltaics.
at a good location you don't need to put it on a pedestal but you could put it in a wind tunnel to conserve nature and diminish the awful noise POLLUTION - you want to eventually put them in small windtunnels, or large, and conserve the wind to stop killing the planet
I like English of Germans. I can easily understand it.
Many of those ive seen rated at 2KW or more then in fine print they say it is average over 24hours.... So 2KWh in one whole day and night is shit 🤣 You always must read the spec for max voltage, amps and watt if not provided ask the seller or find another one
KW are indeed often very misleading. Stick to kwh data.
While vawts are less efficient, I do believe they are better in turbulent environments
The problem is: if you have a lot of wind turbulence then it is often generally not a suitable location.
@renewablegreentechnology If the site review indicates ... turbulent winds then you will *NOT* be installing a £100,000 QR6 VAWT. That would be a huge waste of money.
@@MrSummitville No. this is not a domestic turbine I just meant the best vawt out there. Sorry for not explaining that.
I do think my vawt is better less noise ect.
@@1961kickboxer yes their design limits vibration. Personally if I was to install a vawt at home I’d go for a helical darrieus
what are the mistakes???? low quality products? IEC standard as quality measure? asking others? what if no one use them around? not very useful.
lift wind turbines, ... 3 blades std and darrieus, ... like planes, ... does not support turbulences ! that create instant power loss !
HAWT are still the best choice. I like the optical design of VAWT, but unfortunately the performance is often suboptimal compared to the costs.
@@WindSunWisdom ... not really ! ... good savonius type have a better average production !
You first mistake is using a bladed windmill.
99 percent of these small wind turbines are useless gadgets sold by door-to-door salesmen to gullible homeowners. Our local utility has hundreds of these things hooked up, and none of them come even close to paying for themselves. The rule for determining the viability of wind is this…. If you are standing three feet from another person, and you need to yell at them in order to be heard, you have enough wind to be viable wind power. There are places like that, but not many residential neighborhoods are built in those places.
I agree with you that there are many dubious suppliers, especially when it comes to home wind turbines. They want to sell you a wind turbine for a residential area where there is far too little wind.
10m is ALLOWED MAXIMUM IN #GERMANY HURRAY! LAWMAKERZ!
most of this just wastes time repeating the obvious that this audience already knows. If i were to translate the script to BS, what percentage would be BS? Do it yourself.
The video seems to target more the "new buyers" rather professional or seasoned veterans. Like everything, it may be obvious to an expert, but it can be useful to a newbie. And remember that all experts started as newbies
bunch of wind.
😂👎🙄 really ....who buys in to this power gen crap drag your feet on carpet ya get more volts😅