Why you haven't seen these wind turbines around (yet)
While we've grown accustomed to seeing solar panels on rooftops, what about wind turbines? Are they destined to be overshadowed by their bigger counterparts? What challenges are hindering the implementation of small-scale wind turbines and what are possible solutions for more wind power for the people?
#planeta #smallwindpower #verticalwindpower
Credits:
Reporter: Monika Sax
Video Editor: Neven Hillebrands
Supervising Editors: Kiyo Dörrer, Michael Trobridge
We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world - and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.
Author would like to thank the following people for research support and background information:
Patrick Jüttemann, www.klein-windkraftanlagen.com
Alina Wilke, Bergische Universität Wuppertal
Michael Bergey, World Wind Energy Association, Small Wind Section
Dipl. Ing. Andreas Horvath, rheologic.at
Patrick Richter, www.agilewindpower.com
Dr. Galih Bangga, University of Stuttgart
Dr. Adel Ayad Younis, The Australian University (AU)
Roman Rudnik, German Wind Energy Association
Read more:
Outlook for the industry:
samples.mordorintelligence.co...
Current status and grand challenges for small wind turbine technology:
wes.copernicus.org/articles/7...
Chapters:
00:00 Does small stand a chance?
1:24 Pros and cons of small wind turbines
2:06 Horizontal vs. vertical
3:06 Advantages of vertical wind turbines
4:31 Challenges of the small-scale
6:25 Where and how could small wind power make it?
Do you like this video?👍Or do you hate it?👎Either way, we'd be grateful if you would share your thoughts about Planet A with us in this survey 👉surveys.dw.com/c/dwplaneta
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Thank you for sharing your survey link! While it's not directly related to the video, I appreciate your offer. By the way, have you heard about the Segway Portable PowerStation Cube Series? It's a versatile and powerful backup power solution for outdoor adventures and home use. Check it out if you're looking for reliable power on-the-go!
Thank you for sharing the survey link, but it seems unrelated to the video topic. Regarding the video, I haven't watched it yet, but as an outdoor enthusiast, I value renewable energy solutions like wind turbines. By the way, have you heard about the Segway Portable PowerStation Cube Series? It's a versatile power station that could be handy for outdoor adventures and backup power needs.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts! While I haven't watched the video yet, I appreciate your input. As an outdoor enthusiast and someone who values family time, I always look for reliable and durable power sources. Have you heard about the Segway Portable PowerStation Cube Series? It's a versatile powerhouse that's ideal for outdoor adventures and provides uninterrupted power supply during outages. You may find it useful for your outdoor gear and family activities.
Thank you for sharing the survey, but it seems unrelated to the video. Regarding the video, I found it interesting to learn about wind turbines and their potential impact on energy sustainability. By the way, have you heard about the Segway Portable PowerStation Cube Series? It's a versatile power station that could be great for outdoor camping and providing backup power for family time. Check it out for yourself!
I sold over 2,000 small wind turbines over several years of working in the industry and have had a 2.4kW Skystream in my backyard for the past 15-years, powering my own home, and I wouldn't recommend anyone buy a small wind turbine unless you can get it very cheap and install it yourself as the ROI is VERY long, much longer than solar PV. The VAWT's produce such tiny yields, and cost more than HAWT's so they're almost never worth the price. My solar panels far, far outproduce my small wind turbine and they make no noise and require no maintenance, and were much cheaper.
Ive worked for a Solar Company for a little while. Wind Turbines are definitely not the most efficient way currently, especially compared to solar panels. And the fact you need it elevated quite high for it to be efficient at all. And those are the more traditional 3-4 bladed ones too. And yeah just my two cents, this should all be accurate as i recall? EDIT: Ooops, there was 3 and 4 bladed turbines
Finally some genuinely good advice from the people i wanted to hear it from. Please comment more
What do you think of the Ridgeblade turbine that you set on the roof ridge?
@@magnussorensen2565 That does look like to be an old idea that's resurfaced as something else. I wonder why it failed to begin with.
@MrArtist7777 Having spent 20 years in the small wind industry I 100% agree, the ROI is not worth it. Solar has no moving parts, makes no noise, requires very little maintenance. Solar is like a dependable loving spouse, always has your back and is dependable and puts out. Wind is like a street hooker, fun for a quick moment, but will steal your money, time, energy, keeping up up all night, and cause you nothing but trouble....
I remember being told 15 years ago solar power will never be viable because it costs too much. It doesn't seem likely that small wind will improve at the same rate as solar or even big wind. However, it seems worth exploring
@lawrenceheyman435 Everything you see from New companies is OLD technology. They are just spinning new catch phrases and BS ideas. It the wind turbine manufacturer has a " Invest " or "Join us" or "Revolutionary" in its company site run away. Somethings things like the "Vortex turbine" are totally new but it is hard to get power in a big way from linear motion. so no ideas will come up but they must not be based on the same old Vertical / Horizontal designs.
I remember being told last year that nuclear power isn't viable because it costs too much. (Oddly enough there is already a lot of it.) With the plethora of new reactor designs, it seems very likely that small nuke plants will improve at an even faster rate than wind. Besides a small nuke plant is about the size of a big wind generator.
@daniellarson3068 you could be right. I am not against any low carbon technology. SMRs are being explored and maybe you'll be able to invest in one soon. You won't be able to put one on your roof though!
Plus Solar power have become cheaper than coals nowdays
@@arrell1xyzand when the wind doesn't blow or the sun shine... Winter.... What, be like Germany and burn brown coal!😢
Fun fact: For my final thesis project that i'm doing with my peer, I'm going for a three blade Darrieus type H rotor VAWT. To be more concrete my study is focused on the optimization of the profile of the turbine. I'm starting in two weeks.
be mentally prepared for deception buddy : read my comment above and get yourself some Paul GIPE books before wasting your time ... ah the long living myths of VAWTS ad perfecting blades. You have a far better chance at having tea with Bigfoot or being offered a tour of the universe by Aliens than succeeding in your project.
I hope that your thesis gets you the grade you desire, but sadly your work and time will probably not yield any new breakthroughs that will have any practical use. I am old enough to remember the time before widespread wind turbines, and the design most quickly ruled out was one with a vertical axis. Not only does it have a relatively small swept area, but half of that area saps energy capture as it has to be rotated against the same wind we are trying to harvest. I accept that there is a miniscule market for VAWTs but they will never make a dent on conventional designs. There are many good reasons reason that aircraft propellers are shaped the way they are, and why rotary winged aircraft have speed ceiling that can never be exceeded.
Try GAYK of GMRT
I remember seeing these smaller (vertical) wind turbines next to the river in Taipei over 10 years ago. I thought it was a brilliant way to fit wind turbines into a very compact city. They were very nice looking and in no way destroyed the view when you where walking next to the river. Sadly, I haven't seen this anywhere in Europe
The problem is that in this video they really dont state the magnitude of the big difference: Efficiency. The yields of the vertical turbines is abyssmal. Still, I hope it gets more attention and improvement, as it will probably have a place in future.
I live permanently aboard my sailing boat, equipped with an extensive range of electrical and electronic equipment. Solar panels and a wind turbine easily keep my house and engine crank battery banks fully charged, except rarely during prolonged periods of windless heavily overcast days.
And that's where those small VAWTs and similar things shine the best 🙂
How rare? 20 days per year? 40?
This is why I'm here. I'm retro fitting a 32' shallow draft, full keel cruiser now for extended live aboard retirement in the gulf and western Atlantic/Brazil. Can you point me in the right direction to research size, style, makes/models? I'm looking to mount two on the outside edges of the solar arch over the stern.
@@dentside78 Nice! I hope maybe to buy an Orion boat next year. I will have to find out a bit about sailing clubs in my area and find a place to put that boat :)
@@dentside78 The hardest aspect I encountered during initial research (and of any marine electronic equipment for that matter) was that manufacturers and retailers present data differently, using sometimes wildly differing unit measurements and data basis. That makes meaningful comparison difficult. I created a large spreadsheet on a wall and endeavoured to convert all data to common units of measurement. Not always easy! Then check out the many sailing community blogs, chatgroups, and KZhead for people’s real life experiences with, and opinions of various makes that appeal to you. Finally: in the harsh marine environment you generally get what you pay for. So be careful of ‘cheapies’ and deals that are too good to be true. Best wishes.
In the USA an alternative energy initiative was begun by the federal government during the Gerald Ford administration, around 1975. NASA designed a Darrius vertical mill with extruded aluminum foils, and there was significant interest in experimental designs through at least the mid 1980s. A study done (ca 1990) by a German university professor pointed out that with all vertical windmills, there is a larger amount of material used for the area of exposure to the stream of wind (more material = more capex). To my knowledge, no vertical mills have demonstrated sufficiently improved power output to justify the cost of these designs. In addition, the vertical mills pass the airfoils through the 'wake' of the leading airfoil; this means generally increased audible noise, and certainly increased mechanical WEAR. Fatigue wear of the airfoils was discovered in the initial deployment of Darrius turbines. It is true that in certain applications there may be some use of vertical mills ... but it remains to be seen if they will be economically viable. When fuel costs peak or environmental concerns arise, there has been increased entrepreneurial interest in these designs. Rigorous, real-world testing should be done to prove concepts have real ROI value.
I've seen these same criticisms of VAWTs before (in fact, the language you used is so familiar that I suspect I've seen you post this same comment on other videos). Your second point, about turbulence, makes a lot of sense to me and could be the fatal flaw for VAWTs. However, I do take issue with your "more material means more capex" statement. All else being equal, of course, this would be true, but materials are rarely as big an expense as labor and machine time. That's why there's so much content for DIY small turbines - lots of things start to make economic sense if you don't account for the value of time (or if you're enjoying yourself so much that it doesn't feel like work). So if VAWTs took less labor to install and maintain ( a big "if", but conceivable given the motor and other key components are at ground level or close to it), that could easily outweigh the cost of extra material. But again, the turbulence leading to more maintenance and/or a shorter life (and more noise) could certainly make them too impractical
One interesting vertical turbine installation was in Turkey I think where they put them in the median barrier of a motorway and as such captured the "wind" generated by traffic, and as it was in the median it gets "pushed" from both sides as the traffic is going in opposite directions
Saw another video dive into those--and determined they were a really bad idea for 2 reasons: 1. can be dangerous if accidents occur and 2. they actually reduce the efficiency of all vehicles that drive by such that it's a net negative energy producer. On the latter point, apparently walls close to roadways also harm vehicle efficiency due to causing increased drag by stagnating the airflow.
They create very low energy
@@tHebUm18 the energy you take out has to come from somewhere so understand it would have a negative impact on cars, would have thought it was marginal though (where there are walls already). Walls are often used to reduce noise in urban environments so they're not just there for the turbines. The design of the first installations seemed quite naive, I imagine a better efficiency could be achieved through optimizing the interactions between the turbines and any barrier.
Of all scams stealing kinetic energy from cars on the road is one of the worse.
@@hans-joachimbierwirth4727 the energy by the cars has already been put it to get the air moving, (the theory at least) is more energy recovery. However after I looked into it more, the output of 1 experimental setup was 50W, which is so low it probably wouldn't be worth the installation effort.
You pretty much skipped on the reason why most newly built wind turbines nowadays are massive. How many small turbines would you need to replace even one big one? How does the cost per kwh compare between them? How steady is the output (on a small and a larger scale)? I had hoped that the video would cover that, because those are exactly the reasons why small turbines are an extremely rare niche thing right now.
Many. The higher up and the bigger the blades the bigger the yield, it grows exponentially. even with traditional smaller ones (which are still the most efficient) it is somewhere up to 1.200 if I am not mistaken. One big one easily yields 12 Mwh, a small one only 0,5 to 10 kwh. Imagine the pollution of your horizon with that many scattered around the area instead of one big one.
bUT tHEy ARe mORE eFFIcienT!!1
@@AnneBerkheij The power output from a turbine increases with the cube of the wind speed, and wind speed increases with height - so getting a bit more height makes a huge difference to power output.
Here in Belgium, in rural areas I've started to see these small horizontal turbines popping up with wooden blades. I haven't looked around much yet but I've seen 3 so far and heard of a few more in the area. One of them is unfortunately right in front of my mother's house, and makes a quite annoying noise even when there's only a bit of wind. We're talking about a very small area as well, less than 10km across.
I was the head of operations at a VAWT start-up. The cost of installation is insane.
Why is that? compared to solar for example.
@@willemkalkman99I looked into it a few years ago. To be of any use, the turbine needs to be on a tall pole. So, you are applying a periodic force at the end of a long arm ... so the arm needs to be rigid and durable. Your house probably wasn't designed for that load, so you can't mount it on your roof. It ends up looking like a radio tower in your backyard for a few Wh of power. It would take years to counteract the climate impact of the steel. On a new building where you plan for the load, it might make sense.
If you spend more on the turbine than on its tower, you've been ripped off
5:08 is extremely interesting. Multi directional wind turbine concept.
It is not only energy efficient but thinking of the less space requirement and safety for the birds is of big importance. Amazing innovation We will like to add this to our main Planet Cents playlist to inspire more people. ~Team PlanetCents
Hey there! Thanks! You might also want to check out our video where we talk about the matter of wind turbines being dangerous for birds 👉kzhead.info/sun/nsOQkZuubmihYI0/bejne.html
When you're talking about efficiency, what are you referring to/where do you get this? Horizontal wind turbines are MUCH more efficient, since all of the blades face the wind at all time. And if you're talking about small-scale vs. big-scale, big-scale wins a lot of thr time, when it comes to efficiency.
Hey there! The small-scale wind turbines are not in competition with the big ones. They could rather be used in special situations as we explain in the video.
Painting the blades on regular wind turbines in the right way greatly reduces the problem for birds.
The bird line reveals more about the people making it. Do wind turbines kill birds? Yes. So do pet cats - about a thousand times more. But no-one dares propose banning pet cats, or even something like mandating loud bell-collars. It's just a political no-go to criticise the cute. People who oppose wind turbines to protect birds have an argument that is technically correct, but shows severely misplaced priorities - suggesting they are looking for an excuse to take down some eco-hippies rather than seriously considering the issue.
My old college put a vertical turbine on the roof of the new science center it built.
@@johnny5941 no they didnt demolish any buildings they just expanded and built a science center with a wind turbine on the roof.
As I understand it, the Taj Mahal uses wind to cool the interior. The Taj is made of white marble, a cold material, that has narrow slits cut into the walls. The interior of the slits are more narrow than the outside causing wind to speed up as it passes through & so, cool down. Giving 17th century airconditioning.
Yes, desert culture has some good architecture that the "west" hasn't discovered yet.
@@quinto190 Because the West discovered heating techniques for cold winters that desert societies don't need
Yes it's very common in Middle Eastern countries where the wind is funnelled through the building thus cooling it.
@@who9387 Not just the wind, they also use thermal convection.
@@quinto190 Taj is Indian. How can they be classified as desert
I saw these being tested at my college back in 2015, it was taken down due to friction issues I think. I don't know if it was a study done by the college or an engineering class, we did have a field of solar panels next to the building to help power it.
As someone who is currently paying off land in an area that gets sun throughout most of the year and lots of wind. I definitely plan to make use of harnessing both once im done paying it off and can build some structures
In Huntsville, AL there's a mall on hwy 231 that runs their parking lot lighting with these mounted on top of the light poles. I think that's a practical use for this type of turbine.
I've seen such stuff. 'Green washing' ~ I should guess a very expensive installation that produces very little if anything.
That tumbleweed inspired one seems really neat if it could be scaled up. In the end, small scale wind is a hard sell compared to solar because the need for moving parts inherently increases cost and reduces reliability.
I've seen it in fictional settings a couple of times, like the "Storm Point" map in Apex Legends. The vertical wind turbines do look futuristic, but grounded in reality. I guess the reason why we haven't used them as much is because it's not as efficient as large traditionally designed turbines.
Vertical wind turbines also appear in the *Halo: Reach* video game. I have actually seen one in real life though, but only one.
In Huntsville, AL there's a mall that runs all of their parking lot lighting with these on top of the light poles.
Gotta love DW documentaries from a different angle and we need more vertical wind turbines and renewable sources of energy
That field if wind mills looks like it would be hell for birds.
You packed quite a lot of information into a short video, without being either cheer-leading or unduly skeptical. Well done. For interested viewers seeking more detailed information I recommend the channel "Engineering with Rosie" by an Australian wind power expert.
I would consider a construction where you build a large tray that could take up the swing and plant a fast growing tree in that tray. Then when the wind comes and is caught by the tree then you can catch some of that energy. It won't be a fast direct measurable yield from it, but it could probably be easy to make and useful in areas where it's more important to be cheap. Then let the swing operate pumps for water.
Great subtitles!!! 🖤
I wonder what it would be like if bridges - and even highways - were lined with small wind turbines.
Particularly for large rigs driving by they create a huge air stream which technically is wasted energy. We defectively be able to convert the drag created by large rigs into electricity and recapture the losses
@@SpiritCannon I was thinking of stationary roadside devices, but your idea is good, as well. If we can work purely with turbulence, then your idea would pay off, maybe double, as it might both reduce drag and generate energy.
When you drove against the wind you wouldn't help but slow down those turbines. When you drove with the wind you also wouldn't add up. The edge of the road is a good space sine is free but turbine would need to be high enough for the turbulence doesn't affects it too much.
@@mariuszfurman4767 This would certainly be true of directional turbines, but it might be an open question for the omnidirectional turbines mentioned at 5:20 and the vibrating turbine. Tiny fringes on speed skater's outfits vibrate in the rushing air and reduce turbulence, allowing skaters to go faster. Curved wingtips on jet liners reshape wingtip vortices and reduce fuel consumption. Bulbous bows on large ships alter wakes and reduce drag, saving fuel. Dimples on golf balls reduce drag and increase lift and distance in flight. It is possible that an omnidirectional wind turbine could be designed on a moving vehicle that would both reduce overall drag and also collect energy, both reducing fuel (or electricity, for electric trucks) usage and generate electricity. I can't say if it's worth the experiment, but I wouldn't write off the innovation at this stage.
How about putting small turbines in the front end of cars, 70mph on a motorway would generate some power surely. obviously it would only work at speed, but something is better than nothing, for little cost.
There are many wind turbines in Denmark. When it is very windy the electricity here is super cheap and sometimes it is so cheap to generate electricity that you get paid for using it. That the time I do a lot of cleaning, ironing, and use as many devices as I can 😆
@@carlojean1974 haha. but we have very high taxes and everything else is quite expensive. But we have free healthcare care tough. Every country has its cons and pros 😅😁
@@YokoFuongAnhsounds like a dream to me
But here in my country I don't know how work
Same in Sweden
I have seen vertical turbine powered lamp post and I see them turning all the time and the lamps working fine at night. They have been working for about 10 years!
I completely agree, an ecological imperative that we both produce and use - not just consume energy. However, as a male Norwegian at 57, I seem to have both my peers and most policies against me. At the macro level there’s petro-greenwashing and the state pension fund. At the local level, legislation against being off grid, or adding this kind of infrastructure to it outside of corporate ownership. Our political economy simply resist these changes, as it threatens “growth” and challenges ownership and monopolies in energy production, transport, exchange trade and storage. Effectively, you *can* but it takes an awful lot of money. A “rich” country doesn’t mean we all are - not after say 1990. I hope I’m wrong, but don’t believe that a fair and equitable energy transition can happen without an equally formidable political change. This is about so much more than “money”, in ways that don’t fit into a spreadsheet. That’s why we struggle, right…? 👍😊
I remember when I was in my 20s me and my father went to Ilocos Norte Philippines for his work and we decided to visit the wind farm there. The one we went to was on a beach. I'm not sure now but anyone at the time can go close to it we can even see some locals relaxing in its shadow. The sand around it are black. It was massive as I stand under it, and loud when the turbines started turning. The feeling was like standing below a large robot which started to move.
You should cover Harmony Turbines, it’s a PA company with a focus on residential wind.
The best part of the video is 3:05. Good job by the DW Planet A video editing team.
I'm a big fan of innovation and new designs but please keep an eye on the numbers when you make a video about technology. 4:03 it is possible to meassure the power output of a turbine. Engineers have done that over decades and the result is pretty clear. Second point: the windspeeds, and even more its power, in cities are much lower than the winds that the big turbines use and its no problem to get the electricity from outside of the city. I know pictures of futuristcal spinning or vibrating objects are nice for an entertaining video but in terms of producing electricity rotation means nothing without a load on it. I am very diappointed of this video and I am sure the experts you asked can confirm what I said.
Hey there! You are right, as we mention the small wind turbines are not an alternative to the big wind turbines but they have different use cases. They could be used to complement the big wind turbines as we tackle in the last chapter, starting minute 6:26.
luv the addition of the puppies🐾
Small scale wind turbines make much more sense in that maximum efficiency output is of less concern than a practical use of space and simple materials especially in non industrial areas and among people without money
There was an ambitious plan some years ago to line a busy US highway with vertical turbines; the idea being that the usual windy conditions combined with the turbulence of constant traffic passing by at an average speed of around 60-70mph would keep them spinning. Unfortunately, the idea never was realized due to cost and possible issues with affecting the scenic element and visual safety element, as well as possible hypnosis or other mental effects from seeing so many turbines in a row spinning. Some studies were done to try and break up the visual via either spacing them out more or painting a turbine a different color every few turbines to break it, but spreading them out reduced turbine effectiveness while painting them came with their own issues of what colors best work all-year round and all-weather round to remain visible. From a safety standpoint, there was the issue of how the turbines could affect visibility down the highway, given that while it gently curves, drivers usually look out far ahead to be aware of issues, so another idea was to put them in clusters on alternating sides of the road offering enough visual sightlines to still see ahead. The last issue was dealing with emergencies; to maximize on the traffic turbulence, the turbines would need to be placed close to the road, but placing them close would affect the amount of space available for pulling over to the side or oversized, non-standard loads that might be trucked along the way (to say nothing of possible future road expansion). Maybe the idea could be revisited on bridges and overpasses instead, where it's still plenty turbulent, and where the shoulder distance is more rigid.
The biggest problem with the small turbine in urban areas is noise, especially from badly maintained equipment.
Easy fix, place them between highways and rail lines. Harness the wind from passing vehicles.
But I was thinking of the domestic DIYers.
Hey there! Small wind turbine device are actually not that noisy. Their estimated sound level is 43 decibels (dB). To easier grasp that: It is lower than an AC but a bit higher than a usual refrigerator.
How I appreciate DW! Subscribed.
Spotted most of these forms in a South Wales University test station about 30 years ago.
I saw one of this vertical wind turbine 25 years ago exhibit in univ nearby my home.
About six years ago I bought, apparently, a really crappy small horizontal turbine. It was so loud I could hear it inside my house. It sounded like an angry pack of crazed bees. Since then I have seen others, that look nearly identical that are quiet.
Just discovered this channel. You should be on Nebula!
I'd say the thing about wind turbines is that commercially available ones are overpriced, and thus outcompeted (maybe not everywhere, but in most places) by photovoltaics. On the other hand, from a DIY and upcycling perspective, it's much more viable to build a wind turbine, as most parts can be obtained cheaply or for free. Which means we could be seeing a lot of different designs if only more people were willing to go the DIY route. Though there's also the issue of placement - since working on a slanted roof can be tricky and dangerous, if it's the only place you have available for power generation, it might be preferable to hire professionals to install your generator - in which case you might as well go with photovoltaics, as it's going to be expensive either way. Only if you are either comfortable doing roofwork yourself, or if you have plenty of space on the ground to build a free standing turbine, wind turbines gain advantage, as you can save money on the installation. Which I guess is another limiting factor for wind turbines, as most people don't have land to spare.
I believe that Harmony turbines in the USA has a small horizontial turbine that has a centrifically activated mechanism that slows the horizontal turbine down in high winds so that it avoids over-speed and destruction while still permitting electric generation. Dreaming of installing a horizontal turbine in my backyard to provide supplimential electric power to lower my electric bill and to use excessive excess power to charge an emergency battery pack. Live in the Upper Midwestern USA but in the Ohio Valley weather pattern. ( mid-winters with more ice than snow) We get lots of rain all year round and very cloudy winters and when talking getting the most for my money; wind looks more promising than solar. Live next to a large vertical turbine wind farm and the nearby Honda transmission plant uses two large vertical wind turbines to heat steel billets for forming them into transmission parts. They probably use some of the power to melt aluminium for the transmission cases. Unfortunately, a back-up generator that runs off our propane tank's propane may provide the lowest cost option for emergency power. ( unless I could find the time to build the wind turbine myself.)
I've wondered why farms don't go back to just good old wind mills? Also I think the small turbines would be great for odd locations like (the grid/frame work to solar farms). Imagine 100 archer solar farm with wind generation in the same footprint.
Hey there! Thanks for sharing your ideas! Wind mills are still used at some farms. It is an easy way to transform wind energy into mechanical energy to move water, mill grains etc. However, wind turbines allow for more options as it converts the wind energy into electrical energy.
Thanks for making this brilliant vid!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I like the idea of placing a lot of smaller vawts around, they seem to be a lot less hassle than those giant windmills.
They're not around because they are inefficient. Companies strive for efficiency and power utilities look past these for 3 blade turbines, whose efficiency increases with the length of the blades.
Nice find someone else who understands how turbines work. This is nothing more then an attempt to sell old useless designs that were proven useless decades ago. I blame the likes of Robert Murray Smith who is a master of dragging up failed ideas from the past and reselling them as the next best thing.
Seen them in space engineers years ago, seem pretty good to me
I plan on running several in series on roof peak with an A-frame running from 1 end of roof edge to the other. The turbine shafts will extend past the top side of blades into bearings mounted in the A-frame. This eliminates the wobble & a lightning rod can be easily mounted above the A-frame.
I am of the opinion that vertical axis wind turbine have certain advantages over the conventional ones we see. Even if they are not as efficent. 1) They can be placed in denser patterns. 2) The large mass of the generator set can be placed at ground level easing the servicing of the unit. 3) Without the heavy mass of the generator set being x number of meters in the air on top of a pylon it should require less concrete for the foundation
But these Turbine blades are hard to recycle.
More on actual deployment of these strange vertical wind mills and rate of adoption would be good
This is super interesting and has a large potential. Rooftop wind in combination with rooftop solar is the way to go! Thanks for making this brilliant vid! Keep up the good work!
Thanks so much for your kind comments! We will.
I want to make one with sails that make it spin. It is more of a moving sculpture than a power plant, although I do intend to charge my batteries with it too. I live off grid in Canada with solar and it works but it would be good to have another energy supply as well. Hydrogen production in summer is also interesting to me but I don't know how to store enough for winter
You can make gas from composting organic waste by yourself💨🔥👍
You probably don't want to store hydrogen. It requires a lot of safety measures to handle, and those measures push the cost up - you have to use hydrogen-safe alloys for everything because it has an ability to slowly weaken metals over time, and leak-detection systems. You're better off with a big battery.
Honestly I think they serve a lot of purpose for looking cool. Mostly the pretty ones. I like some 3d printed designs for looking good basically in a garden.
Good article, but your animation of the horizontal turbine at 2:15, the rotation is in the incorrect direction to the blade shape...
Would toroidal blades help make turbines more efficient like they do for propellers?
i’m anxious to see them put these on the tops of a building. we could power a city with only a few of them!
The phallic one is not a "turbine" (it doesn't turn) Magnus rotors (sail) DO rotate but they produce thrust
That’s the wind vibrator - maybe it doesn’t look good, but how does it make you feel?
One of the issues surrounding the Large Wind-Farm type wind systems, that are often glossed over... Is that the Blades both wear out, and are not easily recyclable or reusable.
🧂
Yeah, this is the modern age. They've been working on that for quite some time now. And a company has invented recyclable blades. And it wouldn't even matter. Compared to what coal plants release, a bunch of blades in a landfill, would be MUCH better for the planet.
@@lordgarion514 Are semi truck sized wind blades acceptable at Landfills?
@@Paulthored At some, you can see pics of them lined up. The republicans like to post things like that, while ignoring the facts. Just like the republicans liked to report how many birds wind turbines kill. While ignoring the fact that the study they used, wasn't a wind turbine study. It was a study of bird deaths by all forms of electricity production. Sure, wind turbines kill quite a few birds every year, but when you work those deaths out per gwh, it looks a bit different. Wind kills 0.3 birds per gwh. Fossil fuels kill 5.3 birds per gwh. About 17 TIMES more. They also left out the research that shows painting one of the blades greatly reduces bird deaths. So hopefully that'll start being done before long. But the idiots that listen to the republicans aren't bright enough to go looking for the truth. Fact is FF have had hundreds of years of use, and well over 100 years of government subsidies. They're about as good as they're going to get. But we're really just getting started with renewable.
Hey there! We publish a video on the recycling of wind turbines in a few weeks. Subscribe to be notified!
I love your puns (and the dog!) at 8:15.
Vertical turbines without an ‘other end’ support often fail in a few years of service because the wind load tips the air blades causing an imbalance in the gear box or stem shaft of the generator Basically it’s grinding itself to its impending death. This other end reach over arm support could move with the direction of the wind using a sail like an old windmill to optimize flow to the blades and perhaps be a counter weight. I.E. Arm gets out of the way. There is one other trick using a knuckle joint, but it’s too long to describe in text form.
Though that feels like something that can be solved with refinement.
i would definitely have one of these connected to my house, although id probably need two i still dont mind, not sure if there cheaper than solar panels but i think there more efficient
unless you live on top of a hill with no trees or homes nearby there just are not that good for most small homes. A really good one will cost a lot of money. Then there's the noise and vibration to deal with. I think they make good sense on top of tall buildings.
Vertical wind turbines older than 2000 years are still working in Persis/ Iran.
I wonder if there could be a combination wind turbine for your house that can also vent your attic and have a combined benefit of releasing heat and having the heat rising from your attic turning the turbine and producing electricity at the same time.
It will work, but only supply enough power to charge your phone and run a string of LED lights.
@@santafecanon Just an idea.
The first turbine would get you about 4-6w, and each turbine added would reduce the wattage of each subsequent turbine by about 1 third depending on the size of your attic.
Thank you for your informative video. Also, some VAWT are capturing wind produced by traffic on roads. Sheila Mink in New Mexico
Industrial-scale horizontal wind turbines chop birds mid-air. From small songbirds to large storks and birds of prey. And it does'nt help that the most suitable locations for wind farms are along major migration routs for birds... I would advocate for vertical any day!
Funny how this video didn't answer question asked in the title.
It would be great if yall mentioned the hivawt as its the only swvc certified vawt. Also the powernest developed in denmark that produces 6x more energy than rooftop solar
Way more beautiful !
The North Sea appears to be a region where offshore wind will be developed soon. Recently I saw a video on wave power conversion devices and it appears that the two will work together well, since some of the infrastructure, such as the underwater cables to land, do not have to be duplicated. Where there is frequent heavy winds over water, there are also heavier than normal and constant seas and generating potential. If renewables are going to compete economically with fossil fuels, this kind of synergy should be sought.
great article. just like fossil fuel energy production , wind and solar are in early/developmental stage and I expect more research to produce additional efficiencies over the coming years. i think one of the biggest challenges to the issue is the idea of centralized versus decentralized energy production. solar and wind (and small scale hydro) seem better suited for decentralized production, incorporated as a feature in residential and commercial construction, rather than as a stand-along model similar to modern power facilities.
Hey there! You could be interested in our other videos related to renewables. Check them out: The grid 👉 kzhead.info/sun/qJF9o6iti5Wbh6c/bejne.html Floating wind turbines 👉 kzhead.info/sun/eNBtm6yjgWl_h6s/bejne.html
Smaller one need to spin full blast to produce a meaningful sum of electricity. They also tend to be loud, and annoy everyone else around you.
Wind power is awesome !.
Wind and solar are distributed unlike petroleum, hydro, and coal which are all concentrated forms of energy. Thus, each house now may be designed with natural gas furnace, so to,it may be designed with a combination of solar panels,vertical wind turbines, power walls, and electronics to render such a home almost self sustaining regarding electrical power.
According to Our World In Data, turbines were only 3% of total energy prodution in 2022
A) Never buy a HAWT. B) You need unoccluded non-turbulent wind to power your turbine. C) Thus you need to install a turbine on a pole. D) a 4 yard rotor diameter is the minimum to generate appreciable power for your home. 6 would be better. E) You still need solar and preferably batteries too.
YES, totally true
Giving subsidies just hides the cost, that is then paid through taxes. That comes with huge additional costs like an additional intermediary bureaucracy, large corruption (depending on the local government), allocation inefficiencies, electoral political and bureaucratical perverse incentives (for example politicians allocating resources to inefficient places or contractors in exchange for political favors) and many more. None of which exist when funding is private, especially when it's self-funding. So if making a tech viable requires large subsidies, you can be sure in reality is not actually viable, costing much more resources than it saves, which in turn means using the respective tech has a much larger value chain carbon footprint and resource consumption. This logic applies to any tech, from solar, biomass, wind, up to hydro, gas, coal, nuclear. You have to account for the whole value chain's carbon and resource consumption footprint, which means that a tech that has a large outright carbon footprint, like say, coal, might have a much smaller whole value chain carbon footprint per energy unit than, say, solar. It's not a trivial calculation, but unsubsidized and untaxed cost is a good approximation.
You should cover Piggott machines that are the only viable small wind turbine in the world. They are self manufactured and have been around for 30 years.
Important points: - turbulent wind is like a shade under a tree. There's no useful energy in it. - a wind turbine in the roof is like a PV panel in the basement. Does not produce anything. - vertical wind turbines are more of a social science issue than a technical one. They have been disproven since the 70s but people insist in bringing them back from time to time. We need some serious research on why people believe in this failed technology - a vertical wind turbine is called an anemometer. There is no other sensible use case for it.
100% correct!! Hugh Piggott axial flux turbines work! Are low cost and easy to repair. But, this is another category of turbines that this video did not cover. DIY is different. The Piggott turbine was successfully copied and commercially sold By African Wind Power (AWP). It was a great heavy and extremely durable machine. But, the company went bust and the owner went on to work in small wind area NREL in colorado. This was a sad loss for small wind.
@@williambryce8527 hello William, By no means Piggott turbines are out of the market. Wind empowerment carries on the technology, and so does tripalium in France, where the are about 100 of these connected to the grid. 500rpm had successfully adapted the Piggott to semi-industrial manufacturing. Even Piggott made a 5.6kW design with ferrite magnets for better reliability. If a fraction of the research money pour into these ultimately failed attempts to create non viable VAWT were injected in solving a few issues of the Piggott for mass manufacturing, small wind would already be everywhere where it makes sense.
It's not that the vertical ones aren't "aerodynamically optimized to the max", they are less efficient simply because of the way they work
Much hope lies in human creativity and cooperation. It seems nothing is impossible for humans and yet we are in grave danger of wiping us out ourselves, how paradox is THAT!
To be successful wind turbines need the wind blowing. A big improvement would be to be able to keep running in strong winds and when they're replaced they are 100% recycled and not just conveniently dumped somewhere.
My local energy company has a vertical one next to their office
Micro turbines are needed more probably because home owners and moving vehicles can use mechanical energy to capture compressed air, then expel that to convert to battery charge. It's just recapturing waste or movement energy, then converting it to needed use. A giant outdoor system can capture thermal heat energy though, and there is already treated silicone configurations that use heat for motors. Beach sand is hot but configured right it's circuit. Wind turbines can also exploit drafty tunnels if one end is heated under vent, because rising, vented heat creates vacuum. Air then rushes in to fill. Wind blades in sky is awesome idea but there's already electrostatic energy up there anyway. Format to beam it to Earth is the big mystery...just like the heat motors hidden in plain sight...
I see all these stories and the common thread is "of course we need to increase/beef up the grid"... maybe, we really don't. The grid is already supporting a lot of activity, maybe the way to increase how much total can be handled is simply put a lot of smaller generation behind the meter as it were and not focus on moving the generated excess to the grid via schemes for feed back tariffs etc. Maybe really small packages can be built which contain a mix of generation types along with good volume of battery storage which matches the facility power use history, deploy it locally and just plan on using all that on site. This would replace a lot of demand from the grid, leaving more supportable capacity available. The key would be not to get too custom on the end user solution configurations, just right-size a standard package selection and if need be throw the excess to ground.
Hey, thanks for your input. You might find this video interesting as well: kzhead.info/sun/qJF9o6iti5Wbh6c/bejne.html We'd be interested to hear your thoughts!
Have a look at Darwin wind tunnels. They funnel the air, making for very bird friendly installations and apparently super efficient too
I mean, it does appear that Andy Burnham in Manchester, UK is massively in favour of vertical wind turbines typically for the urban area.
Horrendous sunk cost and maintenance intensive for little benecit. A) Isolation B) Solar. C) large scale wind power.
next step is combining vertical ones into long walls
4:15 i don't see how turbulent windflow can increase efficiency. Doesn't make sense to an engineer
100% correct, it is nothing but loss. Just like cavitation in water by a prop. Vertical might take wind from ANY direction. as one blade advances the back blade it killing the efficiency .
Covering Suburban streets with Solar Panels at a 5 meter height could combine with small vertical turbines above the panel structure combined with storage batteries to provide more power to low voltage grids linked to a sub station??
Hey there! Yes, this is possible. Many installations for home combine both solar and wind.
Winds and Solar are both suplemental power supplies that is great when the grid goes down at anytime. Personally have no use for super-sized wind generation because they are not environmentally friendly.
Vertical wind turbines definitely have a creativity bonus...
Sadly that's all they have. They have been proven useless decades ago so it's a shame to see them dragged out again and sold as new. We need to stop wasting resources on such things.
@@Ed.R I disagree. To make something beautiful has a value that can counter a lower profitabability, and every technology can be improved.
@quinto190 As long as they are named art and not the solution to our energy problem. The design cannot be improved anymore they are simply inefficient by design.
Yes, but at a considerable effect on the wallet. You can research for a hundred years and not reach the same efficiency, pure physics
4:15 That's not true, sorry. If the wind sped up when passing a turbine, then that would mean the turbine would be driving it, not being driven. What is true, however, is that vertical axis turbines can deal with slightly turbulent flow better than horizontal axis ones, as they are unidirectional. That is why they can be packed more densely in a farm.
Knowledge of POOR wind turbine designs would really be helpful!! Definitely help people who are trying to buy well.
Problem with wind turbin is power = air speed x cross section area. It is easier for the normal shape turbine cause the higher you go the faster the air and it is easir to increase the cross section area just by increasing the length of the blades
It’s actually air speed squared. So you really want to go for those consistently high wind speed locations.
@@mx2000 isn't it cubed. Power=1/2 * air density * sweep area * wind speed ^3 Wind speed is very important, which is why small turbines in residential areas don't work.
@@AORD72 it is cubed.
@@lylestavast7652 I know it is cubed, it was a rhetorical statement. As I followed with the statement "Power=1/2 * air density * sweep area * wind speed ^3".
Freud will have chuckled with a few of them. 😂 He’s not alone. Still I think we’re better to use VAWT’s in urban turbulent wind areas.
I love the idea of small rooftop wind turbines, but they are so inefficient.
"have you caught wind of any ..." very clever cross-language punnery there :)
Kite turbines are really good idea because of height. It's a pity they don't use them😢
Hey there! We did a whole video on kite energy. Check it out 👉 here kzhead.info/sun/ldqbl9OChIOjbH0/bejne.html