Your Questions About Wind Turbine Generators For Home Use

admin answers:

They can’t and never will.

Since wind is unreliable and unpredictable, conventional generator plants have to be on constant standby for when the wind is calm. While on low efficient standby, they actually produce more CO2 than when in full high efficient operation.

Electricity can not be stored and has to be produced on demand. When the wind is calm, the coal and gas genertodrs have to be poised to power up in a minutes notice. Low power in the grid burns out motors and burns up equipment. Wind farms are being paid to shut down in Scottland and Germany, as well as other countries because wind urbines are unpredictable and are causing undervoltage and overvoltage problems since the wind is variable and unpredictable.

It only costs about $0.02 per KWH to generate (not including transmission and maintenance costs) for coal, and about $0.03 per KWH for gas. Wind turbines cost about $2.40 per KWH to generate power. We are already paying about 10% more for electricity to pay for the expensive wind turbines, and if more are used, electric rates will go even higher, like gasoline prices. We should only be paying about $1.80 per gallon for gasoline.

Since CO2 is now classified as a pollutant, we all need to stop breathing, and eliminate all animals on the planet, according to what the the ideologists are telling us.

Wind turbines have other flaws, as well as solar electric panels. I am a contractor and have turbines large enough to power 4500 homes or more, so I know all the problems with them that the government and ideologists are not telling us. It is all about eco-guilt and not much to do with real problems and solutions.

admin answers:

Hey Joesh, wind turbines come in all different sizes, but your biggest variable here is the rate at which those batteries will accept a charge. Typical car batteries will have a capacity of around 60 amp hours. If you had a 60 amp charger, or turbine, in theory you can completely charge that battery in one hour, but you can never get power into a battery that fast without damaging it. A good rule of thumb is not to charge your battery in less than 5 hours if it is completely discharged. A couple car batteries might hold 120 amp hours, which means anything that puts out more than 30 amps is oversized. You can take a larger than needed turbine and use a charge controller to keep from charging the batteries too fast, but that is like using an indy 500 race car to haul a camping trailer, most of the capability of your turbine would be wasted. The best thing is to get a turbine that is just big enough, or maybe a little undersized, to do the job. For 100 to 150 amp hours of 12 volt batteries, I would suggest something in the 200 to 300 watt range, like a Southwest Windpower Air 303. They cost just a few hundred dollars, are designed to work on a sailboat to keep the boat batteries charged, and they have their own internal charge controller. So you just mount one on top of a 1 and 1/2 inch diameter conduit pipe, then connect the two wires from the turbine straight to the batteries. We used one for a couple years here at our remote cabin, but later upgraded to a larger World Power Technologies 900 watt unit. There are lots of other turbines on the market that can do that job for you, just remember that even the best turbine will not pan out if you do not have good wind, or a tall enough tower to get to the wind above the tree tops.

There are some great places to learn more about this if you’re interested, but I’m curious, have you considered solar? Solar panels are so much easier to use, install and wire up, and they never need maintenance, you can take my word on this, I’ve had both for over 11 years now. A solar panel is basically a battery charger, they deliver their rated amperage when the sun shines, no more, so in a sense they are self regulating. If you really want to get up to speed on this stuff, get a sub to Home Power Magazine, we did 12 years ago, now our home is completely powered by the wind and sun.

If you get frustrated by all the numbers thrown around, remember that watts is voltage times amps. So a 300 watt wind turbine that runs at 12 volts will put out 25 amps at full power, 25 X 12 = 300. Solar panels are basically the same animal, but they are all usuallly set for 18 volts to charge a 12 volt battery, so a 36 watt panel will actually put out 2 amps in full sun, 36 divided by 18 volts is 2 amps. Hope this helps, take care, Rudydoo