Home owned windmills are almost a total waste. Its surprising how little electricity they generate especially given how much the cost to buy and install. Some real numbers. A 400w can cost almost $18k to buy and install. A 410w solar solar panel is about $250 + $3k of supporting electronics and parts. And that same $3k can support 10+ more panels. I looked into it myself really wanted it to be worth it for home, but it just isn’t. Now utility grade wind? Absolutely worth it. You need absolutely giant windmills with massive towers, but once you have those, you can make a LOT of electricity very cost effectively.
Solar panels worth it? Yes. Absolutely.
Batteries, not quite there yet for most folks. Batteries are really expensive, and don’t hold very much electricity $10k-$15k can get you a few hours of light or moderate home use capacity. For folks with really expensive electricity rates or very unreliable power this can be worth it financially, but for most every else. Cheaper chemistry batteries are finally starting to be produced (Sodium Ion), but we’re right at the beginning of these and there not really any consumer products for home made from these yet.
Yeah, right now end of life EV batteries are great for making your own power storage but that’s a level of diy beyond what 95% of people are willing or able to do
What’s infuriating is that we had electric cars before ICE powered cars. 1899. If we would’ve been investing money and effort into research for battery technology since then, we wouldn’t have this problem. Salt batteries, solid state batteries, and other promising tech is in it’s infancy because we just started to take this seriously as a society like 10 years ago.
Better late than never but it grinds my gears that the best argument against solar and wind is power storage requirements due to unpredictable power generation. Like this is an extremely solvable problem.
Yeah, right now end of life EV batteries are great for making your own power storage but that’s a level of diy beyond what 95% of people are willing or able to do
End of life EV batteries are great for grid-scale operators doing power storage, but I highly recommend against homeowners use them this way. Not just because they are complex DIY projects as you point out, but because the EV batteries that are aging out of car use are NMC chemistry. These are great for high density power storage, which you want in a car, but they are susceptible to thermal runaway if they get too hot. The original Tesla Powerwall and Powerwall 2 also used these same chemistry batteries. I wouldn’t want these in my house. However, in a utility grid scale? Sure, they won’t be anywhere near people so in the unlikely event they do catch fire its a property problem, not a lost human life problem.
I understand your concern, I totally agree that the volatility isn’t ideal, but putting it in a steel box outside your house isn’t that beyond the scope for a diy-er. Envision it the same way a generac sits outside and ties in to your house but with a safe enough enclosure.
As long as you check the cells you use when you deconstruct the car battery it should be fine. All the projects I watch online they don’t even need the liquid cooling system that it utilized when it was in the car because the discharge rate is so far below the C rating the battery that they don’t generate great like when they are in cars
I understand that cell could go bad though at any time, so the box is necessary imo
Ahh I get it now. You have no idea what you’re talking about. You have the smallest understanding of something and assume that is everything. You’re so very far away from understanding the practical applications and limits. You’re also clearly not interested in learning, so I’ll leave you to your impractical delusions.
Did you not look at the specs on that product? It only produces energy when winds are above 7mph and don’t actually hit the rated output unless the winds are almost 35mph.
Almost none of the country averages an amount of wind power per square meter equivalent to the rating on home turbines at 10 meters above ground level (yellow and red on this map):
Chiming in on this… Installed home energy in Europe. Close to the coast, so rather windy. Rather far to the north, so not that sunny. Home solar usually pays for itself after 6 to 10 years, with installations usually being guaranteed to last 20 and of course usually lasting even longer. Home wind is a niche that doesn’t pay for itself within the lifetime of the turbine. You’re always better off just installing more solar and more storage unless you’re building a 200m high wind power plant that essentially always generates enough energy for a small city. We opted for a solar solution with about 10 kWh storage and an energy management system that charges the battery during the winter when prices are low (usually at night when the large turbines nearby are running). The turbines can’t compete with ordinary energy pricing, they sure as hell can’t compete with a system that grabs electricity at its cheapest from the grid. It’s just not worth it.
The low wind needed to operate this wind turbine is great for people trying to live off-grid or camping. With stronger winds, the wind turbine can produce more power for your home or trailer. However, the manufacturer recommends not to use this turbine in areas that have turbulent wind conditions often.
Source: https://houseandbeyond.org/best-home-wind-turbine
Lets be generous and assume that the blades of your turbine are 1 square meter.
Looking at the map, we can see that the entire Seattle area has an average ground level wind energy density of maybe 50 watts per square meter.
Assuming that the windmill is twice as efficient as every other windmill and can extract 70% of that wind energy, we can estimate that your windmill will output roughly 35 watts of energy on average, enough to slow-charge a laptop, for a total of about 25 kWh per month.
The average American home uses more than 850 kWh per month, so it’d need at least 35 of these twice-as-good-as-normal windmills. A more realistic figure would be “more than 75”.
75 * $320 = $24k, more than twice the price of the average solar install in the Seattle area.
Wait so the same people that can’t drop 500 USD for an emergency are expected to drop 300 USD for a wind turbine and provide the installation of it to boot is that right
Home owned windmills are almost a total waste. Its surprising how little electricity they generate especially given how much the cost to buy and install. Some real numbers. A 400w can cost almost $18k to buy and install. A 410w solar solar panel is about $250 + $3k of supporting electronics and parts. And that same $3k can support 10+ more panels. I looked into it myself really wanted it to be worth it for home, but it just isn’t. Now utility grade wind? Absolutely worth it. You need absolutely giant windmills with massive towers, but once you have those, you can make a LOT of electricity very cost effectively.
Solar panels worth it? Yes. Absolutely.
Batteries, not quite there yet for most folks. Batteries are really expensive, and don’t hold very much electricity $10k-$15k can get you a few hours of light or moderate home use capacity. For folks with really expensive electricity rates or very unreliable power this can be worth it financially, but for most every else. Cheaper chemistry batteries are finally starting to be produced (Sodium Ion), but we’re right at the beginning of these and there not really any consumer products for home made from these yet.
Yeah, right now end of life EV batteries are great for making your own power storage but that’s a level of diy beyond what 95% of people are willing or able to do
What’s infuriating is that we had electric cars before ICE powered cars. 1899. If we would’ve been investing money and effort into research for battery technology since then, we wouldn’t have this problem. Salt batteries, solid state batteries, and other promising tech is in it’s infancy because we just started to take this seriously as a society like 10 years ago.
Better late than never but it grinds my gears that the best argument against solar and wind is power storage requirements due to unpredictable power generation. Like this is an extremely solvable problem.
End of life EV batteries are great for grid-scale operators doing power storage, but I highly recommend against homeowners use them this way. Not just because they are complex DIY projects as you point out, but because the EV batteries that are aging out of car use are NMC chemistry. These are great for high density power storage, which you want in a car, but they are susceptible to thermal runaway if they get too hot. The original Tesla Powerwall and Powerwall 2 also used these same chemistry batteries. I wouldn’t want these in my house. However, in a utility grid scale? Sure, they won’t be anywhere near people so in the unlikely event they do catch fire its a property problem, not a lost human life problem.
I understand your concern, I totally agree that the volatility isn’t ideal, but putting it in a steel box outside your house isn’t that beyond the scope for a diy-er. Envision it the same way a generac sits outside and ties in to your house but with a safe enough enclosure.
As long as you check the cells you use when you deconstruct the car battery it should be fine. All the projects I watch online they don’t even need the liquid cooling system that it utilized when it was in the car because the discharge rate is so far below the C rating the battery that they don’t generate great like when they are in cars
I understand that cell could go bad though at any time, so the box is necessary imo
Oh yeah, super expensive. /s
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087BY2YV7/?
The first link that came up: https://www.bobvila.com/articles/best-home-wind-turbines/
Ahh I get it now. You have no idea what you’re talking about. You have the smallest understanding of something and assume that is everything. You’re so very far away from understanding the practical applications and limits. You’re also clearly not interested in learning, so I’ll leave you to your impractical delusions.
Oh I’m willing to learn. Explain it to me.
https://youtu.be/oiB1Sm_f48w
Did you not look at the specs on that product? It only produces energy when winds are above 7mph and don’t actually hit the rated output unless the winds are almost 35mph.
Almost none of the country averages an amount of wind power per square meter equivalent to the rating on home turbines at 10 meters above ground level (yellow and red on this map):
Compare to this map of average insolation:
It’s a hybrid solar and wind. Also, that’s why you have batteries for storage.
Why not skip the middleman and go straight solar, then?
For places like Seattle.
Look at Seattle and tell me which parts have enough wind power for your home windmill:
Chiming in on this… Installed home energy in Europe. Close to the coast, so rather windy. Rather far to the north, so not that sunny. Home solar usually pays for itself after 6 to 10 years, with installations usually being guaranteed to last 20 and of course usually lasting even longer. Home wind is a niche that doesn’t pay for itself within the lifetime of the turbine. You’re always better off just installing more solar and more storage unless you’re building a 200m high wind power plant that essentially always generates enough energy for a small city. We opted for a solar solution with about 10 kWh storage and an energy management system that charges the battery during the winter when prices are low (usually at night when the large turbines nearby are running). The turbines can’t compete with ordinary energy pricing, they sure as hell can’t compete with a system that grabs electricity at its cheapest from the grid. It’s just not worth it.
Lets be generous and assume that the blades of your turbine are 1 square meter.
Looking at the map, we can see that the entire Seattle area has an average ground level wind energy density of maybe 50 watts per square meter.
Assuming that the windmill is twice as efficient as every other windmill and can extract 70% of that wind energy, we can estimate that your windmill will output roughly 35 watts of energy on average, enough to slow-charge a laptop, for a total of about 25 kWh per month.
The average American home uses more than 850 kWh per month, so it’d need at least 35 of these twice-as-good-as-normal windmills. A more realistic figure would be “more than 75”.
75 * $320 = $24k, more than twice the price of the average solar install in the Seattle area.
So you’re revising your position previously stated position that wind is a great solutions for home power then?
Which part of Seattle is that 😇
I’m joshin ya! Curious though if there’s evidence parent commenter was wrong
Wait so the same people that can’t drop 500 USD for an emergency are expected to drop 300 USD for a wind turbine and provide the installation of it to boot is that right