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I'll tell you why we don't have solar powered cars. Elon Musk said it's stupid. No really I forget exactly what he said, but from an engineering perspective, if you want to have a regular sedan or SUV, the amount of power generation is trivial, most people don't leave their vehicles out in the scorching sun in the summer, the best time to get power into the vehicle, and it presents engineering challenges that adds complexity and cost, so I imagine Elon's comment was based on a cost analysis he probably worked out in his head one morning over a cup of coffee and decided it wasn't worth Tesla doing it. The cost it would add to the vehicle isn't worth the amount of power you would get from it, or is so trivial that the added cost would have one main effect, which is deterring people from buying the vehicle.
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.
Off grid is the key here. For on grid apps where there is net metering, you want the most production for the dollar, and that’s solar. A friend who is a talented electrical engineer equipped his home with wind and solar about 12 years ago. The solar system is still producing, the wind system never produced significant power and is now a curiosity in his yard.
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!
Nice! Always great when you see validation from someone actually in industry! Have you seen any of the newer micro solutions in practice yet? I’m curious how they’ll perform in the real world over several years, but I don’t think they’ve gotten to the point that they can provide that data yet.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet the three bladed horizontal axis turbine is the most efficient design by far. There are alternate designs that address issues like noise, bird strikes, low wind generation, but their efficiencies are all worse than the standard design. it's all about life cycle cost per kwhr. in your local wind regime, at your operating height AGL.
@@shadyislandchronicles4237 I hear good things about verticle turbines as well. Though if you have constant running water on your property a small hydro generaror is better than both wind and solar.
What do you think of Semtive’s? A cousin of mine’s had great success with their’s but they also live on the unblocked very top of a large hill that’s arguably a small mountain in town. I’m curious about it in more erratic places.
@@Jokerwolf666 agreed about hydro. but you need at least a few meters of head. small vertical axis wind turbines have some advantages, but efficiency is not one of them.
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.
I'm not an engineer, but just from a simplicity standpoint, solar doesn't have any moving parts, wind does. That alone seems like a good enough reason to consider solar over wind for small installations.
The resistance of wires reduces the power supply from grid scale wind generators, so i wonder if these power loss calculations were used to decide the argument.
Stil, micro wind doesn’t use extra land. If energy use is close to where it’s produced, you save the heat losses from resistance in the wires. Also, works at lower wind speeds. Probably could edge out solar in winter months.
@@jadeskye6755 Also imagine how annoying your neighbor's old squeaky wind turbine would be. Solar is silent, which makes it a much better fit for a residential neighborhood.
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!
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.
Great idea. I live in a small village located atop a hill in the Weald in Sussex. We get loads of wind from all directions and this would be ideal to power the whole village.
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.
I was thinking the same thing. My house faces west and is on the side of a hill so when someone sneezes down the bottom I get a hurricane at the top. Like you say, I think the two systems would compliment each other nicely.
@@jacktoy3032 No need to test such a specific situation. It works, or it doesn't. Snow blocks airflow. You have to clean the snow off if it builds up and blocks airflow. If it doesn't build up, then no blocked airflow.
Pretty sure they're out of business - their phone numbers are all defunct and their social websites are all down. Tried to fill out their form to get a quote and that was broken too.
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.
Exponentially? No, it’s still a squared law. But your point is correct. Elevation is also important. You gotta go high to get away from the surface friction. And it takes money to go high. So as you say, wind is not effective at homeowner scale.
@@paulogden7417 f(x) = x² is kind of the most basic exponential function. So yes, exponential. Height is also a factor (and you have to go higher to increase blade length), but blade length makes the output grow faster.
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.
It is incorrect, at least in the UK we are moving towards heat pumps, many of which use ground heat- it is NOT geothermal, as that requires drilling a few kilometres down to find a magma chamber- to both heat and cool homes. You are wasting your time to collect door kinetic energy. We aren't really designing buildings to be more power efficient at all- these "eco houses" are unsustainable and inefficient - often with flat rooves which have very poor thermal performance- concrete constrution also thermally poor, with many points of thermal bridging. They use short lifespan materials and construction methods and often have huge windows that lack curtains, making them too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, massively increasing costs. Modernist architecture is completely incompatible with power efficiency and green living - it is simply associated with socialism and thus a shared inspiration with eco architects. For efficiency a house should have low surface area- ie be similar to a cube- or be terraced or semi detatched. The roof should be self cleaning and long lasting - a pitched roof will last 30 years, a flat roof is only specced for 10. it should have strong structurally rigid long lasting weather protection on the outer face in a material that will last hundreds of years- such as stone, brick, block, etc. It should have a cavity to protect from damp and add extra insulation. It should have a very insulative inner wall. Windows should be thickly curtained, to keep the heat in during the night time, or the heat out during the summer days on the sun side of the house. Radiators (or heat vents in canada) should be directly under windows to provide a stable temperature and prevent window frosting. Ceilings should be low to keep the heat closer to the occupants. All space in the property should be utilised to allow for a smaller physical property for the same space. All internal walls should be insulated too and smoke seals around the doorframes so each room can maintain a separate temperature. Heat producing appliances such as a kitchen or fire if you require one should be central and low- basements if you have them - (though logistically you do not want to take shopping down stairs and garbage up) If you are serious about being green, you would forgo both clothes dryer and dishwasher - invest in a mangle a maiden and a pair of marigolds. in terms of transport you would replace your push bike and car with an efficient moped which will produce less co2 than a cyclist. a tuk-tuk for example if you need extra space for some reason. You will have no pets. you will grow much of your own produce in your garden- which is far better than solar panels in your garden due to the carbon consumption of food production. If you are even more serious you will build a cistern underground and collect your own water not rely on high pressure mains water. Of course we could also all live in small apartments in big concrete block buildings like the soviet union too.
There was a system called "Wells Walls" in Australia about 40 years ago, but people were turned off by how it looked so it never took off - it involved having external louver blinds in front of glass over a blackened brick wall, with closable vents internal top and bottom. These cavities becomes a passive heater. Clever, but you house sort of looks like a shed.
Forget the neigh Sayers. This is exactly what needs to happen innovation, from the ground up. Or walls in. Or roof in or outward. Why does it not happen? People boo hoo about it, but change always makes people uneasy. When you find a place that people have abandoned, you see nature rebounding based on similar concepts to what you've mentioned here. Plenty of $$ in what you've said as well
This is the fault of architects and city rules.. also if nations would make the common sense move to nuclear power none of this empty talk would happen per nuclear is the cleanest, cheapest, safest energy source we have
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.
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...
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
@@whatafellow - there is already a constant flow of air to the existing ridge vent, from sunlight heating up a roof or from panels heating up, so this additional updraft should help, as long as there is sunlight
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.
i'm not sure about laws in missouri but i helped set up a turbine for a friend while i was staying at his place in utah, he paid ~$1200 (total) for a 2.4kw unit from thermodyne systems. as for prices mentioned in this video, ask for some quotes and you'll likely find that you can't even find someone asking anywhere near 5k per kw without it being extremely hyped or something like a full install (likely including arranging legal stuff)
@@angrydragonslayer is he in northern Utah? and or engineering wise did it make sense? and with average 15 to 30 mph is it a good fit 9 month's out of the year?
They don't "compliment" each other. That would mean they'd be telling each other, "you're the best source of renewable energy" and "thank you, your flat surface is amazing". I think you mean they complEment each other. It's always fun for me to find those silly things, but your information informs millions of people. YOU are amazing! (My compliment to you. 😀)
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.
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!
I noticed this too, although he stated maintenance costs of about $160 giving an almost 90yr payback, the turbine will not last that long is you'll never break even
People have been regularly and commercially harnessing the wind for thousands of years. Solar has only really happened in the last century or so. If we were going to see some major new wind turbine design that is more efficient at capturing the wind, I'm sure we would have seen it already.
@@tin2001 That's not a sound argument. Just look at the history of flight. The ancient Chinese tried to make kites that could carry a human, da Vinci fantasized about flying machines. People desired to fly for millennia. But nobody seemed to be able to create a machine that could successfully transport people via the air. Before the arrival of the airplane, it probably seemed impossible. But now we live in a world where we can't imagine NOT traveling by air. I think the small scale wind turbine is an inevitability as long as engineers and scientists keep working toward it.
I could see a wind system as more practical in cold weather: On a typical winter day solar is decreased (assuming you can even keep snow free), and heat loss from a home is proportional to wind speed. Reduced foliage on local trees would also help. My main concern would be accessing the turbine for maintenance, having the room to drop it down to ground level is a big plus.
@Merfax Yeah, I would need both solar AND wind here in Northern Illinois, if I want to be completely off grid. Some of my neighbors have installed a number of solar panels on their roofs over the past 2 years, and I was very disappointed to discover that they do not have a heating feature to melt off snow. If I went solar only, I would have to keep them out in my yard at an accessible height, so I could brush the snow off during the Winter.
@@crazyfvck There are icing issues with wind power in snow, and the heating often costs more than the solar is worth. In cold climates renewables at the home scale is quite tricky- carbon neutral wood burning/gasifier is often a much better option. Fine environmental dust is also an issue with solar, so keeping them washed is important, like you say some way to clean them is good.
have you considered 'night time', which I guess could be considered colder weather... or also during cloudy days. Interesting how so many people dismiss the complimentary effect of wind power... forgetting how many decades of research have promoted solar over wind for residential application
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.
@@FUTUREDTECH Medium term: micro-fission powerplants. Not actually micro, but small enough to fit in a shipping container, and self-contained. Long term: Programmed-molecular solar thermal (MOST), Solid State Wind, and Lattice Confinement Fusion.
Its not about comparing the cost and production of solar panels and wind turbines, where solar obviously has advantage. The advantage of the wind turbine, is that you can produce power and run your house (like mine which is offgrid), even during windy nights, and winter sunless nights. Especially when you run your house on batteries! So, wind turbines, are a big advantage only for offgrid living. My turbine is small, but still can support my refrigarator alone, and give some juice to my batteries when sun is not there...
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.
I like the idea of combining the ridgeblade wind turbine to the apex of my house roof and having solar panels on the roof too. I hope that when the residential ridgeblade is available it will be able to coexist with solar and make homes much more self reliant. Combining that with a home battery and an EV, it makes it much easier for travel costs and home heating / electrical use to be factored into the purchase price of the panels and turbines, making it much more cost efficient. I would be interested to see what other mini wind turbines are actually available as a lot in this video are concept/ not widely available.
If you are both powering a car and a home, you will need a lot of solar. You could also reduce your heating/cooling energy use with a geothermal system and solar water heating.
The wind panel at 12:33 while it might not be that efficient, if positioned to block the sun on your home, could help reduce cooling cost. Not sure if it would justify the cost over just planting tree's or tall shrubs though.
This is a good idea, but the real issue with renewables isn't the production, it's intermittency. We in the Netherlands are literally putting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of solar-PV into the ground (disposal) because the grid cannot sustain it. We need storage and an upgrade of the power-grid before thinking of new renewable energy sources. For this, we need government investments.
th-cam.com/video/NH4_2PFTzIY/w-d-xo.html Apparently, some finnish folks are onto that, converting excess from solar into heat which is applied to underground sand pits, and used as heat batteries. They even propose it as a yearly cycle, used heat accumulated during summer through all the winter. I just stumbled into it today, and thought "This should be on Matt's channel". And there's at least one concentrated thermosolar project, called Gemasolar, which accumulates heat trough the day, and at night uses that heat to move a turbine to produce constant power.
Your electricity company just needs to pay customers who provide electricity when the grid needs it. They will build out their own distributed battery system in homes, business and electric cars that can plug back into the grid when needed.
Are you talking about wasting the excess electricity or actually removing working panels that are already installed? That seems crazy to do. You can just disconnect them from the grid when there is excess and there are always some times when the power is useful.
Wind could make sense in high rise buildings without a lot of roofspace for solar compared to the number of residences. Ideally the building could be designed to catch wind energie from the drawing board.
I have been pondering wind and solar power for decades now. Choose to believe me or not but I am in my mid 70's now.and I have been reminded by this types of articles that I've been thinking about this off and one sime my 20's. Pondering but not having the money to make the invstment over my lifetime and other things to spend income on. Ridgeblade sounds fine but still doesn't seem as effective as it could be due to effects of the slope of roof, and home orientation to wind sources that aren't from the same consistent direction. But one thing I have thought about application-wise that metropolises or even business just haven't thought about is something like a ridgeblade setup mounted on the four corners of tall buildings. Think of a city like Chicago having something like the ridgeblade mounted on any of the tall structures in Chicago. At those elevations, the wind would be almost constant. Each corner of the building would be a source of power no matter which way the wind would blow, each corner constantly generating electricity. With the wind velocities at those altitudes, the fan cage would not have to be that significant in size so aesthetics would not be affected that much. Build the fan cages in interconnectable modules in floor sizes so they could just be stacked as many as needed. Why, after all this time, hasn't anyone thought of doing something like that. Due to the available wind, efficiencies would not be as impactful. Efficiency, size, heights, orientations, cost per generated watt have all affected home installations and independent home, "off-grid" applications, but if a power generating company wiould look at this type of structure, I think that company and any company on which it would be installed would look very favorably in the marketplace for a clean energy source. Just thought I would put the concept out there for consideration and other monds to think about.
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
I was hoping for a small ~1kW turbine that would be used to charge a storage battery similar to a Powerwall. Instantaneous power would be sourced from the grid or battery and the turbine would just provide a charging current. We are up at 57° North and for a lot of the year the weather conditions (Scotland - cloudy, windy) and limited sunlight hours mean solar just isn't as useful for us. Unfortunately, it looks like the technology isn't quite there yet for small turbines. Hopefully the products you highlighted will continue to be developed and put into full scale production over the next few years. Great video, thanks.
The thing here is physics - small turbines just cannot harvest a lot of power, but are still complex products. That's why the bigger the turbine, the better the economics look for it because it can provide a lot more power - making the turbine blades 2x longer gets you 4x the area that power can be harvested from meaning the turbine power grows 4x. Considering you are in Scotland and it is pretty damn windy out there and winds are pretty stable on average, having a comunual big wind turbine owned cooperatively can be the difference between payback period being 22 years like in the video for not a lot of power produced to having like a 5 year payback period and producing so much power that you gonna have to sell a lot to the grid. The downside is the required investment upfront, sadly.
In my view small-scale wind power will never be able to compete with solar power simply because of the lower energy-density of wind compared to sunlight. Air moving at 4 m/s has a kinetic energy of less than 10 J/m^3. This means a hypothetical technology that can extract 100% of this energy receives about 40 W/m^2. Theoretically, the maximum efficiency of wind turbines (the Betz Limit) is about 59%, but in practice wind turbines achieve at most 45%. That leaves less than 20 W/m^2 of energy production. This compares poorly to PV panels. For example the panels on my roof (which is far from optimal) produce about double that. So for a comparable amount of power you need an installation that is: 1. Larger 2. More complicated 3. Maintenance intensive 4. More fragile The advantage wind has is that wind energy increases with the cube of wind speed, and system-losses decrease with larger turbines. This is why large turbines in windy places (e.g. at sea) make so much sense. Solar power, in contrast, is strictly linear: You want double the power, you need twice as many panels. So basically the physics of wind turbines favors large turbines, while the physics of solar places no penalty on smaller installations.
I'm not that good at physics so I won't even begin to question your math, but : 4m/s is very slow wind, basically the minimum wind speed to get any kind of power out of most wind turbines.. Also, you're saying your solar panels produce about double energy/m^2 .. At what times of day ? How sunny is it where you live ? There's a great many factors that go into this..
We are just now adding storage batteries to our solar panels in Australia. We tried to find out information about adding wind generation but couldn't get any information about generation at lower wind speeds. We do get quite a lot of wind but, in the end, decided that there was just not enough information available for wind generation at sub optimal speeds. Your video is very interesting and I think we made the right decision, at this stage, not to add a wind generator. When technology has improved we will relook at adding a wind generator. You provided more information than we were able to glean from the manufacturer. We asked direct questions about sub optimal wind strength but they couldn't or wouldn't give us a graph of diminishing production for diminishing winds - very disappointing.
Look into Flower Turbines. I appreciate and love the tiny vertical concept. About the size of a humane male. Plus can be painted any color of a flower.
A small wind turbine to support solar seems like a good idea, especially if you're going off-grid or otherwise battery supported, it would help to increase the life of the batteries.
It's interesting that the conditions which make solar work less effectively usually mean wind is better. Rain, cloudy weather and night time usually mean high winds. At least where I live. Good to have more options.
Dear Matt, Thanks for your informative videos every single time! I want to point out that the g /kWh that you mentioned in the video are off compared to the numbers I know. Yup, I know this is an wikipedia link, but these are quite representative. By nature, natural gas has an emission of around 200 g/kWh. This is without the efficiency loss at a power plant, making electricity from gas in a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant of around 58% efficiency already 350 g/Kwh emission. Please continue on making these great videos. I sure enjoy watching them ;-) *I work as a Dutch energy consultant Link to CO2 emissions: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_energy_sources
Gas is worse than your figures if you include fugitive emissions/leaks in the gas supply chain. At a typical industry loss rate of 3% then if you take in the 20 year CO2e impact of this you end up doubling the effective emissions.
A very informative video, thanks. I live in a hill top in north-east Scotland where it’s windy most of the year and very windy in winter. Ironically , I look out on many wind turbines at sea and in the mountains from my house but the cost of energy here at .28 pence per kilowatt is just outrageous. I use 8000 kws per annum. I would love to install a ridge line wind generator to supplement my solar panels , air source heat pump and soon home battery. I just don’t have the confidence just now in finding the right product to do that. I was very impressed by the ridge wind turbine system you showed but wonder about the aesthetics and performance.
I quite like the idea of the Ridgeblade wind turbine, but I'm wondering if a similar system could be installed _within_ the roof space. If you have a tiled roof and installed an inner roof, then the existing outer roof tiles could be refitted to act as a diffuser. The entire roof sides now act as an air intake / exhaust, with the gap between the roof layers now acting as a huge duct, carrying air into the Ridgeblade at practically the same angle, no matter which way the wind was blowing against the outer roof. I'm thinking that with some clever sizing of the duct to accelerate the airflow and generate more of a pressure difference, you may not need so many Ridgeblade units. The inside roof layer would have to act as your rain barrier, so you'd have to install a drainage system to mitigate that, but it could be done. You'd still have some inner roof space for storage, perhaps for a battery pack to store energy when you aren't at home or the demand isn't as high? Also, easy access for maintenance, just pop into your loft even if it's raining outside.
This option might work with plenty of sound insulation which would double as thermal insulation. Another option might be a small "steeple" on the roof to capture wind from any direction and focus it onto a small turbine. Something that can be built into new houses to constantly trickle in energy at nightime and during winter.
Hello from New Hampshire. We are off-grid solar, considering wind as a winter supplement. We installed extra empty conduits when the house was built, we already have inverters, and would really just need to add a controller to our electric room. We are out in the country, and live on the south-east corner of a small valley, so there is almost always a decent breeze. Will let you know how the 'adventure' progresses, and whether it ends up being worthwhile!
Thanks for the great video. I’m wondering where you got the CO2 emissions per kWh for gas (78 g) and coal (109 g) from? On my quick research I found numbers like 350 g CO2 for a modern gas power plant and 700-900 g CO2 for coal plants depending on brown or hard coal.
I'm guessing he used the numbers for the newest most fuel efficient plants. I know the new stuff is definitely better than 20+ year old stuff. Not clean, just cleaner
Can confirm 350 g/kWh is in the ballpark for natural gas. We run a 510 MW combined cycle block where I work. Two General Electric 7F gas turbines and a D11 steamer. When we're at full load, each of the gas turbines pulls a little more than 21 pounds of gas per second. Do the combustion stoichiometry and that's 58 pounds of CO2 out the stack. Every second. So from both gas units, over the course of one day, that's 4,990 tons (or, the weight of about 2,500 Ford F-150s). So, with our 4,990 tons of CO2 per day, generating 510 MW, we can do all the fun unit conversions and we come out with 370 g CO2 per kWh.
I'm purely solar at this point with battery back up, but the idea of having something generating electricity when the sun is down definitely appeals to me. Been thinking about small scale vertical axis for some time now. That roof mounted system looks like it could be game changing, along with the wind wall. If you think about it, you don't really need to generate a ton of electricity at night, so having even a small windmill can help decrease your storage/battery capacity while keeping the lights on.
Matt, thank you for this video - this is an area that we definitely need to explore. There are some unexpected applications - like a row of vertical axis turbines on top of a traffic barrier. The traffic going by in both directions can get them all spinning. An interesting aspect of vertical axis turbines - when they are place closely together, they actually benefit from the turbulence of the other turbines around them. With horizontal turbines, if they are too close together, they lower the overall output, because the turbulence prevents the downwind units from working as well.
i remember i spent hours researched VAWT on many forums, most of them were focused on DIY i never tried IRL bc i didn't have the means or the money to start a project myself
"The traffic going by in both directions can get them all spinning." So it's powered by the traffic... Yeah, it's an outrageously inefficient petrol generator.
@@NeilBlanchard Oversimplified explanation: The wind is caused by the air getting out of the way of the cars. The turbines work by harnessing this air flow, i.e. they make it harder for the air to get out of the way of the cars. So the cars have to work harder to push through the air. But it's worse than that - because the energy is transferred though such an indirect process, it is an incredibly inefficient transfer. Apparently there is something like a 20-fold loss in the transfer and this makes the overall CO2 impact several orders of magnitude worse than coal power. It gets even worse - because the extra fuel consumption is spread out over every car that passes, no-one is ever going to be able to notice. But the impact is still there, it has just been made inconspicuous. The situation has been made much, much worse, but because it's hard to see the impact everyone will think it's great. Bottom line is that there is no free lunch. That's a consequence of the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy).
@@godfreypoon5148 You're over thinking it. This doesn't add drag - it is taking energy that is wasted - a typical car for every mile has to push 4.5 TONS of air out of the way. And once that air is moving, getting some of that energy back - IS A GOOD THING. And we need to make all the cars electric, anyway.
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.
Well put. I would consider wind power for those dark nights and overcast days. A small turbine that would cover your home's base load when you are asleep etc... Would be good. I always tell people MAX out any planned solar installations... Or regret it later!! 1. Solar PV 2. Insulation/switch stuff off 3. Solar excess can heat the water 4. Buy a storage battery 6. Sell your excess solar PV 7. Install an ASHP 8. Done all of the above..look at a wind turbine👍
There is one more advantage to Solar Panels in the US Southwest areas: Air conditioning requirements are lower due to the shade produced by the Solar Arrays. This reduces Power Consumption significantly on warm days, as well as reducing wear on the AC, filters, etc.
I imagine it might be a better option for tall buildings, 5 or 6 stories or more, with less roof area for solar, but very exposed to wind than for individual homes
Someone years ago found helical vertical turbines mounted on the edges of a skyscraper roof would capture not only direct wind, but also the updrafts from wind hitting the building itself... So yes, it can be an option for tall buildings. But the output will still be very low in comparison to the power usage of the building, and the payoff time is still going to be roughly the same (IE decades).
So your proposition is to instead just place any old windpower plant on a building? This can 100% be done and requires 0 new tech or RnD. With cash you could take this idea to market in like a month's time.
I imagine that when utilisation of solar goes down (cloudy/night) then it would often go up for wind. Utilisation of both sources is a major issue. Batteries are still small and expensive so having two sources of energy complimenting each other sounds like a good deal. Looking forward to some of the new techs (ps. I live in a windy area close to the sea)
Check out sirocco energy - they have a new design for a turbine that supposedly Produces significantly more power and less noise with minimal maintenance and low startup cost. They will be releasing them this year so may want to wait until the first testimonials drop before you spring a few thousand for it
I think you need a triad to form a robust off/on grid. You need solar, wind, the utility grid and/or a backup gasoline or diesel generator. My ideal system would be solar 50%-60% of the energy to charge the batteries, wind 10-20%, and the generator or utility grid 30%.=40%. The solar panels/wind turbine/electric grid/generator would charge batteries and be capable of powering all critical electrical devices even in the event of a prolonged power outage, or completely off grid.
With new panels you can still generate a decent amount on a cloudy day as long some light hits them. Battery storage costs on average 800-1000$ per kWh. So not sure if a turbine is worth all the hassle.
I came up with a small ridge tile generator, which had one rota fitted to each tile. These have an 360 degree movement. So you could have a string of them all along your roof. The roof catches & compresses the wind upwards into the rotors, so that any direction will spin them. These were 12v, so you could attach them to a pear of + & - wires running parallel from one end to the other mounted under the ridge tiles. Yes you will need an inverter to manage the flow. But there are plenty of experts who could improve their efficiency. Thanks for the info, have a great day.
Thanks for the insight on wind power. A huge problem I have is both roofs on the house and garage are covered by big trees. So, I figured while solar panels on the lawn is a pretty limited option, I could supplement with wind power. For now, I am trying to make sure that sunk cost fallacy attitude I worry about is in check. So, the only direction I have taken thus far is building a decorative garden windmill if only to get an idea on how practical wind is for me. As a bonus, I could even repurpose the derrick the windmill comes with to install a proper wind turbine. Even though the derrick is a meager 12 feet tall, I have seen some promising signs to move forward. Getting the entire property off-grid is probably unlikely no matter what wind and/or solar kit I try to install, but if I can get a few power-hungry toys running off this build, that would be stellar.
I'm interested in the impacts of snow and -30C weather on domestic solar panels and wind installations considering that those are our conditions for half the year where I live
Great question! Would also be interested in understanding the temperature impact on solar panels. What future technology innovation are you most excited about?
@@FUTUREDTECH Solar panels like it cold. Here in Southern England a cool clear windy day in March is almost as good as a warm still day in June or July . You just need something to poke the snow off (hardly any snow here) in the winter and you are all set.
To-the-point and credible, as always. Matt Ferrell is likely the best and most "well-rounded" TH-cam technical expert. Your ability to explain a wide range of challenging scientific topics is unsurpassed.
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.
This makes so much sense. I have experimented with horizontal drum fans for energy generation and found this visually attractive over propeller fans including and the ease of protecting the fan drum with damper blades at high wind velocity's. The idea came to me some years ago from my heating and ventilation back ground.
For many years I installed wind turbines and solar panels on sail boats. The turbine for a boat is basically an alternator with a blade. They are noisy and don't survive well. When a boat was damaged from a lightning strike or such, the owner always wanted the panels replaced but seldom or never wanted the turbine replaced.
This was really informative! I recently moved closer to the coast and it's more windy, and I already have solar, so I was wondering about the state of small home wind turbines. Would you consider doing a video on solar hot water, for domestic hot water or even space heating? I'd love to see a comprehensive video on where that stands today, it seems to be less popular than a decade ago, and that surprises me with how much more energy can be thermally collected from the sun vs PV panels. Maybe PV combined with the latest heat pump tech is a better way to go now in terms of simplicity, maintenance free, and efficiency?
I’m not positive, but I think that heat pump efficiency has progressed so much that many people don’t want the cons that can come with those other solutions anymore. That may be why you feel like you don’t hear about it as much these days.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet I was about to say the same. Rooflines have limited space for solar panels, and it often makes more sense to use that space for PV instead of heat. geothermal heaters plus water heater systems are advertised a lot (or use to be... now that I think on it, I haven't heard an ad about that in a while)... I would assume you can do the same with 'normal' heat pumps as well.
In India, Solar Water Heaters are very common. With a 200Ltr storage we get enough hotwater even in winter /rainy season when there is not much direct sunshine. There are 2 types: Evacuated Glass Tube based and Copper Plate based. Glass tube performs the best. Should work in most of the southern US.
I endorse what @Anand Vaidya has mentioned. The ROI starts from day 1 itself. No need for heat pumps, I have looped the supply through a standby heater, such that constant hot water is available 24/7. (Return on Investment)
I'd like to have one that looks like a smaller version of the old water pump windmills, that would look like a nice lawn ornament while producing electricity. I've seen them put together by do it yourself-ers, with great results. Seems to me the smart thing is to get away from mass produced power and unreliable grids. No one can shut off your power if you're not on thier grid.
It would be an interesting video to examine wind turbines applied to a dense, urban environment that has more shadows on buildings (decreasing solar power generation), but can produce "wind canyons".
Friend installed one on the roof of his off-grid house. The house is basically a large garage shed on a concrete slab. Anyway the thing lasted up there less than a week before being moved well away from the house. The vibration set the whole place humming and rattling. I conclude that turbines are best installed on their own well-grounded tower.
I installed a 4Kw PV system in 2016. It produces more than sufficient electricity during the summer months (November to March), but through July to September usage outweighs production significantly. I run undertile heating through the winter 24hrs a day and charge an EV year round usually overnight. I live in an area considered a high wind zone, and it would seem to make sense to use that wind to produce electricity at times when solar is not productive. A few years ago I looked at a vertical axis wind turbine that could be pole or roof mounted and the new business that was advertising the product was convinced it could organise the consenting process with the local council, but seem to have disappeared. I do like the idea of the ridgeline turbine but would suggest that the home would need to be built in the correct orientation to maximise production which may not suit solar production.
As always great info. A friend in a remote cabin needed some power. I built a small solar panel that incorporated small squirrel cage fans on top connected to a generator, munted on tp of the 4 solar panels. Beneath the panels I looped black poly pipe for passive hot water and heating. As small as it was/is it worked. Thanks. Don
One factor that could be major is orientation. Sun prefers a north/south orientation of the roof in most of North America to optimize sun angles on the panels. Something like the ridgeblade would ideally be placed on an east west roof to take advantage of prevailing winds. So if ridgeblade can be on par with solar cost wise, then it becomes an attractive option based on your roof orientation
I'm still interested in wind. I intend to eventually move to Ireland, and all of my Irish friends and relatives tell me that it's very windy there. So I think a combo of wind and solar would make sense. Regardless of where I end up, I plan on getting a few of those Boxabls. They're supposedly energy efficient, so that will be helpful if even by a little. I was hoping something comes from Powerpod, but haven't seen much else from them lately. I may be optimistic, but I am going to do my best to live in a home that can be self-sufficient without sacrificing too much convenience.
Appreciate the number crunching. Some graduate students, researchers, engineers, back-shed inventors etc somewhere are working on fixing the downsides of local wind generation. Moving parts, noise, lower efficiency, cost etc. Just something to be overcome and then we'll have a great solar/wind combo for houses.
Hi I'm a architect from Brazil and I live in fairly windy city (10 months of east wind, lower speeds around 6km/h, higher speeds around 20km/h, and average of 11km/h), now I'm thinking of suggesting a combination of solar and wind power in some projects for my clients and of course implementing in my own home. Further research is needed but it seems a good option for renewable energy.
A few items that you missed or didn't specify enough on with both applications. First off, both applications can be significantly cheaper if doing a DIY setup. You can get 1KW of power from either application for around $1000, with solar slightly cheaper. Second, wind power is heavily reliant on constant higher wind speeds, which most houses simply don't have. Grid Wind Turbines are both in high wind areas and high off the ground, making them much more useful. And third, when wind speed is good or easily accessible, it is FAR, FAR better than solar at that point. The big downside for solar is that all of the power comes within an 8 hour period or less. If your home plugs up to the grid, then it isn't a big deal as you can just sell that power back. But if you are trying to go off-grid or your a grid operator, you either need to capture that energy or it's wasted. This means batteries and a lot of them. With your example of 1KW of solar, you would need nearly 4kwh of batteries to support it. Wind is more constant, so you only need a small battery to offset when the wind dips or you use more power at that moment than the wind is generating. Still, most homes simply won't be able to get enough constant wind energy to be worth it. On a side note, we really need to start building out many more grid scale battery systems. When power needs are too high, grids currently ramp up peaker plants that are horrible. Yet during lower demand times, efficient power plants and renewables all either ramp down production or have their extra energy curtailed. Complete waste. And you don't need several days of extra power either. Just 4 hours of backup is more than enough.
I completely forgot about the battery issue, if you gotta need a large battery bank to be able to handle the wind fluctuations then for a regular home isn't worth it.
@@makatron You still need a decent size battery bank for wind power, but not as much as you need for solar. You mostly need batteries to cover peak power demand and daytime usage. The sad thing is that wind and solar compliment each other extremely well. A large amount of power is needed when the sun is out, so that solar energy can go straight the home usage while charging the batteries for evening use. Wind can supplement the batteries during evening times when usage is higher than solar input. And then wind can cover nighttime power needs while recharge the batteries to cover early morning. With that setup, you only need a small bank of LFP batteries to cover evening hours (fluctuations and morning are too small in comparison).
@@makatron lol. Agreed, though sometimes it seems like it's easier if you're not rich. If you're rich, you buy a bunch of crap you don't need that uses a ton of power. If you can avoid those, you then need less solar/wind, less batteries, and smaller inverters. I'm actually trying to plan something out for my household. We cannot do so at current usage levels. But I might be able to go mostly off-grid if I only move the 110v connections and leave the large 220v items on grid (central ac and dryer mainly). Slowly convert the house to heat pumps instead of central ac/heat. Move any additional 220v it's over well after, or go to a lower power solution.
@@anthonypelchat where I live we get almost 7 hours of avg peak sunlight so in the long run my plan is to put 12 kw pv system in half my flat roof that could even offset the cost of me having the AC running constantly.
I live in a very windy area so it has crossed my mind many times. We have much more wind than sun here. In fact my uncle made his own wind turbine back in the early 80s that he has had on his farm. I think it ended up being more of a hobby than anything that made financial sense. By the end he had 3 generators but they were often offline due to maintenance and repair problems
Good to hear of new developments in wind generation! Just recently had solar installed and we're happy with the energy. Had a slight issue when it was windy with one panel rattling, which I've had fixed since. It gave me the idea that what if under each panel there was a way of capturing the wind. Seems like future solar panels could be made to capture the wind as well with vents under each panel leading to a micro turbines. Not sure if this would be feasible, but worth an experiment.
Shame on architects who have failed to design buildings, particularly skyscrapers, with wind generators built into the corners. It's not as if they were unaware of the incredible power of winds against the sides of the buildings. They've been forced to design specialized mounting systems for windows to resist the tremendous suction generated against the sides. Maybe they lack imagination, or perhaps financial incentive.
If you could make a dream, self sufficient home on 1 acre of land, what systems would you want? i.e. Roof of solars, Green House with aquaponics, a windmill/windfall for more power and well pumping, with a geothermal for heating.
Mine would use solar thermal water-heating and sterling- engine electricity, an ice reservoir for literally storing cold at night, rain-capture water-storage for pressure and any task needing water just short of potable, and airspace allowing, an aerostat parafoil to catch the wind and turn propeller-generators for more power, with pumped water energy storage.
Could you do a video on small scale hydro power for ocean side or river/creek side properties? I think that could be more cost effective because of the higher energy density that water has with respect to wind. Although it's rare to see it because of the location restrictions.
Matt could you link to the info that helped you determine the grams of Co2 per KwH for the power sources? I've always wanted your videos to have better quotation on your sources cause I'd like to seek them out
Yes! Yes! Me too! So hard to get a complete answer on net carbon cost of the various energy generation strategies. ENERGY AUDIT --- BTU in (to produce, maintain, operate, and decommission/repurpose/recycle the generating installation) vs BTU out (what the installation generates over its lifetime). CARBON AUDIT --- Total carbon released to produce, maintain, operate, and decommission/repurpose/recycle the "green" generating installation vs that released by production, maintenance, operation, and decommissioning of fossil fuel burning ones.
@@cooper1507 Thank you! As far as I can tell, the LCOE calculations I have seen measure the costs in dollars -- not in BTU / Kwh, and not in carbon or climate impact. (But my sources are not very deep, so if anyone has better info, I welcome with open arms!!) Measuring cost in terms of dollars invested vs dollars returned is what has shaped the extractive and cost-externalizing energy paradigms that have brought us to the climate catastrophes displacing and killing people in sacrifice zones around the world. Even measuring dollars invested vs reduction of carbon emitted by operating strategy A vs operating strategy B misses a great deal of the actual carbon (and therefore climate) costs incurred. Living bodies have a built-in audit: if we do not balance nutrition to need, the body sickens, weakens, and dies. Our planet is showing us this audit in all of the disruptions of fire and water and temperature, and what lives and what dies and where. If we can turn our measurements and accounting to auditing the climate-critical metrics directly, rather than filtering them through financial metrics, I feel we will be better able to make choices for life instead of death. Or at very least, know the real cost.
Turbines are also a good way for the hobbiest to get into renewable energy. With $100 of 3d printer filament and a $20 alternator from an old generator, I built a vertical axis windmill that typically makes around 400 Watts but peaks at around 1200 Watts. A similar producing turbine costs around $1800 to buy. With power costs here in the UK at the time I built it, I worked out that I would need it to run for 480 hrs to pay for its self. It ran non stop for 6 months before a storm caused a catastrophic, unintended, rapid disassembly.
I'm off grid, with a solar array that can charge our roughly 2days of battery storage before noon on a clear day. The problem with solar is clouds, and it's generally more windy when they're denser, so wind seems like a good supplement. Thank you for the sobering video.
Feasibility of home wind turbines scenario definitely depends on the area where you live. Ireland could be a great place, considering also the absence of sun pretty much all year long. Ebro's valley in Spain is also a place where wind blows like 300 days a year, also during night time where solar doesn't produce (as a matter of fact the area is full of industrial wind turbines). Price and legislation in this cases are the key for me.
Writing from Ireland, I agree in part. I live in a coastal location ideally orientated for a ridge turbine, as the prevailing winds in these islands are South-Westerlies. I cannot get any feedback from Ridgeblade, and assume they are out of business. Instead I am looking at air source heat pumps. The temperature here rarely drops to zero. We get lots of sun in Ireland, but also lots of rain. That's good for PV, as it keeps the panels clean and cool. It is not California, but solar is as viable here as in the northern US.
We live in San Francisco and in our precise location we get verrrrry little sun but and a relentless amount of wind. This was a really helpful video, and I think in a few years our house may actually be in the small minority of homes that would benefit from wind power and not from solar as long as we aren't depending on it alone.
Great video as always Matt. I think this really highlights how broken energy pricing is. Carbon emissions are basically free to the emitter, but massively expensive for society as a whole. In any sane world, this would be priced-in for the emitter as a carbon tax, forcing them to pay the real, actual cost of every watt they consume. The fact that climate impact is *not* priced-in to grid power amounts to a massive national coal subsidy; you pay for the energy, someone else will pay to build a sea wall in Manhattan. Small-scale wind can't compete with subsidized coal, but it might compete with unsubsidized coal.
Agree. Consider though that all materials have an embedded CO2 production cost, which is currently not paid by the consumer (nor producer of course). If your goal with a local wind turbine is to cut down on CO2 production, the calculation becomes very difficult, because that wind turbine required energy to dig, refine the materials, produce, assemble and transport etc. There isn't any easy way to measure just how much energy that all used, but we can confidently assume (at the moment) that it was all done with fossil fuels - and the larger the device, the more CO2 was released in creating it. My guess is that whatever the financial payback period is, you should double it to account for the original carbon cost (utility scale production of power is nearly always MUCH less carbon intensive than local production).
And what would that tax even do? There is no method for extraction of carbon that’s viable, so those dollars would do what exactly? Funnel more money to an ineffective federal government to waste? I don’t think a carbon tax is a good idea at all.
Absolutely not; why should individuals pay extra tax for no reason? It is not our fault gov refuses to allow widespread nuclear power plants (the safest, cleanest, cheapest power source)... emissions from transportation is only 15% of all emissions thus a non issue, why should ppl pay extra fees over nothing? Also every EV and renewable company is only focused on profit margins not cost effective solutions; instead of tesla offering ev conversion kits for gas cars they only want ppl to buy their over priced impractical cars... obvious fact is nobody cares about emissions or cost effectiveness but rather sjw politics... Germany shut down all its nuclear power plants to switch to "renewables" thus made it absolutely dependent of rus oil/gas...
Adding wind generation into the existing mix of solar generation is a must for many countries especially Australia where energy price during peak time (in the evening and early mornings) are high and solar feed in tariffs are ever reducing to the point where any excess solar you feed back into the grid during the day will no longer be enough to cover the cost of your usage during peak time. So an alternate generation such as wind can further help reduce the cost.
I am living on a countryside in North-East Poland where wind is blowing almost constantly (a lot of flat area around, wind has space to speed up), and sometimes it gets strong enough to turn over garden furniture. I have solar panels, which covers my home energy consumption, but there is 1 more thing that isn’t covered: heating the house. Our winters are kinda cold and solar panels fail to produce a lot at that time (short days), so I am burning coal/wooden pellets, which is fairly fine, but recent events in Ukraine made the coal price go up by almost 400%, thus am thinking of using something that could generate some energy at winter times. I have seen couple of projects of Savonius VAWTs with outer wind deflectors, directing wind always on the catching side so it doesn’t blow against the turning turbine (which is one of main factors of low efficiency). My idea was to make a turbine like that based on DC motor, that would heat up the water in the big buffer tank, to be used for house heating. Placing that close to the ground would still catch a lot of wind and would make the maintenance easier (accessible from the ground). Could anybody confirm my considerations? Would it be realistic? I would obviously start with measuring the wind over a longer period to verify the speed and then design a small’ish prototype, but would be handy if somebody with higher aerodynamic knowledge could give some thoughts on it. Would also greatly appreciate more videos about that topic @Matt Ferrell :). Thanks!
Only through continued development and testing can we see meaningful results. Your video of the various Wind Generators was fascinating and thought provoking. Great job. It appear to me that ridge top wind power generation could be the most attractive as well as effective. With Solar Panels do we have facilities to recycle or dispose of the ones that have ended their useful life cycle? I personally am in favor of 'at location' power generation for every home and business. We need to preserve farm land for food and livestock production. An army indeed marches on its stomach; so does civilizations. Wind and water in my opinion are by far the most effective and sustainable power solutions unless we produce enough methane from animal and human manure.
Again,Very knowledgeable and well explained video. Will u make similar kinda video on concentrated solar thermal vs solar PV for the residential/small scale use? Combination of solar thermal and Stirling engine seems very promising, & have some clear advantages over a pv like low initial cost, higher efficiency and thermal storage for night usage.
I'm usually suspicious of home-scale wind power on account of the inherent way wind generation works: having the wind apply work over the surface area of the generating system. Most of these concepts, even the ones with working models, don't usually address this inherent issue, and they end up being significantly less efficient than a large turbine due to their small surface area. That said, I'm particularly impressed with the ridge turbine for using the slope of the roof to add surface area to the system to force more air through the turbine. It's a solution that's so deliciously simple, you wonder why you didn't think of that. The fact that they have working models and even ones that are going for sail is just the cherry on top. Still don't think it can replace home-level solar, but with the majority of the roof left to place solar panels on, they're definitely a reasonable addition.
11:14 take this roof-turbine and install it on each of the edges of buildings vertically. Walls are usually bigger "sails" than roofs and such application works better with different wind azimuths.
I considered wind turbine electrical generation for my home over 40 years ago. Even back then, for a DIY install, it just wasn't $$$ feasible. Now today, many towns simply will not issue a permit, sighting complaints from neighbors and architectural "conformity" . In rural areas, if there are any left, they can be complimentary to solar and commercial power generation, but the payback time to break-even is considerable.
Thank you for the interesting videos, Matt. It would be very interesting to hear about the combination of solar panels and a gravity storage tower for a private house or cooperative. Do such solutions even exist for small scales?
What about the whole life cycle of those? The rare earths materials needed for solar panels and how they're recycled or not after usage versus the wind turbine materials ? Do you have any info or sources about that aspect ? Thanks for your work, always food for thought 😉
Very nice presentation Matt and team! Wind is an awesome compliment to solar. Great to see some nice innovation in the industry! But IMHO solutions/designs/implementations will need time to be field tested for best designs and practices to be proven, so it's still early in the home wind solution space. And like anything to do with engineering, the answer is always: It depends :)
Wind has been around for years. I know of several farmers that made their own units by refurbishing the old style water pump wind mills with lighter blade assemblies. Several went so far to use higher amperage truck alternators to charge batteries for power. Wind is locational in usage and efficency. It would not be as useful in big cities BUT it is very efficient in the great plains states. Solar, Wind, and geothermal all offer pieces of the puzzle for clean energy.
I like the ideal of wind power over solar. Solar drawbacks are: 1. You still have to be hook up to the grid in an urban environment. 2. If the electric company’s grid goes down, even though you have panels on your house, you’ll have no electricity. 3. Most contractors do not insure you from roof leaks, due to the panels. Roof leaks are sure to happen once the sealant gives out. With constant sun high heat, sooner than later. 4. You void the warranty of your roof, by punching holes in it for the panel installation. 5. Solar panels technology is constantly changing, leaving your system obsolete in five years, before you can even pay it off. 6. Constant dirt and debris, makes a solar panel that you can’t reach, to constantly clean off, inefficient. There are pit falls on both sides of the isle. Do your research, before spending your money.
🔥 *Thanks Matt, this was an excellent and practical comparison of solar to wind and the differences of generators.* _Keep making content like this to help people make smart choices!_
@@UndecidedMF Sorry for the late reply. I was on a date with the wife. First off, I also noticed the lack of real choice in the DIY market unlike solar. The real problem I see is the return on investment time-line. My area we are prone to hurricanes but I have a 3 story cement building and I was considering mounting to the building. Again the selection of quality seems to be a very limiting factor. Recently I installed a battery backup system with the ability to add panels as soon as my area has stock again. I was able to build a 30kw battery myself from raw cells. Great video and I will look up some of your ideas when I get back from vacation. Thanks Matt 😊.
Matt, you make the best videos! This was very enlightening. I really hope someone develops the right wind technology for residential use, as the combination of wind and solar power can truly shits us off of fossil fuels!
*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 buy a small wind turbine for the winter. *With solar modules, on the other hand, reliably generate electricity for 25 years at approx. 3-10 cent/kWh!
We have been using wind power for a long time now. It seems to be better used mechanically though, think windmills pumping water. On a remote site it doesn't male sense to install a windmill and have it produce electricity to run a pump as needed. Instead you have it run the pump and just put a large reservoir and pump water when the wind blows and the reservoir does the watering when its still. There can be a lot of utility in using wind power, but it tends to be much more site and situation specific. You cant just buy a wind kit and make it functional everywhere with some slight modifications like you can with solar. Its the Linux of renewables. Much less user friendly, but if it fits your situation and you can learn it then its near impossible to beat.
Thanks to YT i just found this video. We, in Switzerland, are currently retrofitting PV to the house; issues I have with this idea: a) it will only produce solar-power in summer; in winter, it's just too dark here (sadly, not enough wind to use a horizontal wind turbine) b) storage of the surplus-energy produced in summer during sunlight is expensive as F and will not "hold" forever (Li-Ion or LiFePo4 - both will lose capability of saving energy enventually) c) offgrid-solutions are almost impossible and even more expensive to implement: solar-inverters will only work if external grid is available. with freshly announced timed brownouts here, the best PV-setup will not give you power, even for "emergency circuits". AND THIS is also an issue with windturbines: they only produce energy when there's enough wind; if you want to save surplus-energy, solutions are not viable enough, and going offgrid is ...easy to do if your other means of providing energy are done with fuel-generators due to living somewhere in the outback... As much as i like the new concepts of the horizontal wind turbines: I would appreciate a "not so expensive" and durable way to save energy; bc this could be retrofitted to ANY house with or without PV/Turbine, so "smart charging" could charge the batterys when power is least expensive, to reduce the cost for the owner, AND to reduce the costs of not-so-enviromental-friendly means of energyproductions during "no wind" and "no light"-scenarios...
Here in the UK residential wind turbines aren't really feasible for anyone who doesn't have a ton of land. However there are initiatives for shared-ownership wind farms where individuals buy capital to fund the installation of a multi-MW wind farm and then receive a percentage of the generation for the lifetime of the project. It's an idea that's gathering momentum as it doesn't tie you to one property either
Some of us are limited by solar with existing structures like dormer windows on the roof or not ideal orientation of the roof. Despite what we are told about angles, I have solar panel on my gable wall on my house. Hugely increasing my solar panels area and very little difference in output. We need to start covering our outside walls in solar. That windwall you showed, I'm currently building a fence using the same idea . A row of vertical turbines encased in a fence frame. (Many thanks to Robert Murray smiths channel and TNT) look how much fencing you have around your home. Quite a lot of lineal length. So even small amounts will add up. We need to start looking at our homes as a power plant. Where can we squeeze power out of our home, through wind, solar rain power, gravity power, any little amount as long as it doesn't cost a fortune to get 10 watts. it all adds up.
Also, I don't know if it is different there in the USA, but in some places, it's not possible to install a wind turbine for fauna protection reasons. About the windspeed, it is worth mentioning that even 5 m/s at the height that micro and pico wind turbine systems are usually mounted it's really hard to reach in most places, without considering the fact that at lower height turbulence is more common too. Before considering a windturbine I would consider to take a good anemometer and collect data for about an year in the position you intend to place it and make your consideration on that. Also there are many software that will help you estimate the annual production of the system once you've inserted the data you collected, not to mention the type of windturbine, cut-ina and cut-off are important but also check the Power diagram to understand where you more common windspeed fall, it makes a big difference
I have a lake house on Lake Huron located on the "windiest" county in Michigan. When we built it in 2012, we included two towers to house wind turbines. We are still waiting for inexpensive turbines, affordable energy storage, etc. Neither we, nor our neighbors, are typically present during the "off-season," October through May. When we did the math, the payback was over thirty years. We will act when the economics change.
Some of the costs of the installation for both solar and wind will be the infrastructure to manage the generated power. If you install both types, you will only need one cost for the infrastructure, so that will result in a certain amount of savings. It makes more sense to me to plan to utilize both if you want any kind of reliable off grid power generation. Studies have also shown that wind power, mainly in the VAWT as far as I am aware, have significantly increased efficiency when they are installed in a group format. This is all with the understanding that anyone that plans to use wind needs to be aware of the average wind speeds at their location. It is something that would need to be considered if you are planning on building a home and have a few choices of property to purchase to build it on.
Why anybody would install a rotating weight anywhere near structural elements of their home is beyond me… the noise carried to your living spaces is a showstopper.
I currently line in Fairfield, Ca where we can get at least a breeze of a few mph on 95% plus of days. I think that if you could find a small, yet efficient wind turbine and pair it with solar and a home battery pack (ex: Tesla Powerwall) it could make a decent 1-2 punch. I mainly see wind turbines “take over” power production from solar especially during nighttime or during times of severe overcast where solar cannot produce power or is very minuscule. Living on a coast or near a highway/large road or even a train line could also help produce some extra energy
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If you liked this, check out Why Don’t We Have Solar Powered Cars? th-cam.com/video/SgQ2T5g3Rn8/w-d-xo.html
I helped a man build and install his in Atzec, NM. It's on Mountain View Drive. We did that back in '04 or close to it
I'll tell you why we don't have solar powered cars. Elon Musk said it's stupid. No really I forget exactly what he said, but from an engineering perspective, if you want to have a regular sedan or SUV, the amount of power generation is trivial, most people don't leave their vehicles out in the scorching sun in the summer, the best time to get power into the vehicle, and it presents engineering challenges that adds complexity and cost, so I imagine Elon's comment was based on a cost analysis he probably worked out in his head one morning over a cup of coffee and decided it wasn't worth Tesla doing it. The cost it would add to the vehicle isn't worth the amount of power you would get from it, or is so trivial that the added cost would have one main effect, which is deterring people from buying the vehicle.
I want to sleep at night and the vibrations-noises of a wind turbine is a bad idea.
Car manufacturers I guess feel cars with wind turbines will not help just like solar...I still think it's in the future and should be explored
could you do a video on the benefits of Aerogel as insulation to cut down on cost heating and cooling bills?
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.
Off grid is the key here. For on grid apps where there is net metering, you want the most production for the dollar, and that’s solar.
A friend who is a talented electrical engineer equipped his home with wind and solar about 12 years ago. The solar system is still producing, the wind system never produced significant power and is now a curiosity in his yard.
I'd like to see a video
I'd love to see that video!
We run turbine on the boat, great for cloudy days or at night when the solar doesn't work.
How large is the tower and how do you lower and raise it for maintenance?
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!
Nice! Always great when you see validation from someone actually in industry!
Have you seen any of the newer micro solutions in practice yet? I’m curious how they’ll perform in the real world over several years, but I don’t think they’ve gotten to the point that they can provide that data yet.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet the three bladed horizontal axis turbine is the most efficient design by far. There are alternate designs that address issues like noise, bird strikes, low wind generation, but their efficiencies are all worse than the standard design. it's all about life cycle cost per kwhr. in your local wind regime, at your operating height AGL.
@@shadyislandchronicles4237 I hear good things about verticle turbines as well. Though if you have constant running water on your property a small hydro generaror is better than both wind and solar.
What do you think of Semtive’s? A cousin of mine’s had great success with their’s but they also live on the unblocked very top of a large hill that’s arguably a small mountain in town. I’m curious about it in more erratic places.
@@Jokerwolf666 agreed about hydro. but you need at least a few meters of head. small vertical axis wind turbines have some advantages, but efficiency is not one of them.
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.
I'm not an engineer, but just from a simplicity standpoint, solar doesn't have any moving parts, wind does. That alone seems like a good enough reason to consider solar over wind for small installations.
The resistance of wires reduces the power supply from grid scale wind generators, so i wonder if these power loss calculations were used to decide the argument.
@@jadeskye6755 yes, i agree max out your site for solar before considering solar. i thought the roof top horizontal concept looked very interesting.
Stil, micro wind doesn’t use extra land. If energy use is close to where it’s produced, you save the heat losses from resistance in the wires. Also, works at lower wind speeds. Probably could edge out solar in winter months.
@@jadeskye6755 Also imagine how annoying your neighbor's old squeaky wind turbine would be. Solar is silent, which makes it a much better fit for a residential neighborhood.
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!
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.
Community ownership.. sound like a great Idea!
Great idea. I live in a small village located atop a hill in the Weald in Sussex. We get loads of wind from all directions and this would be ideal to power the whole village.
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.
I hope it gets thoroughly trialed out in cold climate regions subject to snowstorms and snow accumulation on roofs.
I was thinking the same thing. My house faces west and is on the side of a hill so when someone sneezes down the bottom I get a hurricane at the top. Like you say, I think the two systems would compliment each other nicely.
@@jacktoy3032
No need to test such a specific situation.
It works, or it doesn't.
Snow blocks airflow. You have to clean the snow off if it builds up and blocks airflow.
If it doesn't build up, then no blocked airflow.
Pretty sure they're out of business - their phone numbers are all defunct and their social websites are all down. Tried to fill out their form to get a quote and that was broken too.
Bird Killing !!
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.
Exponentially? No, it’s still a squared law. But your point is correct. Elevation is also important. You gotta go high to get away from the surface friction. And it takes money to go high. So as you say, wind is not effective at homeowner scale.
@@paulogden7417 f(x) = x² is kind of the most basic exponential function. So yes, exponential. Height is also a factor (and you have to go higher to increase blade length), but blade length makes the output grow faster.
@@InfiniteLuke that's quadratic growth. exponential would be f(x)= a^x, where a is some positive number
@@marklion315 oh, you're right 🙈 I've always put those two in the same box.
And wind is much faster further up
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.
It is incorrect, at least in the UK we are moving towards heat pumps, many of which use ground heat- it is NOT geothermal, as that requires drilling a few kilometres down to find a magma chamber- to both heat and cool homes. You are wasting your time to collect door kinetic energy.
We aren't really designing buildings to be more power efficient at all- these "eco houses" are unsustainable and inefficient - often with flat rooves which have very poor thermal performance- concrete constrution also thermally poor, with many points of thermal bridging. They use short lifespan materials and construction methods and often have huge windows that lack curtains, making them too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, massively increasing costs.
Modernist architecture is completely incompatible with power efficiency and green living - it is simply associated with socialism and thus a shared inspiration with eco architects.
For efficiency a house should have low surface area- ie be similar to a cube- or be terraced or semi detatched. The roof should be self cleaning and long lasting - a pitched roof will last 30 years, a flat roof is only specced for 10. it should have strong structurally rigid long lasting weather protection on the outer face in a material that will last hundreds of years- such as stone, brick, block, etc. It should have a cavity to protect from damp and add extra insulation. It should have a very insulative inner wall. Windows should be thickly curtained, to keep the heat in during the night time, or the heat out during the summer days on the sun side of the house. Radiators (or heat vents in canada) should be directly under windows to provide a stable temperature and prevent window frosting. Ceilings should be low to keep the heat closer to the occupants. All space in the property should be utilised to allow for a smaller physical property for the same space. All internal walls should be insulated too and smoke seals around the doorframes so each room can maintain a separate temperature. Heat producing appliances such as a kitchen or fire if you require one should be central and low- basements if you have them - (though logistically you do not want to take shopping down stairs and garbage up) If you are serious about being green, you would forgo both clothes dryer and dishwasher - invest in a mangle a maiden and a pair of marigolds. in terms of transport you would replace your push bike and car with an efficient moped which will produce less co2 than a cyclist. a tuk-tuk for example if you need extra space for some reason. You will have no pets. you will grow much of your own produce in your garden- which is far better than solar panels in your garden due to the carbon consumption of food production.
If you are even more serious you will build a cistern underground and collect your own water not rely on high pressure mains water.
Of course we could also all live in small apartments in big concrete block buildings like the soviet union too.
There was a system called "Wells Walls" in Australia about 40 years ago, but people were turned off by how it looked so it never took off - it involved having external louver blinds in front of glass over a blackened brick wall, with closable vents internal top and bottom. These cavities becomes a passive heater. Clever, but you house sort of looks like a shed.
Forget the neigh Sayers. This is exactly what needs to happen innovation, from the ground up. Or walls in. Or roof in or outward. Why does it not happen? People boo hoo about it, but change always makes people uneasy. When you find a place that people have abandoned, you see nature rebounding based on similar concepts to what you've mentioned here. Plenty of $$ in what you've said as well
This is the fault of architects and city rules.. also if nations would make the common sense move to nuclear power none of this empty talk would happen per nuclear is the cleanest, cheapest, safest energy source we have
Not in the US. That type of innovation will be stifled with red tape.
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.
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...
Nice one and tracking for better choices. Thank you so much.
Dude, i've been fantasising about a roofridge windturbine for years.. awesome to see its in the works.
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
Right. All that's needed is to figure out a way to rotate the house to allow for change in wind direction :)
@@whatafellow - there is already a constant flow of air to the existing ridge vent, from sunlight heating up a roof or from panels heating up, so this additional updraft should help, as long as there is sunlight
I too favour the Ridge Blade. I'm hoping to see the technology become affordable to the point of it becoming a standard
@@sabret00the - I wonder if existing squirrel fan type wind turbines can be mounted in a horizontal fashion to build it DIY?
I agree that it looks promising on the face of it. But I wonder of the ridge blade design will attract birds, bats, and squirrels in search of a nest.
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.
i'm not sure about laws in missouri but i helped set up a turbine for a friend while i was staying at his place in utah, he paid ~$1200 (total) for a 2.4kw unit from thermodyne systems.
as for prices mentioned in this video, ask for some quotes and you'll likely find that you can't even find someone asking anywhere near 5k per kw without it being extremely hyped or something like a full install (likely including arranging legal stuff)
@@angrydragonslayer Thank you much!
@@ChinaChuck just a fair warning: do not expect much if you have low winds
this goes for literally any wind system
@@angrydragonslayer is he in northern Utah? and or engineering wise did it make sense? and with average 15 to 30 mph is it a good fit 9 month's out of the year?
They don't "compliment" each other. That would mean they'd be telling each other, "you're the best source of renewable energy" and "thank you, your flat surface is amazing". I think you mean they complEment each other.
It's always fun for me to find those silly things, but your information informs millions of people. YOU are amazing! (My compliment to you. 😀)
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.
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!
I noticed this too, although he stated maintenance costs of about $160 giving an almost 90yr payback, the turbine will not last that long is you'll never break even
People have been regularly and commercially harnessing the wind for thousands of years. Solar has only really happened in the last century or so.
If we were going to see some major new wind turbine design that is more efficient at capturing the wind, I'm sure we would have seen it already.
@@tin2001 That's not a sound argument. Just look at the history of flight. The ancient Chinese tried to make kites that could carry a human, da Vinci fantasized about flying machines. People desired to fly for millennia. But nobody seemed to be able to create a machine that could successfully transport people via the air. Before the arrival of the airplane, it probably seemed impossible. But now we live in a world where we can't imagine NOT traveling by air. I think the small scale wind turbine is an inevitability as long as engineers and scientists keep working toward it.
His point actually makes sense. We just need a breakthrough in that area that will domestic wind generation more feasible
I could see a wind system as more practical in cold weather: On a typical winter day solar is decreased (assuming you can even keep snow free), and heat loss from a home is proportional to wind speed. Reduced foliage on local trees would also help.
My main concern would be accessing the turbine for maintenance, having the room to drop it down to ground level is a big plus.
@Merfax Yeah, I would need both solar AND wind here in Northern Illinois, if I want to be completely off grid. Some of my neighbors have installed a number of solar panels on their roofs over the past 2 years, and I was very disappointed to discover that they do not have a heating feature to melt off snow. If I went solar only, I would have to keep them out in my yard at an accessible height, so I could brush the snow off during the Winter.
@@crazyfvck There are icing issues with wind power in snow, and the heating often costs more than the solar is worth. In cold climates renewables at the home scale is quite tricky- carbon neutral wood burning/gasifier is often a much better option. Fine environmental dust is also an issue with solar, so keeping them washed is important, like you say some way to clean them is good.
have you considered 'night time', which I guess could be considered colder weather... or also during cloudy days. Interesting how so many people dismiss the complimentary effect of wind power... forgetting how many decades of research have promoted solar over wind for residential application
@@carbon1255 turbines in Greenland a tartic
What about vertical turbines
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.
Same here! What future technology innovation are you most excited about?
@@FUTUREDTECH Medium term: micro-fission powerplants. Not actually micro, but small enough to fit in a shipping container, and self-contained. Long term: Programmed-molecular solar thermal (MOST), Solid State Wind, and Lattice Confinement Fusion.
Its not about comparing the cost and production of solar panels and wind turbines, where solar obviously has advantage. The advantage of the wind turbine, is that you can produce power and run your house (like mine which is offgrid), even during windy nights, and winter sunless nights. Especially when you run your house on batteries! So, wind turbines, are a big advantage only for offgrid living. My turbine is small, but still can support my refrigarator alone, and give some juice to my batteries when sun is not there...
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.
I like the idea of combining the ridgeblade wind turbine to the apex of my house roof and having solar panels on the roof too. I hope that when the residential ridgeblade is available it will be able to coexist with solar and make homes much more self reliant. Combining that with a home battery and an EV, it makes it much easier for travel costs and home heating / electrical use to be factored into the purchase price of the panels and turbines, making it much more cost efficient.
I would be interested to see what other mini wind turbines are actually available as a lot in this video are concept/ not widely available.
If you are both powering a car and a home, you will need a lot of solar. You could also reduce your heating/cooling energy use with a geothermal system and solar water heating.
RidgeBlade is in receivership.
The wind panel at 12:33 while it might not be that efficient, if positioned to block the sun on your home, could help reduce cooling cost. Not sure if it would justify the cost over just planting tree's or tall shrubs though.
Solar panels also shade your home ;)
I thought about that too, but the moving patterns of light you'd get from the blades could get annoying pretty fast, I'm afraid.
This is a good idea, but the real issue with renewables isn't the production, it's intermittency. We in the Netherlands are literally putting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of solar-PV into the ground (disposal) because the grid cannot sustain it.
We need storage and an upgrade of the power-grid before thinking of new renewable energy sources. For this, we need government investments.
th-cam.com/video/NH4_2PFTzIY/w-d-xo.html
Apparently, some finnish folks are onto that, converting excess from solar into heat which is applied to underground sand pits, and used as heat batteries. They even propose it as a yearly cycle, used heat accumulated during summer through all the winter.
I just stumbled into it today, and thought "This should be on Matt's channel".
And there's at least one concentrated thermosolar project, called Gemasolar, which accumulates heat trough the day, and at night uses that heat to move a turbine to produce constant power.
Your electricity company just needs to pay customers who provide electricity when the grid needs it. They will build out their own distributed battery system in homes, business and electric cars that can plug back into the grid when needed.
Are you talking about wasting the excess electricity or actually removing working panels that are already installed? That seems crazy to do. You can just disconnect them from the grid when there is excess and there are always some times when the power is useful.
Go nuclear =)
Wind could make sense in high rise buildings without a lot of roofspace for solar compared to the number of residences. Ideally the building could be designed to catch wind energie from the drawing board.
I have been pondering wind and solar power for decades now. Choose to believe me or not but I am in my mid 70's now.and I have been reminded by this types of articles that I've been thinking about this off and one sime my 20's. Pondering but not having the money to make the invstment over my lifetime and other things to spend income on.
Ridgeblade sounds fine but still doesn't seem as effective as it could be due to effects of the slope of roof, and home orientation to wind sources that aren't from the same consistent direction.
But one thing I have thought about application-wise that metropolises or even business just haven't thought about is something like a ridgeblade setup mounted on the four corners of tall buildings. Think of a city like Chicago having something like the ridgeblade mounted on any of the tall structures in Chicago. At those elevations, the wind would be almost constant. Each corner of the building would be a source of power no matter which way the wind would blow, each corner constantly generating electricity. With the wind velocities at those altitudes, the fan cage would not have to be that significant in size so aesthetics would not be affected that much. Build the fan cages in interconnectable modules in floor sizes so they could just be stacked as many as needed.
Why, after all this time, hasn't anyone thought of doing something like that. Due to the available wind, efficiencies would not be as impactful. Efficiency, size, heights, orientations, cost per generated watt have all affected home installations and independent home, "off-grid" applications, but if a power generating company wiould look at this type of structure, I think that company and any company on which it would be installed would look very favorably in the marketplace for a clean energy source.
Just thought I would put the concept out there for consideration and other monds to think about.
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
Yea, I definitely expect there to be “best regional solutions” eventually as we continue down this path.
I was hoping for a small ~1kW turbine that would be used to charge a storage battery similar to a Powerwall. Instantaneous power would be sourced from the grid or battery and the turbine would just provide a charging current. We are up at 57° North and for a lot of the year the weather conditions (Scotland - cloudy, windy) and limited sunlight hours mean solar just isn't as useful for us. Unfortunately, it looks like the technology isn't quite there yet for small turbines. Hopefully the products you highlighted will continue to be developed and put into full scale production over the next few years. Great video, thanks.
The thing here is physics - small turbines just cannot harvest a lot of power, but are still complex products. That's why the bigger the turbine, the better the economics look for it because it can provide a lot more power - making the turbine blades 2x longer gets you 4x the area that power can be harvested from meaning the turbine power grows 4x.
Considering you are in Scotland and it is pretty damn windy out there and winds are pretty stable on average, having a comunual big wind turbine owned cooperatively can be the difference between payback period being 22 years like in the video for not a lot of power produced to having like a 5 year payback period and producing so much power that you gonna have to sell a lot to the grid. The downside is the required investment upfront, sadly.
In my view small-scale wind power will never be able to compete with solar power simply because of the lower energy-density of wind compared to sunlight. Air moving at 4 m/s has a kinetic energy of less than 10 J/m^3. This means a hypothetical technology that can extract 100% of this energy receives about 40 W/m^2. Theoretically, the maximum efficiency of wind turbines (the Betz Limit) is about 59%, but in practice wind turbines achieve at most 45%. That leaves less than 20 W/m^2 of energy production. This compares poorly to PV panels. For example the panels on my roof (which is far from optimal) produce about double that.
So for a comparable amount of power you need an installation that is:
1. Larger
2. More complicated
3. Maintenance intensive
4. More fragile
The advantage wind has is that wind energy increases with the cube of wind speed, and system-losses decrease with larger turbines. This is why large turbines in windy places (e.g. at sea) make so much sense. Solar power, in contrast, is strictly linear: You want double the power, you need twice as many panels. So basically the physics of wind turbines favors large turbines, while the physics of solar places no penalty on smaller installations.
very well said, thanks
I'm not that good at physics so I won't even begin to question your math, but : 4m/s is very slow wind, basically the minimum wind speed to get any kind of power out of most wind turbines.. Also, you're saying your solar panels produce about double energy/m^2 .. At what times of day ? How sunny is it where you live ? There's a great many factors that go into this..
We are just now adding storage batteries to our solar panels in Australia. We tried to find out information about adding wind generation but couldn't get any information about generation at lower wind speeds. We do get quite a lot of wind but, in the end, decided that there was just not enough information available for wind generation at sub optimal speeds. Your video is very interesting and I think we made the right decision, at this stage, not to add a wind generator. When technology has improved we will relook at adding a wind generator. You provided more information than we were able to glean from the manufacturer. We asked direct questions about sub optimal wind strength but they couldn't or wouldn't give us a graph of diminishing production for diminishing winds - very disappointing.
Look into Flower Turbines. I appreciate and love the tiny vertical concept. About the size of a humane male. Plus can be painted any color of a flower.
A small wind turbine to support solar seems like a good idea, especially if you're going off-grid or otherwise battery supported, it would help to increase the life of the batteries.
it also makes sense depending on your location
It's interesting that the conditions which make solar work less effectively usually mean wind is better. Rain, cloudy weather and night time usually mean high winds.
At least where I live. Good to have more options.
@@utubeape th-cam.com/video/SH3KQoZvafM/w-d-xo.html
@@ralphwarom2514 th-cam.com/video/SH3KQoZvafM/w-d-xo.html
Dear Matt, Thanks for your informative videos every single time! I want to point out that the g /kWh that you mentioned in the video are off compared to the numbers I know. Yup, I know this is an wikipedia link, but these are quite representative. By nature, natural gas has an emission of around 200 g/kWh. This is without the efficiency loss at a power plant, making electricity from gas in a combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plant of around 58% efficiency already 350 g/Kwh emission.
Please continue on making these great videos. I sure enjoy watching them ;-)
*I work as a Dutch energy consultant
Link to CO2 emissions: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse_gas_emissions_of_energy_sources
Gas is worse than your figures if you include fugitive emissions/leaks in the gas supply chain. At a typical industry loss rate of 3% then if you take in the 20 year CO2e impact of this you end up doubling the effective emissions.
A very informative video, thanks.
I live in a hill top in north-east Scotland where it’s windy most of the year and very windy in winter. Ironically , I look out on many wind turbines at sea and in the mountains from my house but the cost of energy here at .28 pence per kilowatt is just outrageous. I use 8000 kws per annum.
I would love to install a ridge line wind generator to supplement my solar panels , air source heat pump and soon home battery.
I just don’t have the confidence just now in finding the right product to do that.
I was very impressed by the ridge wind turbine system you showed but wonder about the aesthetics and performance.
I quite like the idea of the Ridgeblade wind turbine, but I'm wondering if a similar system could be installed _within_ the roof space.
If you have a tiled roof and installed an inner roof, then the existing outer roof tiles could be refitted to act as a diffuser. The entire roof sides now act as an air intake / exhaust, with the gap between the roof layers now acting as a huge duct, carrying air into the Ridgeblade at practically the same angle, no matter which way the wind was blowing against the outer roof. I'm thinking that with some clever sizing of the duct to accelerate the airflow and generate more of a pressure difference, you may not need so many Ridgeblade units.
The inside roof layer would have to act as your rain barrier, so you'd have to install a drainage system to mitigate that, but it could be done. You'd still have some inner roof space for storage, perhaps for a battery pack to store energy when you aren't at home or the demand isn't as high? Also, easy access for maintenance, just pop into your loft even if it's raining outside.
This option might work with plenty of sound insulation which would double as thermal insulation.
Another option might be a small "steeple" on the roof to capture wind from any direction and focus it onto a small turbine.
Something that can be built into new houses to constantly trickle in energy at nightime and during winter.
Hello from New Hampshire. We are off-grid solar, considering wind as a winter supplement. We installed extra empty conduits when the house was built, we already have inverters, and would really just need to add a controller to our electric room. We are out in the country, and live on the south-east corner of a small valley, so there is almost always a decent breeze. Will let you know how the 'adventure' progresses, and whether it ends up being worthwhile!
Thanks for the great video.
I’m wondering where you got the CO2 emissions per kWh for gas (78 g) and coal (109 g) from?
On my quick research I found numbers like 350 g CO2 for a modern gas power plant and 700-900 g CO2 for coal plants depending on brown or hard coal.
Independent source or govt. source? The govt. went through 4 years of being pushed to lie, and that's still being undone.
I also found much higher numbers in co2 per kwh
I'm guessing he used the numbers for the newest most fuel efficient plants. I know the new stuff is definitely better than 20+ year old stuff. Not clean, just cleaner
Can confirm 350 g/kWh is in the ballpark for natural gas. We run a 510 MW combined cycle block where I work. Two General Electric 7F gas turbines and a D11 steamer. When we're at full load, each of the gas turbines pulls a little more than 21 pounds of gas per second. Do the combustion stoichiometry and that's 58 pounds of CO2 out the stack. Every second. So from both gas units, over the course of one day, that's 4,990 tons (or, the weight of about 2,500 Ford F-150s). So, with our 4,990 tons of CO2 per day, generating 510 MW, we can do all the fun unit conversions and we come out with 370 g CO2 per kWh.
@@jfbachmann residual heat usage included in numbers?
I'm purely solar at this point with battery back up, but the idea of having something generating electricity when the sun is down definitely appeals to me. Been thinking about small scale vertical axis for some time now. That roof mounted system looks like it could be game changing, along with the wind wall. If you think about it, you don't really need to generate a ton of electricity at night, so having even a small windmill can help decrease your storage/battery capacity while keeping the lights on.
A small vertical axis mounted on the roof knock should also be more efficient. The classic horizontal ones seems bad for private use due to noise.
Matt, thank you for this video - this is an area that we definitely need to explore. There are some unexpected applications - like a row of vertical axis turbines on top of a traffic barrier. The traffic going by in both directions can get them all spinning.
An interesting aspect of vertical axis turbines - when they are place closely together, they actually benefit from the turbulence of the other turbines around them. With horizontal turbines, if they are too close together, they lower the overall output, because the turbulence prevents the downwind units from working as well.
i remember i spent hours researched VAWT on many forums, most of them were focused on DIY
i never tried IRL bc i didn't have the means or the money to start a project myself
"The traffic going by in both directions can get them all spinning."
So it's powered by the traffic...
Yeah, it's an outrageously inefficient petrol generator.
@@godfreypoon5148 If the traffic is there anyway - then its free, essentially.
@@NeilBlanchard Oversimplified explanation: The wind is caused by the air getting out of the way of the cars. The turbines work by harnessing this air flow, i.e. they make it harder for the air to get out of the way of the cars. So the cars have to work harder to push through the air.
But it's worse than that - because the energy is transferred though such an indirect process, it is an incredibly inefficient transfer. Apparently there is something like a 20-fold loss in the transfer and this makes the overall CO2 impact several orders of magnitude worse than coal power.
It gets even worse - because the extra fuel consumption is spread out over every car that passes, no-one is ever going to be able to notice. But the impact is still there, it has just been made inconspicuous. The situation has been made much, much worse, but because it's hard to see the impact everyone will think it's great.
Bottom line is that there is no free lunch.
That's a consequence of the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of energy).
@@godfreypoon5148 You're over thinking it. This doesn't add drag - it is taking energy that is wasted - a typical car for every mile has to push 4.5 TONS of air out of the way. And once that air is moving, getting some of that energy back - IS A GOOD THING.
And we need to make all the cars electric, anyway.
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.
Well put.
I would consider wind power for those dark nights and overcast days.
A small turbine that would cover your home's base load when you are asleep etc... Would be good.
I always tell people MAX out any planned solar installations... Or regret it later!!
1. Solar PV
2. Insulation/switch stuff off
3. Solar excess can heat the water
4. Buy a storage battery
6. Sell your excess solar PV
7. Install an ASHP
8. Done all of the above..look at a wind turbine👍
There is one more advantage to Solar Panels in the US Southwest areas: Air conditioning requirements are lower due to the shade produced by the Solar Arrays. This reduces Power Consumption significantly on warm days, as well as reducing wear on the AC, filters, etc.
Great point. People often forget about the cooling effect that they have!
I imagine it might be a better option for tall buildings, 5 or 6 stories or more, with less roof area for solar, but very exposed to wind than for individual homes
Would definitely be interesting to study that at some point.
Someone years ago found helical vertical turbines mounted on the edges of a skyscraper roof would capture not only direct wind, but also the updrafts from wind hitting the building itself...
So yes, it can be an option for tall buildings. But the output will still be very low in comparison to the power usage of the building, and the payoff time is still going to be roughly the same (IE decades).
So your proposition is to instead just place any old windpower plant on a building? This can 100% be done and requires 0 new tech or RnD. With cash you could take this idea to market in like a month's time.
That is an interesting thought! What future technology innovation are you most excited about?
I imagine that when utilisation of solar goes down (cloudy/night) then it would often go up for wind. Utilisation of both sources is a major issue. Batteries are still small and expensive so having two sources of energy complimenting each other sounds like a good deal. Looking forward to some of the new techs (ps. I live in a windy area close to the sea)
Grid scale wind and community owned wind is the way to go if you want wind power
Check out sirocco energy - they have a new design for a turbine that supposedly
Produces significantly more power and less noise with minimal maintenance and low startup cost. They will be releasing them this year so may want to wait until the first testimonials drop before you spring a few thousand for it
I think you need a triad to form a robust off/on grid. You need solar, wind, the utility grid and/or a backup gasoline or diesel generator. My ideal system would be solar 50%-60% of the energy to charge the batteries, wind 10-20%, and the generator or utility grid 30%.=40%. The solar panels/wind turbine/electric grid/generator would charge batteries and be capable of powering all critical electrical devices even in the event of a prolonged power outage, or completely off grid.
With new panels you can still generate a decent amount on a cloudy day as long some light hits them. Battery storage costs on average 800-1000$ per kWh. So not sure if a turbine is worth all the hassle.
I came up with a small ridge tile generator, which had one rota fitted to each tile. These have an 360 degree movement. So you could have a string of them
all along your roof. The roof catches & compresses the wind upwards into the rotors, so that any direction will spin them. These were 12v, so you could attach
them to a pear of + & - wires running parallel from one end to the other mounted under the ridge tiles.
Yes you will need an inverter to manage the flow. But there are plenty of experts who could improve their efficiency. Thanks for the info, have a great day.
Thanks for the insight on wind power. A huge problem I have is both roofs on the house and garage are covered by big trees. So, I figured while solar panels on the lawn is a pretty limited option, I could supplement with wind power.
For now, I am trying to make sure that sunk cost fallacy attitude I worry about is in check. So, the only direction I have taken thus far is building a decorative garden windmill if only to get an idea on how practical wind is for me. As a bonus, I could even repurpose the derrick the windmill comes with to install a proper wind turbine. Even though the derrick is a meager 12 feet tall, I have seen some promising signs to move forward.
Getting the entire property off-grid is probably unlikely no matter what wind and/or solar kit I try to install, but if I can get a few power-hungry toys running off this build, that would be stellar.
I'm interested in the impacts of snow and -30C weather on domestic solar panels and wind installations considering that those are our conditions for half the year where I live
Great question! Would also be interested in understanding the temperature impact on solar panels. What future technology innovation are you most excited about?
@@FUTUREDTECH Solar panels like it cold. Here in Southern England a cool clear windy day in March is almost as good as a warm still day in June or July . You just need something to poke the snow off (hardly any snow here) in the winter and you are all set.
@@rogerphelps9939 Good to know! Yeah snow-covered panels won't really work :P
To-the-point and credible, as always. Matt Ferrell is likely the best and most "well-rounded" TH-cam technical expert. Your ability to explain a wide range of challenging scientific topics is unsurpassed.
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.
Yes, UK solar install is far cheaper than USA but what are your average electricity costs there, in the UK? Just curious
@@alals6794 2-4x higher than in the states
This makes so much sense. I have experimented with horizontal drum fans for energy generation and found this visually attractive over propeller fans including and the ease of protecting the fan drum with damper blades at high wind velocity's. The idea came to me some years ago from my heating and ventilation back ground.
For many years I installed wind turbines and solar panels on sail boats. The turbine for a boat is basically an alternator with a blade. They are noisy and don't survive well. When a boat was damaged from a lightning strike or such, the owner always wanted the panels replaced but seldom or never wanted the turbine replaced.
This was really informative! I recently moved closer to the coast and it's more windy, and I already have solar, so I was wondering about the state of small home wind turbines. Would you consider doing a video on solar hot water, for domestic hot water or even space heating? I'd love to see a comprehensive video on where that stands today, it seems to be less popular than a decade ago, and that surprises me with how much more energy can be thermally collected from the sun vs PV panels. Maybe PV combined with the latest heat pump tech is a better way to go now in terms of simplicity, maintenance free, and efficiency?
I’m not positive, but I think that heat pump efficiency has progressed so much that many people don’t want the cons that can come with those other solutions anymore. That may be why you feel like you don’t hear about it as much these days.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet I was about to say the same. Rooflines have limited space for solar panels, and it often makes more sense to use that space for PV instead of heat. geothermal heaters plus water heater systems are advertised a lot (or use to be... now that I think on it, I haven't heard an ad about that in a while)... I would assume you can do the same with 'normal' heat pumps as well.
In India, Solar Water Heaters are very common. With a 200Ltr storage we get enough hotwater even in winter /rainy season when there is not much direct sunshine. There are 2 types: Evacuated Glass Tube based and Copper Plate based. Glass tube performs the best. Should work in most of the southern US.
I endorse what @Anand Vaidya has mentioned. The ROI starts from day 1 itself. No need for heat pumps, I have looped the supply through a standby heater, such that constant hot water is available 24/7. (Return on Investment)
I'd like to have one that looks like a smaller version of the old water pump windmills, that would look like a nice lawn ornament while producing electricity. I've seen them put together by do it yourself-ers, with great results. Seems to me the smart thing is to get away from mass produced power and unreliable grids. No one can shut off your power if you're not on thier grid.
It would be an interesting video to examine wind turbines applied to a dense, urban environment that has more shadows on buildings (decreasing solar power generation), but can produce "wind canyons".
Great call out! What future technology innovation are you most excited about?
Downtown Chicago
Friend installed one on the roof of his off-grid house. The house is basically a large garage shed on a concrete slab. Anyway the thing lasted up there less than a week before being moved well away from the house. The vibration set the whole place humming and rattling. I conclude that turbines are best installed on their own well-grounded tower.
I installed a 4Kw PV system in 2016. It produces more than sufficient electricity during the summer months (November to March), but through July to September usage outweighs production significantly.
I run undertile heating through the winter 24hrs a day and charge an EV year round usually overnight.
I live in an area considered a high wind zone, and it would seem to make sense to use that wind to produce electricity at times when solar is not productive. A few years ago I looked at a vertical axis wind turbine that could be pole or roof mounted and the new business that was advertising the product was convinced it could organise the consenting process with the local council, but seem to have disappeared.
I do like the idea of the ridgeline turbine but would suggest that the home would need to be built in the correct orientation to maximise production which may not suit solar production.
As always great info. A friend in a remote cabin needed some power. I built a small solar panel that incorporated small squirrel cage fans on top connected to a generator, munted on tp of the 4 solar panels. Beneath the panels I looped black poly pipe for passive hot water and heating. As small as it was/is it worked. Thanks. Don
One factor that could be major is orientation. Sun prefers a north/south orientation of the roof in most of North America to optimize sun angles on the panels. Something like the ridgeblade would ideally be placed on an east west roof to take advantage of prevailing winds. So if ridgeblade can be on par with solar cost wise, then it becomes an attractive option based on your roof orientation
Here in Central TX, the wind is almost always southerly in summer and north in winter. With that said, it seems like we get endless sunny days here.
I'm still interested in wind. I intend to eventually move to Ireland, and all of my Irish friends and relatives tell me that it's very windy there. So I think a combo of wind and solar would make sense.
Regardless of where I end up, I plan on getting a few of those Boxabls. They're supposedly energy efficient, so that will be helpful if even by a little. I was hoping something comes from Powerpod, but haven't seen much else from them lately.
I may be optimistic, but I am going to do my best to live in a home that can be self-sufficient without sacrificing too much convenience.
You might want to keep an eye on VERTOGEN. It's a V.A.W.T. by a U.K. co. They have videos on TH-cam.
That is an interesting! What future technology innovation are you most excited about?
@@stevetennispro Cheers for that!
THERE YOU GO !!!!!!! HOW FAST CAN YOU GET YOUR FUCKING ASS OUT OF THE USA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Appreciate the number crunching.
Some graduate students, researchers, engineers, back-shed inventors etc somewhere are working on fixing the downsides of local wind generation.
Moving parts, noise, lower efficiency, cost etc. Just something to be overcome and then we'll have a great solar/wind combo for houses.
Hi I'm a architect from Brazil and I live in fairly windy city (10 months of east wind, lower speeds around 6km/h, higher speeds around 20km/h, and average of 11km/h), now I'm thinking of suggesting a combination of solar and wind power in some projects for my clients and of course implementing in my own home. Further research is needed but it seems a good option for renewable energy.
A few items that you missed or didn't specify enough on with both applications. First off, both applications can be significantly cheaper if doing a DIY setup. You can get 1KW of power from either application for around $1000, with solar slightly cheaper. Second, wind power is heavily reliant on constant higher wind speeds, which most houses simply don't have. Grid Wind Turbines are both in high wind areas and high off the ground, making them much more useful. And third, when wind speed is good or easily accessible, it is FAR, FAR better than solar at that point.
The big downside for solar is that all of the power comes within an 8 hour period or less. If your home plugs up to the grid, then it isn't a big deal as you can just sell that power back. But if you are trying to go off-grid or your a grid operator, you either need to capture that energy or it's wasted. This means batteries and a lot of them. With your example of 1KW of solar, you would need nearly 4kwh of batteries to support it. Wind is more constant, so you only need a small battery to offset when the wind dips or you use more power at that moment than the wind is generating. Still, most homes simply won't be able to get enough constant wind energy to be worth it.
On a side note, we really need to start building out many more grid scale battery systems. When power needs are too high, grids currently ramp up peaker plants that are horrible. Yet during lower demand times, efficient power plants and renewables all either ramp down production or have their extra energy curtailed. Complete waste. And you don't need several days of extra power either. Just 4 hours of backup is more than enough.
I completely forgot about the battery issue, if you gotta need a large battery bank to be able to handle the wind fluctuations then for a regular home isn't worth it.
@@makatron You still need a decent size battery bank for wind power, but not as much as you need for solar. You mostly need batteries to cover peak power demand and daytime usage.
The sad thing is that wind and solar compliment each other extremely well. A large amount of power is needed when the sun is out, so that solar energy can go straight the home usage while charging the batteries for evening use. Wind can supplement the batteries during evening times when usage is higher than solar input. And then wind can cover nighttime power needs while recharge the batteries to cover early morning. With that setup, you only need a small bank of LFP batteries to cover evening hours (fluctuations and morning are too small in comparison).
@@anthonypelchat sometimes I wish I was actually rich enough to get off grid
@@makatron lol. Agreed, though sometimes it seems like it's easier if you're not rich. If you're rich, you buy a bunch of crap you don't need that uses a ton of power. If you can avoid those, you then need less solar/wind, less batteries, and smaller inverters.
I'm actually trying to plan something out for my household. We cannot do so at current usage levels. But I might be able to go mostly off-grid if I only move the 110v connections and leave the large 220v items on grid (central ac and dryer mainly). Slowly convert the house to heat pumps instead of central ac/heat. Move any additional 220v it's over well after, or go to a lower power solution.
@@anthonypelchat where I live we get almost 7 hours of avg peak sunlight so in the long run my plan is to put 12 kw pv system in half my flat roof that could even offset the cost of me having the AC running constantly.
I live in a very windy area so it has crossed my mind many times. We have much more wind than sun here. In fact my uncle made his own wind turbine back in the early 80s that he has had on his farm. I think it ended up being more of a hobby than anything that made financial sense. By the end he had 3 generators but they were often offline due to maintenance and repair problems
Good to hear of new developments in wind generation! Just recently had solar installed and we're happy with the energy. Had a slight issue when it was windy with one panel rattling, which I've had fixed since. It gave me the idea that what if under each panel there was a way of capturing the wind. Seems like future solar panels could be made to capture the wind as well with vents under each panel leading to a micro turbines. Not sure if this would be feasible, but worth an experiment.
I love this idea ... I've got too many irons in the fire but otherwise I would definitely look into a solution like this. 👏
Please keep us updated on this topic, cheers.
👍
Shame on architects who have failed to design buildings, particularly skyscrapers, with wind generators built into the corners. It's not as if they were unaware of the incredible power of winds against the sides of the buildings. They've been forced to design specialized mounting systems for windows to resist the tremendous suction generated against the sides. Maybe they lack imagination, or perhaps financial incentive.
If you could make a dream, self sufficient home on 1 acre of land, what systems would you want? i.e. Roof of solars, Green House with aquaponics, a windmill/windfall for more power and well pumping, with a geothermal for heating.
Mine would use solar thermal water-heating and sterling- engine electricity, an ice reservoir for literally storing cold at night, rain-capture water-storage for pressure and any task needing water just short of potable, and airspace allowing, an aerostat parafoil to catch the wind and turn propeller-generators for more power, with pumped water energy storage.
That depends largely on where you live.
There is no one-fits-all solution to this question.
@@thorndelwyn6528 I just know what I'd go for- stuff I could more easily design and maintain if needed
@@thorndelwyn6528 right?! I shoulda added that. A Fijord vs Woods vs Desert and so on.
Could you do a video on small scale hydro power for ocean side or river/creek side properties? I think that could be more cost effective because of the higher energy density that water has with respect to wind. Although it's rare to see it because of the location restrictions.
Matt could you link to the info that helped you determine the grams of Co2 per KwH for the power sources? I've always wanted your videos to have better quotation on your sources cause I'd like to seek them out
Yes! Yes! Me too! So hard to get a complete answer on net carbon cost of the various energy generation strategies.
ENERGY AUDIT --- BTU in (to produce, maintain, operate, and decommission/repurpose/recycle the generating installation) vs BTU out (what the installation generates over its lifetime).
CARBON AUDIT --- Total carbon released to produce, maintain, operate, and decommission/repurpose/recycle the "green" generating installation vs that released by production, maintenance, operation, and decommissioning of fossil fuel burning ones.
@@miaokuancha2447 The energy audit I think is primarily what the LCOE calculation considers when discussing cost per Kw/hr -- Carbon audit idk
@@cooper1507 Thank you! As far as I can tell, the LCOE calculations I have seen measure the costs in dollars -- not in BTU / Kwh, and not in carbon or climate impact. (But my sources are not very deep, so if anyone has better info, I welcome with open arms!!)
Measuring cost in terms of dollars invested vs dollars returned is what has shaped the extractive and cost-externalizing energy paradigms that have brought us to the climate catastrophes displacing and killing people in sacrifice zones around the world. Even measuring dollars invested vs reduction of carbon emitted by operating strategy A vs operating strategy B misses a great deal of the actual carbon (and therefore climate) costs incurred.
Living bodies have a built-in audit: if we do not balance nutrition to need, the body sickens, weakens, and dies. Our planet is showing us this audit in all of the disruptions of fire and water and temperature, and what lives and what dies and where. If we can turn our measurements and accounting to auditing the climate-critical metrics directly, rather than filtering them through financial metrics, I feel we will be better able to make choices for life instead of death. Or at very least, know the real cost.
Turbines are also a good way for the hobbiest to get into renewable energy. With $100 of 3d printer filament and a $20 alternator from an old generator, I built a vertical axis windmill that typically makes around 400 Watts but peaks at around 1200 Watts. A similar producing turbine costs around $1800 to buy.
With power costs here in the UK at the time I built it, I worked out that I would need it to run for 480 hrs to pay for its self. It ran non stop for 6 months before a storm caused a catastrophic, unintended, rapid disassembly.
I'm off grid, with a solar array that can charge our roughly 2days of battery storage before noon on a clear day. The problem with solar is clouds, and it's generally more windy when they're denser, so wind seems like a good supplement. Thank you for the sobering video.
Feasibility of home wind turbines scenario definitely depends on the area where you live. Ireland could be a great place, considering also the absence of sun pretty much all year long. Ebro's valley in Spain is also a place where wind blows like 300 days a year, also during night time where solar doesn't produce (as a matter of fact the area is full of industrial wind turbines). Price and legislation in this cases are the key for me.
Writing from Ireland, I agree in part. I live in a coastal location ideally orientated for a ridge turbine, as the prevailing winds in these islands are South-Westerlies.
I cannot get any feedback from Ridgeblade, and assume they are out of business.
Instead I am looking at air source heat pumps. The temperature here rarely drops to zero.
We get lots of sun in Ireland, but also lots of rain. That's good for PV, as it keeps the panels clean and cool. It is not California, but solar is as viable here as in the northern US.
We live in San Francisco and in our precise location we get verrrrry little sun but and a relentless amount of wind. This was a really helpful video, and I think in a few years our house may actually be in the small minority of homes that would benefit from wind power and not from solar as long as we aren't depending on it alone.
Great video as always Matt. I think this really highlights how broken energy pricing is. Carbon emissions are basically free to the emitter, but massively expensive for society as a whole. In any sane world, this would be priced-in for the emitter as a carbon tax, forcing them to pay the real, actual cost of every watt they consume. The fact that climate impact is *not* priced-in to grid power amounts to a massive national coal subsidy; you pay for the energy, someone else will pay to build a sea wall in Manhattan. Small-scale wind can't compete with subsidized coal, but it might compete with unsubsidized coal.
Agree. Consider though that all materials have an embedded CO2 production cost, which is currently not paid by the consumer (nor producer of course). If your goal with a local wind turbine is to cut down on CO2 production, the calculation becomes very difficult, because that wind turbine required energy to dig, refine the materials, produce, assemble and transport etc. There isn't any easy way to measure just how much energy that all used, but we can confidently assume (at the moment) that it was all done with fossil fuels - and the larger the device, the more CO2 was released in creating it. My guess is that whatever the financial payback period is, you should double it to account for the original carbon cost (utility scale production of power is nearly always MUCH less carbon intensive than local production).
And what would that tax even do?
There is no method for extraction of carbon that’s viable, so those dollars would do what exactly? Funnel more money to an ineffective federal government to waste?
I don’t think a carbon tax is a good idea at all.
@@JohnBrowningsGhost well then you're an idiot. Try googling "how a carbon tax works" I'm not replying here again
Absolutely not; why should individuals pay extra tax for no reason? It is not our fault gov refuses to allow widespread nuclear power plants (the safest, cleanest, cheapest power source)... emissions from transportation is only 15% of all emissions thus a non issue, why should ppl pay extra fees over nothing? Also every EV and renewable company is only focused on profit margins not cost effective solutions; instead of tesla offering ev conversion kits for gas cars they only want ppl to buy their over priced impractical cars... obvious fact is nobody cares about emissions or cost effectiveness but rather sjw politics... Germany shut down all its nuclear power plants to switch to "renewables" thus made it absolutely dependent of rus oil/gas...
Adding wind generation into the existing mix of solar generation is a must for many countries especially Australia where energy price during peak time (in the evening and early mornings) are high and solar feed in tariffs are ever reducing to the point where any excess solar you feed back into the grid during the day will no longer be enough to cover the cost of your usage during peak time. So an alternate generation such as wind can further help reduce the cost.
I am living on a countryside in North-East Poland where wind is blowing almost constantly (a lot of flat area around, wind has space to speed up), and sometimes it gets strong enough to turn over garden furniture. I have solar panels, which covers my home energy consumption, but there is 1 more thing that isn’t covered: heating the house.
Our winters are kinda cold and solar panels fail to produce a lot at that time (short days), so I am burning coal/wooden pellets, which is fairly fine, but recent events in Ukraine made the coal price go up by almost 400%, thus am thinking of using something that could generate some energy at winter times.
I have seen couple of projects of Savonius VAWTs with outer wind deflectors, directing wind always on the catching side so it doesn’t blow against the turning turbine (which is one of main factors of low efficiency). My idea was to make a turbine like that based on DC motor, that would heat up the water in the big buffer tank, to be used for house heating. Placing that close to the ground would still catch a lot of wind and would make the maintenance easier (accessible from the ground).
Could anybody confirm my considerations? Would it be realistic? I would obviously start with measuring the wind over a longer period to verify the speed and then design a small’ish prototype, but would be handy if somebody with higher aerodynamic knowledge could give some thoughts on it. Would also greatly appreciate more videos about that topic @Matt Ferrell :).
Thanks!
Only through continued development and testing can we see meaningful results. Your video of the various Wind Generators was fascinating and thought provoking. Great job. It appear to me that ridge top wind power generation could be the most attractive as well as effective. With Solar Panels do we have facilities to recycle or dispose of the ones that have ended their useful life cycle? I personally am in favor of 'at location' power generation for every home and business. We need to preserve farm land for food and livestock production. An army indeed marches on its stomach; so does civilizations. Wind and water in my opinion are by far the most effective and sustainable power solutions unless we produce enough methane from animal and human manure.
Again,Very knowledgeable and well explained video. Will u make similar kinda video on concentrated solar thermal vs solar PV for the residential/small scale use? Combination of solar thermal and Stirling engine seems very promising, & have some clear advantages over a pv like low initial cost, higher efficiency and thermal storage for night usage.
I'm usually suspicious of home-scale wind power on account of the inherent way wind generation works: having the wind apply work over the surface area of the generating system. Most of these concepts, even the ones with working models, don't usually address this inherent issue, and they end up being significantly less efficient than a large turbine due to their small surface area. That said, I'm particularly impressed with the ridge turbine for using the slope of the roof to add surface area to the system to force more air through the turbine. It's a solution that's so deliciously simple, you wonder why you didn't think of that. The fact that they have working models and even ones that are going for sail is just the cherry on top. Still don't think it can replace home-level solar, but with the majority of the roof left to place solar panels on, they're definitely a reasonable addition.
11:14 take this roof-turbine and install it on each of the edges of buildings vertically. Walls are usually bigger "sails" than roofs and such application works better with different wind azimuths.
I considered wind turbine electrical generation for my home over 40 years ago. Even back then, for a DIY install, it just wasn't $$$ feasible. Now today, many towns simply will not issue a permit, sighting complaints from neighbors and architectural "conformity" . In rural areas, if there are any left, they can be complimentary to solar and commercial power generation, but the payback time to break-even is considerable.
Thank you for the interesting videos, Matt. It would be very interesting to hear about the combination of solar panels and a gravity storage tower for a private house or cooperative. Do such solutions even exist for small scales?
We have the means to quite easily generate the energy now but storing it in a good way, now that's interesting!
What about the whole life cycle of those? The rare earths materials needed for solar panels and how they're recycled or not after usage versus the wind turbine materials ? Do you have any info or sources about that aspect ? Thanks for your work, always food for thought 😉
Very nice presentation Matt and team! Wind is an awesome compliment to solar. Great to see some nice innovation in the industry! But IMHO solutions/designs/implementations will need time to be field tested for best designs and practices to be proven, so it's still early in the home wind solution space. And like anything to do with engineering, the answer is always: It depends :)
yes, once more money is pumped into wind energy, we will reap the reward. good point Chuck
Wind has been around for years. I know of several farmers that made their own units by refurbishing the old style water pump wind mills with lighter blade assemblies. Several went so far to use higher amperage truck alternators to charge batteries for power. Wind is locational in usage and efficency. It would not be as useful in big cities BUT it is very efficient in the great plains states. Solar, Wind, and geothermal all offer pieces of the puzzle for clean energy.
I like the ideal of wind power over solar. Solar drawbacks are:
1. You still have to be hook up to the grid in an urban environment.
2. If the electric company’s grid goes down, even though you have panels on your house, you’ll have no electricity.
3. Most contractors do not insure you from roof leaks, due to the panels. Roof leaks are sure to happen once the sealant gives out. With constant sun high heat, sooner than later.
4. You void the warranty of your roof, by punching holes in it for the panel installation.
5. Solar panels technology is constantly changing, leaving your system obsolete in five years, before you can even pay it off.
6. Constant dirt and debris, makes a solar panel that you can’t reach, to constantly clean off, inefficient.
There are pit falls on both sides of the isle. Do your research, before spending your money.
🔥 *Thanks Matt, this was an excellent and practical comparison of solar to wind and the differences of generators.* _Keep making content like this to help people make smart choices!_
Plant!
Good morning Matt! I have considered this and looking forward on your take
Curious to hear your thoughts after the video.
@@UndecidedMF Sorry for the late reply. I was on a date with the wife. First off, I also noticed the lack of real choice in the DIY market unlike solar. The real problem I see is the return on investment time-line. My area we are prone to hurricanes but I have a 3 story cement building and I was considering mounting to the building. Again the selection of quality seems to be a very limiting factor.
Recently I installed a battery backup system with the ability to add panels as soon as my area has stock again. I was able to build a 30kw battery myself from raw cells.
Great video and I will look up some of your ideas when I get back from vacation. Thanks Matt 😊.
Matt, you make the best videos! This was very enlightening. I really hope someone develops the right wind technology for residential use, as the combination of wind and solar power can truly shits us off of fossil fuels!
*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 buy a small wind turbine for the winter.
*With solar modules, on the other hand, reliably generate electricity for 25 years at approx. 3-10 cent/kWh!
We have been using wind power for a long time now. It seems to be better used mechanically though, think windmills pumping water. On a remote site it doesn't male sense to install a windmill and have it produce electricity to run a pump as needed. Instead you have it run the pump and just put a large reservoir and pump water when the wind blows and the reservoir does the watering when its still. There can be a lot of utility in using wind power, but it tends to be much more site and situation specific. You cant just buy a wind kit and make it functional everywhere with some slight modifications like you can with solar. Its the Linux of renewables. Much less user friendly, but if it fits your situation and you can learn it then its near impossible to beat.
it take him 10 min to come ro the subject......
Thanks to YT i just found this video. We, in Switzerland, are currently retrofitting PV to the house; issues I have with this idea:
a) it will only produce solar-power in summer; in winter, it's just too dark here (sadly, not enough wind to use a horizontal wind turbine)
b) storage of the surplus-energy produced in summer during sunlight is expensive as F and will not "hold" forever (Li-Ion or LiFePo4 - both will lose capability of saving energy enventually)
c) offgrid-solutions are almost impossible and even more expensive to implement: solar-inverters will only work if external grid is available. with freshly announced timed brownouts here, the best PV-setup will not give you power, even for "emergency circuits".
AND THIS is also an issue with windturbines: they only produce energy when there's enough wind; if you want to save surplus-energy, solutions are not viable enough, and going offgrid is ...easy to do if your other means of providing energy are done with fuel-generators due to living somewhere in the outback...
As much as i like the new concepts of the horizontal wind turbines:
I would appreciate a "not so expensive" and durable way to save energy; bc this could be retrofitted to ANY house with or without PV/Turbine, so "smart charging" could charge the batterys when power is least expensive, to reduce the cost for the owner, AND to reduce the costs of not-so-enviromental-friendly means of energyproductions during "no wind" and "no light"-scenarios...
Here in the UK residential wind turbines aren't really feasible for anyone who doesn't have a ton of land. However there are initiatives for shared-ownership wind farms where individuals buy capital to fund the installation of a multi-MW wind farm and then receive a percentage of the generation for the lifetime of the project. It's an idea that's gathering momentum as it doesn't tie you to one property either
Some of us are limited by solar with existing structures like dormer windows on the roof or not ideal orientation of the roof. Despite what we are told about angles, I have solar panel on my gable wall on my house. Hugely increasing my solar panels area and very little difference in output. We need to start covering our outside walls in solar. That windwall you showed, I'm currently building a fence using the same idea . A row of vertical turbines encased in a fence frame. (Many thanks to Robert Murray smiths channel and TNT) look how much fencing you have around your home. Quite a lot of lineal length. So even small amounts will add up. We need to start looking at our homes as a power plant. Where can we squeeze power out of our home, through wind, solar rain power, gravity power, any little amount as long as it doesn't cost a fortune to get 10 watts. it all adds up.
Also, I don't know if it is different there in the USA, but in some places, it's not possible to install a wind turbine for fauna protection reasons. About the windspeed, it is worth mentioning that even 5 m/s at the height that micro and pico wind turbine systems are usually mounted it's really hard to reach in most places, without considering the fact that at lower height turbulence is more common too. Before considering a windturbine I would consider to take a good anemometer and collect data for about an year in the position you intend to place it and make your consideration on that. Also there are many software that will help you estimate the annual production of the system once you've inserted the data you collected, not to mention the type of windturbine, cut-ina and cut-off are important but also check the Power diagram to understand where you more common windspeed fall, it makes a big difference
I have a lake house on Lake Huron located on the "windiest" county in Michigan. When we built it in 2012, we included two towers to house wind turbines. We are still waiting for inexpensive turbines, affordable energy storage, etc. Neither we, nor our neighbors, are typically present during the "off-season," October through May. When we did the math, the payback was over thirty years. We will act when the economics change.
Some of the costs of the installation for both solar and wind will be the infrastructure to manage the generated power. If you install both types, you will only need one cost for the infrastructure, so that will result in a certain amount of savings. It makes more sense to me to plan to utilize both if you want any kind of reliable off grid power generation. Studies have also shown that wind power, mainly in the VAWT as far as I am aware, have significantly increased efficiency when they are installed in a group format. This is all with the understanding that anyone that plans to use wind needs to be aware of the average wind speeds at their location. It is something that would need to be considered if you are planning on building a home and have a few choices of property to purchase to build it on.
Why anybody would install a rotating weight anywhere near structural elements of their home is beyond me… the noise carried to your living spaces is a showstopper.
I currently line in Fairfield, Ca where we can get at least a breeze of a few mph on 95% plus of days. I think that if you could find a small, yet efficient wind turbine and pair it with solar and a home battery pack (ex: Tesla Powerwall) it could make a decent 1-2 punch. I mainly see wind turbines “take over” power production from solar especially during nighttime or during times of severe overcast where solar cannot produce power or is very minuscule. Living on a coast or near a highway/large road or even a train line could also help produce some extra energy