Now do personal wind and/or wind/solar combos, and we got ourselves some stew!
https://www.amazon.com/home-wind-turbine/s?k=home+wind+turbine
From what I’ve read, wind doesn’t really scale down to home use the way solar does.
And those cheap Amazon generators (whether they are attached to wind turbines or sold as standalone units) never come even remotely close to the advertised output.
Dude, all you need to do is spend $13k for one of these,
And then mount it 30 feet above the tallest tree or building near you.
How hard can it be?
I thought it would be nice to get a wind turbine since that could produce some useful electricity in months that contain the letter ‘r’.
11k EUR
2 kW
Price of electricity is like 10 cents a kWh average throughout the year
11000/2/0.1 = 55000 hours
Will pay off if it produces 2 kW for 6 years straight. I don’t think I’m getting one.
i mean, if you’re in flat open farmland with a steady breeze why the hell not run up a pole?
Most of us aren’t on farms. But yeah, if you are I’d definitely look into it. Especially if you’re running large refrigerators and/or freezers.
After the dollar collapses all of us are going to be on farms
Regardless, you can run it at night when the sun isn’t out. If you have enough back up battery storage, slow and steady is fine.
From what I’ve read, wind doesn’t really scale down to home use the way solar does.
Where did you read that?
Trees and rolling landscapes block a LOT of wind. You need to be someplace flat and sparse to have any luck.
The main issue is the small size tends to increase the required wind speed required to initially overcome friction, and those higher windspeeds are rarely sustained at ground level. Large turbines work efficiently because they are up above the turbulence caused by houses, trees, buildings, etc.
I don’t save links to everything I ever read, so you’ll have to search it up if you’re curious for more details.
Really depends on where you live. If you’re in suburbs they’re completely fucking useless. If you’re in the country with over a mile of relatively flat fields upwind it’ll work, especially if you already have an old antenna tower or can put one up.
Also, the larger commercial tirbines are trying to generate commercial levels of power, not residential. And for a given wind speed the power generation scales by blade length, and a lot of that height is also needed as clearance for the blades
This guy tested a $100 solar panel and windmill and found the solar panel was much, much better. https://youtu.be/iHulKsD35Hc
This guy gets into the math behind the Tesup Atlas wind turbine. Basically the real output people are getting could be matched by 200-400watts of solar. https://youtu.be/6ixUmlN-cYc
The 2 biggest problems with scaling down turbines.
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Hard 60% efficiency limit called the Betz Limit
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Wear and tear on smaller parts is the same as bigger parts but with lower output efficiency.
I guess a 3rd is that the surface area to volume ratio is probably what makes large turbines practical in the first place.
Less efficient doesn’t mean it’s useless, especially at night.
It does if the wind isn’t blowing fast enough to move the turbine. They cover that in the 2nd video.
Get a different turbine?
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Where did you read that?
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/09/urban-windmills-harm-the-environment
Physics are quite simply not on the side of small-scale wind power. Which is fine, it doesn’t have to - solar works really well for small-scale applications.
I’ve looked into it for exactly this reason. 1 kW at night would go a long, long way for me. It doesn’t work.
If you’re lucky, a small turbine might be able to charge your phone. Maybe. Intermittently.
The turbines scale exponentially with blade size, not linearly. And none of it works well at suburb/city height. You need this things 100ft in the air with large blades.
At that point you might as well get a real one and power your neighborhood. Those things really don’t scale down effectively.
Here is a handy guide: https://ecowised.com/best-home-wind-turbines-for-residential-use-top-models-costs-what-to-look-for/
Edit: Here’s one from Europe: https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/advice/wind-turbines/
Wind is too variable. Sun comes up every day, and getting laminar wind is difficult in suburban areas. Expensive and turbines wear and get iced in winter. They can work in rural settings which is why they have been using turbines on farms for over 200 years.
Sun comes up every day
Sure, technically
Expensive and turbines wear and get iced in winter
Where I come from, solar energy doesn’t work in the winter, but wind (large scale) usually does. Output difference of a solar system between winter lowest vs summer highest is ~30x, as we get an average of around 20 hours of sunshine in the entire month of December and it’s not exactly at a great angle for those few hours. Wind would be pretty much the only way one could really stop relying on fossil based energy here. Kinda sucks if they’re not a real option.
Depends on geography and climate. Some places in my area are 24/7 windtunnels.
But you need laminar wind. It suburban areas there is too much turbulence from objects.
Im not going to make a bunch of links. Just search why home wind sucks.
It suburban areas
What the hell do you think “It depends on geography” means?
The top one says it’s 10000W!
Then the same looking unit below it is 3000W, then the only realistic looking turbine is 1,500W.
I suspect if your knock a 0 off the end you might be in the ballpark for the modest rated ones.
Those are not realistic for home use. Usually have to have up about 11 mph of wind for it to even start working
plug-in solar systems
Damn, I didn’t know they made solar systems that can be plugged in, whatever that means! 🙃🪐
Edit: guys, I’m making a pun, notice the planet emoji. “Solar system”. Get it? 😃
Simple as it sounds, you just plug them into a wall outlet and as long as the grid is powered, it will feed power back into your house. The grid being powered requirement means they don’t work during blackouts, but that is mainly intended to avoid electrocuting a line worker when they expect the line not to have any power.
Thanks, I was just making a pun 🙏
I believe the tech is called a grid tie inverter (GTI). Basically your panels or battery system can wire up to a GTI and some GTIs can have pugs that can plug into a standard wall outlet. The GTI can sense the frequency that is in your homes wiring ie “the grid”. Then the GTI matches that frequency and “pumps” your renewable energy into the home and sometimes the grid depending on the utility. If the GTI senses a dramatic frequency change, for example a grid side power outage. The GTI will also fault out or shut down to prevent “islanding”.
People are answering a question I didn’t ask (although I do appreciate that kindness! 🥰).
I was just making a joke about solar systems, as in the space “object”. 😁
It actually provides power to the house though a regular power socket. (But only if the utility power is also present so it won’t zap workers trying to fix a blackout)
Thats when you unplug from the wall and into the ups! 😀
As someone currently going through the hassle of getting a solar setup going, I feel like I should inform people what I have learned. These solar systems use an inverter, and there’s 2 kinds of inverters. 1) the cheap kind that matches an AC wave form and will not work without being connected to a powered grid and 2) a wave generating inverter which will work without a grid allowing your house to still be powered in the event of a power outage
Yup, and the ones here (and NJ I believe passed today, goes into effect next year) require a powered grid to work. Because of the back feed risk, they won’t work with the joking comment about plugging it into a UPS.
BUT!
Some of them you can yank the DC connection to the microinverter (an MC4 connection usually), which can be connected up to a battery system as a backup/bypass mode. The microinverter after that would also allow you to safely connect to grid, or to a dedicated load in an outage.
Another $800-$1200 though
Let’s see if Newsom signs it. With the way he tried to push through liability limits for electric companies (who seem to be too good at creating wildfire disasters) I have my doubts. His presidential ambitions have led him down the dark path of caring more about corporate sponsorship than voters.
Uh…… anyone got a video explaining how this works so I can learn about it recent solar technology and how to utilize it?
I am kind of curious how over-current protection is achieved with these systems.
Don’t get me wrong; I think the concept is good.
But the circuit breaker is sized to protect the wiring between it and the outlets/devices it supplies. If you’re already close to the max current the breaker can supppy, then you add on a second current source (the panels inverter), you could feasibly supply+draw more current through that circuit than it was originally designed to carry.
For example: a regular 15a circuit + 5a worth of panels (600w); you could now draw 20a through wiring that’s only designed/sized for 15a, before the breaker trips. More current creates more heat, this is a potential fire hazard.
On top of that; switching the breaker off/locking it out doesn’t necessarily switch off all power being supplied to that circuit. If you’re not aware of the solar system that’s also supplying that circuit from another point (very unexpected under current norms) This could cause you to work on wiring that you expect to be unpowered when it’s actually live (you should always check with a volt meter anyway, but still, unexpected hazards).
I would imagine much of this has been thought about; but I’m curious about the solutions (or about the reasoning why it’s not considered an issue)
I don’t know how your first concern (over current for breakers) is addressed, but I trust that the Germans, of all people, have figured it out. This technology has been in wide use over there for years. I’ve heard that over there you can buy them from local big box stores and I think even supermarkets. I doubt that Germany would allow something that would be a fire risk to proliferate like that.
Regarding your second concern (power flowing back to the circuit when it’s supposed to be unpowered) I’ve read that balcony solar systems do include circuitry so they automatically stop supplying power if they detect that there is no power being supplied by the outlet.
The back feed is taken care of by the solar inverter already. If it doesn’t detect the proper waveforms from the grid it turns off.
As for the overcurrent, there are sensors (PCS) that can detect current load on a circuit. Alternatively, a dedicated circuit or oversized circuit can be set up to handle it (but would require electrical changes).
They can also test to see if the current on the circuit is grid power or another inverter (so you can’t trick it)
I imagine there are two assumptions:
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Such a “balcony” system isn’t going to be 600 watts. I’ve got a pair of 100 watt panels that together would each make a fairly good awning for any of my windows. I also have a 200 watt Anker brand panel (one of those weird ones that feels like it’s made of a quarter inch thick sheet of denim) that’s the size of a beach towel. 6 of those 100 watt panels would come close to the size of queen-size bed. You’re not going to have many apartment dwellers dangling something that big out the window.
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Most people most of the time don’t have circuits loaded to the very edge of the envelope. If you plugged it into a circuit that’s drawing 10 amps…it’ll still draw 10 amps. It’s just that ~8.2 of them are coming through the breaker, the other ~1.8 are being provided by the solar panel.
It does still sketch me out a little because it breaks certain fundamental design rules of the power grid. Power should come from female sockets not male plugs, and it should come from before a breaker, not after.
This isn’t how I’m doing my personal solar power.
I picked 600w for nice round amperage numbers in the above math; even just a few hundred watts presents the same issues though. You could fit a decent size set on the balcony, covering the outside of the balcony railing.
I wouldn’t be so sure on the second point. I live in a 3bed apartment with 2 main outlet circuits. 1 supplying the livingroom and half of one bedroom. Another supplying the other two bedrooms + the other half of the 3rd bedroom.
Between the main entertainment/lighting electronics in the livingroom, the portable ac in the adjoining bedroom, the watercooler/heater, and recently a set of ebike battery chargers; that circuits base load sits around 6.5a during a charge cycle, with peaks right around 15a when the ac runs+the water cooler, occasionally peaking right up to 16.5a. I’ve tripped the breaker a few times running the vacuum at the wrong time ontop of those.
The other bedrooom circuit is similarly loaded with a couple computers, device chargers, and another ac (cooling is crap in this place plus our unit faces the sun all day); though not quite as heavily as the other circuit.
The living room circuit is where a solar system would be installed (it’s where the outdoor outlet is connected) and the main appeal of a system like that is not having to modify wiring since we’re not allowed to touch that as tennants (the corporate landlord is rather unlikely to allow modifications even from a licensed electrician either).
Supposedly the solar inverter would shut off during a mains power outage, but is it fast enough to prevent shock if the plug was disconnect and touched?
IDK, interesting systems, just curious about them. I’ll have to look closer when they’re actually available.
Most people most of the time don’t have circuits loaded to the very edge of the envelope.
Unfortunately this is awful terrible engineering ethics and does not fly in the real world. “Most” implies that there WILL be a nonzero number of edge cases where someone does have circuits loaded to within an inch of their lives, and a plug-in solar system will lead to a house fire.
I would agree. Hence why I said “This isn’t how I’m doing my personal solar power.”
Apparently American units are coming with an outlet you install in place of a standard outlet which does monitor the combined power, so the building will have to be modified slightly. Still…any more than a couple hundred watts, if you can, have a proper system installed.
Apparently American units are coming with an outlet you install in place of a standard outlet which does monitor the combined power
This doesn’t sound right: measuring at one outlet doesn’t grantee you’re measuring the full circuit load unless you can be absolutely sure it’s the very first outlet in a branch circuit specifically. A ring circuit throws that idea out entirely. To measure reliably, you’d have to measure at the breaker itself as well as the solar inverter.
Maybe a replacement breaker, that measures and comunicates with the imverter?
You run into compatibility issues with the different electrical panel manufacturers though…
Idk, I’ll have to get my hands on one of these kits when available and look closer.
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About the second point: it appears they will need the same grid intertie circuitry that inverters need …
“…and include equipment that prevents power from flowing back to the grid during an outage”
I’ve read that balcony solar systems do include circuitry so they automatically stop supplying power if they detect that there is no power being supplied by the outlet.
I wonder how fast that shut off is. Will it prevent a shock if you unplug and touch the male plug?
Yeah, the idea is nice, but it smells an awful lot of wall socket generators and suicide cords
Not sure what’s up with the downvotes, that’s a legitimate concern any time you’ve got a male plug supplying power… It literally IS a solar wallsocket generator with what’s essentially a suicide cord permanently attached.
I’m sure they’ve put some protection in place; but still.
Oh, it’s because I skipped out on the preemptive disavowal.
See, the vast majority of lemmy is functionally illiterate, so if you wanna object to, eg., solar panels, you have to start your comment with something like “Well, I agree that global warming is a huge problem, and solar is a way to fight it, and I support more solar […] but,…” or else the feral hogs on the thread will just see you saying “solar bad” and assume you’re a flat earther.
so are these the mythical balcony systems i’ve been hearing about? because i want one to take camping to charge my ebike, and to run my blowdryer on my prosthesis after i shower so i don’t mold.
Yes they are, but they are specifically not what you want or need when going camping. These only work when plugged into an active grid connection, to offset your power bill at home on sunny days.
For camping, you want a battery box that solar panels will plug in to. Often sold as “solar generator” from brands like Bluetti and Jackery.
thank you for the advice! we’re about a year, at worst three away from purchase but keeping up on things is important
Hardly mythical…
But they’re not grid-forming. You have to plug it into an outlet.
Is california on a streak? Thats the 3rd good thing I have heard about them.
I’d like this too, maybe someday. Technical and safety issues can be resolved somehow.
Apparently, there are a million installations of things like this in Germany alone. I think at this point the only technical issues are in the power design of American homes, which could be none. After that it’s just regulations.
