Random ramblings warning…

In these energy-expensive times, there’s clearly a lot of focus on saving money.

We’re lucky enough to have solar installed by the previous owners, but another resource we are rarely short of at the top of our hill is wind.

From a quick Google, ‘proper’ 240V turbines are ££££, and massive. However, 12v ones, the kind you get on canal boats and the like, are much cheaper and much smaller.

So, I could charge some leisure battery-type batteries using wind, but then what use, domestically, is that? Charging of phones, bike lights etc I suppose. Lighting in outbuildings maybe. None of that is really game-changery in terms of costs though, but does every little help?

Hive-mind me, hive-mind

I’ve been looking and wind/solar to power a wifi node and garage lighting at ours. I think what you need is a 240v inverter from a 12v system.

You can get a setup which charges and stores in 12v leisure batteries and an inverter to give 240v ‘relatively’ cheaply. I’m sure if you know what you’re doing you can probably source the parts yourself even cheaper.

My options are tap a cable that’s on a fused spur to add on another spur for the garage (probably far from ideal) or get a setup like this.

You can get electricity tariffs that pretend to get all their energy from renewables, and you can get tariffs that actually do. I’d go with one of those. Personally I don’t think it would be worth the faff, but maybe just for the personal satisfaction.

I had the same thoughts as IHN. After some searching, I concluded that as nobody I could find sells a package of small wind turbine + 240V inverter, it’s not cost effective (or wasn’t at last year’s electricity prices). You can only have one wind turbine, I think no higher than your roof, without planning permission. So I would only consider it if I had a use for 12V DC, such as LED lighting in a shed.

I found this, regs-wise (in England)

In England, wind turbines require planning permission, unless they fall under the following categories, in which case their installation may be classed as ‘permitted development’, for which planning permission is not required.

For all wind turbines, the following criteria must be met:

There must be no other wind turbine or air source heat pump on the property
The bottom of the turbine’s blades must be at least 5m from the ground
The turbine site must not be in a Conservation Area, World Heritage site, or in the grounds of a listed building

For building-mounted turbines, the following criteria must be met:

The property must be detached
The top of the turbine’s blades must be no more than 3m above the top of the property, or 15m above the ground
The turbines must be located at least 5m from the edge of the property

For pole-mounted turbines:

The top of the turbine must be no more than 11.1m above the ground
The turbine must be at least 1.1 times of its own height away from the edge of the landowner’s land

5m from neighbours property? Well there goes the idea of mounting it on the back wall, which is 1m from the neighbouring field.

Bookmarked.
In exactly the same position. Existing solar array. No battery storage. Here’s my thinking (it’s probably way off the mark). I’m assuming your existing PV is tied into the grid, so what’s stopping using the existing inverter via a timed control panel for the turbine? Making it possible to generate solar PV during the day then once the sun has gone, switch over to wind to generate power to run those night time power usage things (fridges, chargers etc). Don’t even know if it’s possible, given my limited electrical knowledge, it may even void any MCS certification.

You can get electricity tariffs that pretend to get all their energy from renewables, and you can get tariffs that actually do. I’d go with one of those. Personally I don’t think it would be worth the faff, but maybe just for the personal satisfaction.

Not really. You get whats in the grid. What actually enters your home never changes.

But you can buy from suppliers who put more money into renewables

Small wind turbines are very noisy…

As above. If you want to make a difference, save the world etc, better to move to a supplier who “source” all their electricity renewably, rather than just faff about with green credits.

Home

If its for a personal project, why not.
I have a collegaue who has a “leisure battery” system in his shed/home office, you could do similar.
The vast majority of stuff you plug into the wall these days doesnt use 240V, it has a transformer inline that steps it down anyway.

USB is 5V nominally (though USB-C is an interesting development as the device and power source communicate with each other and can negotiate up to 20V supply, where supported)

Your router, and internet boxes and all that stuff is probably 12V already.
no reason you couldnt just use 12V directly, save the losses of transforming it up and back down, though for anything of any value i would want some sort of regulation on the supply just in case?

i doubt you would be saving more than a couple of quid a year though.
How much power does a router draw, assuming its on 24/7/365?

About £7.5k for https://sd-windenergy.com/small-wind-turbines/sd3-3kw-wind-turbine/

and rated at about 8000kW/h for 6m/sec average wind speed. Running a hundred of them in the Falklands for 10 years. About six years to break even (15p/kW/h). Not an obvious no, but some of the smaller ones are basically phone chargers and I’d offshore that delivery to the professionals.

My neighbour did this a few years ago, just as interesting project.
He built his own turbine from a an old washing machine motor. Seems to work quite well.
He also has a solar panel he’s mounted on some sort of pole with a motor and a clock so it turns to follow the sun.
He runs all his house lights and his two sheds from it with a massive battery bank.
I don’t know if it was financially viable, but it was fun to do apparently 🤷‍♂️

How much power does a router draw, assuming its on 24/7/365?

My router and modem were about 20W when I checked but they would vary with usage.

I am tempted by a small turbine for my caravan, but perhaps not if it’s noisy.

About £7.5k for https://sd-windenergy.com/small-wind-turbines/sd3-3kw-wind-turbine/

and rated at about 8000kW/h for 6m/sec average wind speed. Running a hundred of them in the Falklands for 10 years. About six years to break even (15p/kW/h). Not an obvious no, but some of the smaller ones are basically phone chargers and I’d offshore that delivery to the professionals.

I was looking at a marine turbine for pole mounting:

Rutland 914i Windcharger

And as for solar for our garage etc, I thinking something like this:

100W, 12V, 0.8kWh Professional Off-Grid Solar Kit

The problem with small wind turbines is basic physics. The energy collected is proportional to the area swept by the blades. That’s proportional to the square of the blade radius. A turbine half the size of a nice big one collects a quarter of the wind energy. A turbine 4 times smaller collects a 16th. But it doesn’t cost sixteen times less, it probably costs closer to 4 times less.

That is why you don’t see small wind turbines.

With solar on the other hand, the cost is directly proportional to the area of panel you buy, and so is the solar collection.

This guys explains it better: Answer to How do small-scale wind turbines differ from utility-scale wind power turbines? by Michael Barnard

As above. If you want to make a difference, save the world etc, better to move to a supplier who “source” all their electricity renewably, rather than just faff about with green credits.

Doesn’t it get a bit tiresome when your fridge and telly go off after dark on those cold, still winter days?

Doesn’t it get a bit tiresome when your fridge and telly go off after dark on those cold, still winter days?

You think you’re clever, but yeah we do understand the actual electrons arriving at our houses weren’t all energised specifically with a renewable source of energy. Pointing this out isn’t really very useful, and it’s the second time.

Point is that every kWh I use equates to a kWh that has been generated renewably so it equates to the same thing. In the current environment, this simply represents a way to get your money to go towards renewable energy generation, which is why we do it.

The trouble with those Rutland one is that they need high windspeeds and are expensive. If it’s for a suck it and see installation then would an ebay one be sufficient? £320 including an inverter. Bigger than the Rutland one, allegedly 3kw and lower kick in speed. Almost certainly not going to get 3kw but could be worth a punt.
https://vi.raptor.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemDescV4&item=165409682357&category=121837&pm=1&ds=0&t=1651000835816&cspheader=1

Edit:
Possibly even more interesting is a vertical axis turbine from Italy. Claims to be less noisy too.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/153270502956?hash=item23afa2462c:g:XIwAAOSw4Vpb9VHy

Meh. I bought some of a bigger turbine, having exhausted my roof space with solar PV and solar thermal.

https://rippleenergy.com/

Solar is where its at, according to this paticular podcast episode:

Podcast 150

Cheap to generate, Low to zero maintenance, totally recyclable, and when paired with energy storage solutions, be that Batteries, Hydrogen or Pump storage, will cover all bases.

Why “This government” haven mandated that ALL new builds have to have solar on the top, end of discussion, not open for negotaition, is beyond me.
They dont even have to build roofs that can support the weight of the panels.

I’m kind of in the middle of messing with something similar. I got a 1000W solar panel kit (panel + charge controller with USB charging ports) from ebay and have it hooked up to a 12V 110Ah leisure battery that we’ve had for ages. I charge my phone and other USB stuff from it. We also have a (cheap) inverter but it’s bloody noisy and not much fun to be around when you’re using it. The plan is to get some 12V LED lights for upstairs and run them off the battery instead of the mains. As an experiment I tried running my xbox 360 + monitor off it via the inverter and it does work but the noise from inverter is just stupid. Maybe a more expensive/capable one would be quieter?

Why “This government” haven mandated that ALL new builds have to have solar on the top, end of discussion, not open for negotaition, is beyond me.

Because there’s no money in it for their mates in the electricity companies and it might cost more for their mates in the building companies to build. Can’t be having that old boy, what.

Cheap to generate, Low to zero maintenance, totally recyclable, and when paired with energy storage solutions, be that Batteries, Hydrogen or Pump storage, will cover all bases.

Why “This government” haven mandated that ALL new builds have to have solar on the top, end of discussion, not open for negotaition, is beyond me.
They dont even have to build roofs that can support the weight of the panels.

Recylable? hmmm.

The reason for not being on all houses is the storage issue. I gather Spain is having issues of too much grid input from home solar – on days it is not needed. If you put solar on a new house, it now seems to be that the sensible thing would be to have storage of some kind.

I also would suggest that ‘or better alternative’ should be specified for the homes for which solar doesn’t work or better gain could be had through hydro, district heating (etc).

Dad has a small 12v turbine on his shed. It is pretty useless as it produces so little power normally. It is noisy and quite scary when the wind is really strong as its got no self feather or brake, so just spins ludicrously fast. Once the battery is full there is no load on it to slow it down. It now sounds like the bearings are on the way out to. He also had a charge controller fail and boil a battery.

On the other hand mum wanted to power a small pond pump, so I put a solar PV panel, cheap charge controller and an old car battery. That does exactly as intended.

Also, not all houses are suited to solar since developers like to cram as many rabbit hutches houses as possible into wee cul-de-sacs with no consideration of roof orientation.

There are more meaningful gains to be had in new housing stock than just sticking a panel on the top and declaring job done.

Back to the original question, wind is pointless for a domestic user for scaling reasons already pointed out, turbines are more suited to community scale projects.

Doesn’t it get a bit tiresome when your fridge and telly go off after dark on those cold, still winter days?

Errrr, mine switches to hydro then.

One of the nerd dads at school has solar and a ~4m wind turbine, he gets about 30 times the electricity for a similar cost as his solar… though it does cover the south facing roofs of two HUGE barns probably 1000-1200sqm of panels.

A relative of my ex actually has his own windfarm, 6x70m towers, on his own farm. He’s been investing in it for about 25 years and now owns the whole thing. It pays his pension, and all his electricity bills, and quite a lot of other stuff…

B&Q used to sell them at one time.

Another option could be to install a house battery pack. Charge the battery at night on economy 7 or similar when electricity is cheap, then use it during the day.

Small scale wind of pointless

You’ll never pay back the energy out money needed to make the thing

Unless you’re off grid