Small Wind Turbine: Success or Failure? Do not make those Mistakes

a small wind turbine can be a perfect complement to a photovoltaic system but beware far too often a small wind turbine becomes a bad investment and why because the same mistakes are made over and over again you will do better because after watching the video you will know the most common mistakes I'm Patrick I'm a neutral expert and author from Germany with a focus on small wind turbines I've been observing the market for over 10 years now and the videos on this channel will help you to make your own wind power project a success first a few practical examples to give you an idea of typical applications and operators of small wind turbines this here is a small wind turbine in the garden of a private homeowner the turbine has a height of 10 m or 33 ft and a capacity of 2.5 Kow the wind turbine has an inverter so that the electricity can be fed into the domestic grid as AC this means all alternating current and this small wind turbine here belongs to a small commercial Enterprise the wind turbine has a capacity of 7 KW and is mounted on an 18 M High Mast many farmers have good conditions to operate a small wind turbine this turbine here has a power of 30 kwatt and has a total height of 50 m which is 160 ft total height means highest point reached by the rotor here we see a very small wind turbine with a vertical rotor axis and this small wind turbine with only 12 watts is used on a sailing ship to maintain the charge of a battery and finally here we see two micro wind turbines with 350 wats capacity each the wind turbines are used together with solar power modules and batteries this hybrid system supplies a remote transmission tower with power all year round what are the key features of small wind turbines they are installed directly next to or on top of the electricity consumer the electricity is mainly used for self-consumption this is usually more economical than feeding it into the public Grid in most countries there's a very low or even no feeding tariff for small wind turbines the key advantage and benefit of small wind turbines they often produce electricity when the photovoltaic system is not productive when the sun is not shining the wind often blows this is true for example in the fall and winter in Europe the sun is weak and the wind is strong in other countries during the rainy season there's a little Sun but lots of wind mistake number one to avoid with small wind turbines overestimating the wind energy on your own property it is the most common and serious mistake you can make with wind turbines for self-supply this means that the perceived wind force is often wrong one assumes a lot of wind but the wind is too weak over the year a wind turbine would generate too little electricity the important feature of a windy side is a free flow of wind from the main wind direction so you must know the main wind direction in your region you can find it out via the global wind Atlas go to global wind Atlas doino set the height to 10 m check if me wind speed is selected set the point approximately at the place where the wind turbine should be installed select wind power rows and from the wind rows you can read the main wind direction in this example the wind comes from the southwest so the strong wind flows from the southwest to the Northeast locations in residential areas are often critical this is because the wind is blocked by surrounding houses and trees with an example I will explain where windy SES as well as unsuitable sides are located this is a settlement in a flat region I looked up the main wind direction and the global wind Atlas as described earlier in this case West is the main wind direction this means over the year the strong wind flows to a large extent from the West to the east the properties at the western edge of the settlement he remarked with the red Dash therefore have a free inflow from the main wind direction and these single sites also have a windy location as typical for farms and now please look to the red point in the middle of the settlement a site in the middle of the settlement is not suitable because in the western Direction there are other houses that do stop the strong wind in addition to locations on the edge of settlements and single sides Also hillsides may be suitable mistake number two is the use of a Mast or Tower which is too small this applies to locations where up to a certain height the wind is too weak or has too much turbulence so the rotor must be above this height to be in the strong wind if the mass is too low the rotor is in Weak wind and the power production will be strongly reduced the rule is the higher the mass the stronger the wind the wind speed increases with distance from the ground at a height of 30 m the wind is usually much stronger than at a height of 10 m and a longer Tower can pay for itself a longer Tower does cost more money but the turbine will produce more electricity because of the stronger wind the extra cost of the tower could be offset by the higher electricity production this is an individual consideration for each site mistake number three is the insulation of the wind turbine on the roof solar panels can be installed on roof Ro without any problems this is not the case with wind turbines the biggest problem is insufficient wind conditions above the roof the wind is often too weak and has too much turbulence the closer the rotor is to the roof the greater the wind turbulence to which the rotor is exposed structure born sound Transmissions are also problematic vibrations of the rotor are perceived as disturbing Noise Within the house decisive are the height of the roof as as well as the height of the Mast above the roof a high industrial Hall could be suitable a private house usually not generally short masts are problematic because then the rotor is too close to the roof surface and thus in the area with wind turbulences the better choice is installing the turbine on a ground level Mast mistake number four is do not choose the wind turbine on the basis of the rated power for photovolatic system it's common to select the system based on the power in kilowatt this is because based on the output it's quite easy to derive the annual electricity yield in kilowatt hours for the solar system a wind turbine on the other hand should not be selected based on its rated power and kilowatt since power is only an inaccurate indicator of annual electricity yields two wind turbines of the same rated power can have very different annual electricity yields an example two wind turbines with a capacity of 10 kilowatt are each located at the same site one plant produces 10,000 kwatt hours per year the other 20,000 kwatt hours so twice as much how can this be explained the wind turbine with a higher electricity production has a larger rotor that is the rated power of the generator is identical but the rotor are different sizes so when choosing a wind turbine you should look primarily at the size of the rotor and less at the rated power power of the generator so how to proceed for sizing a wind turbine when choosing a wind turbine the first question to ask is how much electricity should the turbine generate per year the starting point is your own annual electricity demand because a small wind turbine is primarily for self-supply the next step is to find out the average wind speed on your site and now check manufacturers of small wind turbines which turbine generates the desired amount of electricity at the corresponding wind resource of your location note the rotor size look for wind turbines with similar sized rotors mistake number five is the selection of the wind turbine mainly according to the optical design the appearance the wind turbine that one likes the most visually is chosen there are very different rot types for small wind turbines basically a distinction is made between horizontal and vertical wind turbines here on the left we see a wind turbine with a horizontal rotor axis and this type is state-ofthe-art on the right a wind turbine with a vertical rotor axis in practice there are many variants small wind turbines can really look very different on the left a horizontal wind turbine with three blades and a wind Vein on the right a so-called shrouded or ducted wind turbine this design has not been convincing so far and now on the left we see a vertical Dario rotor and here on the right a vertical savonius rotor the savonius design has low efficiency a good rotor design is primarily characterized by high efficiency this means high power production one should choose the wind turbine that produces the most electricity at one's own location Market practice has shown that fancy looking small wind turbines often result in low electricity yields state-of-the-art are still the usual turbines with horizontal rotor axis for each type of wind turbine you have to find out how much electricity does the turbine generate at my location and what are the total costs of the turbine costs and revenues should be in reasonable proportion mistake number six neglecting independent references on a small wind turbine this means blindly trusting the information provided by the supplier a problem worldwide for years there are great differences in the quality of small wind turbines offered in on the market on the one hand there are many excellent manufacturers with efficient and storm-proof turbine technology such small wind turbines have been extensively tested before Market launch the downside of the market is the high number of questionable manufacturers with low quality products if you are interested in specific wind turbine ask yourself what independent references are there for the turbine this can be for example a certification based on the IEC 61400 D2 standard the results of test fields are also helpful the test field operators should be independent the tests include for example the power curve and sound level if possible you should look at a small wind turbine onite preferably on a windy day when the turbine is in operation talk to the owner of the wind turbine and learn from his experience if you don't want to miss future videos subscribe to this Channel and if you have any questions about small wind turbines please post in the comments below thanks for watching

Channel: WindSunWisdom

Views: 175,633

Keywords: home wind turbines for electricity, small wind turbine, wind turbine for home

Id: Gs3y-6CKT0E

Length: 11min 39sec (699 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 04 2024