I’ve just discovered these guys are working on a similar idea to myself. kind of beating myself too it. You know your on the right path when you find reassuring new like this. I’m not sure if this is adaptable for awes but it is encouraging. Micro scale power generation. Is within reach. There also responsible for the wind wall idea. Robert Murray-Smith investigated.
Can you see the max wind speed for the RB1 Residential? Im having trouble with the web page.
With this number, the local wind, and the price of electricity and the unit, you could calculate how long an installation needs to return its own investment.
A heat exhange heater will provide investment parity after 5 years and lasts approx 15 years (in Norway).
As most houses have grid electricity, that windmill must calculate as beneficial or close to that…
I emailed them. Asking for more deals. No reply so far. However
It covered by many on YouTube and this is just one example.
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I thimk 2 kW for five of these says a lot. They must surely be €1000 a piece, and five of them would be a considerable investment…
Uk electricity bills a have skyrocketed. My folks tend to pay 2500k on electricity each year. If it is a once of payment thats value for money. If running cost like bearing, rotors and coils maintenance. are taken into account. It still be cheaper in the long run. I’m not sure if it come with a maintenance package? Covered under warranty for x amount of years while in operation. 15 years is about normal for these kinds of things. 20-30 years would be a fantastic deal.
But it would depend on materials stresses. At some point the rotor vains will become too thin to be safe. Ablative erosion being the main factor. Over the operating lifecycle. Then you have insurance to consider. if that’s something you will want?
€1000 per unit isn’t all that bad. if you consider the extras? that will have to be in place due to consumer laws. If you spend 5k and save yourself 100000k in the long run it is a good deal. I agree it high outlay investment. it is where you place your money that counts! After all We are to that which we give. Its one of the better examples of home power generation I’ve seen in awhile. 2kw on your roof seam like a good deal to me. Considering the average home uses 2500kwh per annum.
Electricity prices are likely to not remain so high as long as cheaper options readily exist
Yes this is true. As long as there are cheaper option, we could see a paradigm shift if energy production. Then it what am I using it for? Main appliance in the home fridge, washing machine, cookers. Heaters. Communication. Thats the bare minimum. Then it is the hot water, which is about a third of all the bill. I know some might like the idea of going native. having a hot water coil in a rocket stove… but you still have the cost of biomass fuels to deal with. It is why Britain only has about 1/4 of it original forest. Due to charcoal production. If you can grow your own hazel and willow. then you may have a chance of slashing that bill to mere 100s. it a opportunity one that dare not be missed. Provided production cost dont impede access to the population. preventing access to a larger market.and sales. If Cost could be slashed by 2/3rds? it only leaving intial cost to begin with. Most folk I know might jump at that. Considering money is tight.
I’ve always agreed that the ridge would focus wind energy, but I can tell you from years of experience, this is going nowhere, and yes, you are correct that your ideas are at a similar level of ineffectiveness. I wouldn’t get too excited.
I see it more as a sign post. Sure there’s much to be desired. Not all roofs face the same direction. Just a mere hopeful in a litany of designs. In some cases guide rails will be needed. To direct prevailing winds. In to the rotor blades. One the better designs I’ve seen in a long time. Though after messaging them and getting no response. It might be more of a sun dance and a wish fart away. Its hopefull contender, I just pray they got some substance. Rather than flashy neon signs saying please stop here. Excited sure! but also wary that it might not pan out.
Yeah a sign post saying “wrong way - turn back”.
I agree, it “looks” like a compelling design. Checks a lot of the right boxes. Unfortunately it also checks a few of the wrong boxes:
- The “vertical-axis-type” (in this case we can call it “cross-axis”) turbines,
- The rooftop mounting…
To wind newbies, rooftop mounting “seems” like a no-brainer.
Rooftop mounting indeed appears quite attractive.
People, especially wind newbies, almost always like rooftop-mounting.
Seasoned potatoes - er um I mean wind people, on the other hand, usually try to steer people away from rooftop mounting. As much of a slam-dunk as rooftop mounting seems like it should be, find one successful example.
Just imagine - every newbie wants to use rooftop mounting, yet you can’t find a single successful example… Hmmmm…
Well, it’s possible they all just ruin it with a cross-axis turbine, right?
(Professor Crackpot always ruins any good invention by adding bad features - why? He’s nuts!)
Then again look at the rooftop turbines installed at Logan Airport in Boston.
Regular horizontal-axis rotors. Still didn’t work out.
I think they were removed long ago.
twenty years ago the big story was the new world trade center building would feature wind turbines. Paul Gipe and I both said “No it won’t”. Who was right?
I had a rooftop turbine installed on a concrete block industrial building with steel framing.
Worked OK, but even though it was mounted on rubber pads, the noise still permeated the building. Then the building owner made us take it down. A wood-frame house is like a giant acoustic guitar body. A wind turbine is like the strings. Any attempt to put a turbine on a house gets “wifed”. That’s when the wife says “take it down!”.
I’ll wait to hear back after you’ve found the rooftop wind energy installation that is operating on a daily basis that everyone is happy with… Out of 7 billion people, there has to be one, right? Right???..
Fair point. No one wants a sleep deprived psychotic wife. That’s like being strung up by your nutsack. No guy wants that in his life. Quickest road to divorce and race to the bottom. Directed noise cancelling sound proofing still going to hard to sell. Even to the most determined of enthusiasts. If airports and former WTC decide nope. I wonder what spoiled it? Oh it noisy. It transfers too much vibration to the superstructure. like you said its a long list. Just a shame it don’t tick more boxes. As it would be more widely used. Or widely recommend. It has it challenges. If it can avoid being nuked by the wife’s of suburbia. The Viability goes up. By a factor of 4. Round where I am the neighbours would be the main problem. Envy or jealousy might do it in, in the end. It only take one of the to turn on you and problems. Over coming those hurdle would be the hardest part. Noise complaint and you have you local authority breathing down your neck. They are none too kind. Got some reading up to do if I find something i let you know.
SuperTurbine ™ has all the characteristics required to be installed on a roof. Multiple units can allow each unit to self-compensate for vibration.
Yes, it’s true. Just pointing out, rooftop mounting sounds like a slam-dunk, but so far has not worked out. In the case of the SuperTwin™ we installed, it worked OK, but the owner made us take it down before we got to the point of taking any data. I do not recall if it ever received any strong winds before we had to remove it. I think it was during the off-season.
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I had preached the false to know the true.
What I see here is one more case of “paralysis by analysis”, where people would rather sit around trying to figure out how to make everything into some complex math problem, often without really taking into account some of the most basic aspects of wind energy. Yes laddermill should have somewhere near zero tether drag compared to kite-reeling. I don’t see where that requires any math to figure out. Just one more reason why I’ve been disappointed that nobody ever built a laddermill after all that fanfare. I mean, if laddermill was not a good idea, then why did we celebrate Ockels in the first place? Just to keep the name laddermill for something else? I seems to me that immediate;ly degenerating into math-land rather than just building a crappy laddermill, then a better one, then a still better one, was the first mistake. Oh sure, rather than 100 wings going in a continuous loop, let’s just use one wing - it will be easier. Meanwhile we can sit around scratching our heads doing math problems to rationalize never building that first laddermill. As I’ve said from day-one, this field is pathetic in that nobody has ever even tried some of the simplest configurations. Oh well, some people would rather sit around at their computers trying to apply various mathematical formulas than get into a shop and build things. I’ve designed, built, and sold, many wind turbines, and a few AWE experiments, including generators and airfoils, and I don’t think my math has ever gone beyond simple arithmetic and knowing a few basic facts. You quickly get to the point where all you need is for things to “look right” and they work. I say “step away from the computer”. Cleanse your brain of all that debilitating math, get creative, use your hands, and get something running. You can do all the math you want, and you will miss one thing, and your machine will fly apart. That is when you start actually figuring things out.
Well doing mind experiments is way more effective use of time than building stuff. The analysis I just did gave some indications of where we would like to be heading.
You can improve incrementally, but if the physics are not sound, you can not prevail in the end.
No comparison to myself, but I read today that Betz did not produce a single physical device, still was hugely influential.
Paralysis exists, but this is not it. Also did I mention my day job involves building and flying AWE rigs? That does not prevent me from thinking about AWE physics, nor does it slow me/us down
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OK but if you are doing backflips on paper, to try to compare a kite to a wind turbine blade, and do not even take into account the fact that a generator is slowing the blades of a wind turbine, then what good is all that gibberish?
On the other hand, I did enjoy reading your links to Kitemill’s progress, and it seems like Kitemill is making decent gains, unlike most of the other kite-reeling efforts.
do not even take into account the fact that a generator is slowing the blades of a wind turbine
That was an error that was subsequently fixed. So if that ends the discussion over doing calculations over building stuff, you are not really having a fair conversation, rather just wasting time trying to win an argument
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Well good to correct it, but it’s just an example of people not understanding how wind energy even works at the simplest level, yet spending all day mathematically analyzing and postulating over stuff that either makes no sense, or leads nowhere. Out of all the papers written, presentations made, conferences had, in-depth analyses, CAD simulations, renderings, postulations advanced, etc., which one has turned out to yield any success? I’d take an ounce of focused effort that leads somewhere, over a ton of misguided busywork, handwaving, and happy-talk that leads nowhere.
Hi Doug, the difficulty is that a “crosswind” AWES is not intended to be only a wind turbine, but also a tethered drone flying in 3D in the end of a long tether, using a lot of artificial intelligence (AI). Mathematics are useful to improve the control among other things. One wrong equation and you end up with an AWES in your house.