Who is using solar or wind generated electricity

How effective is it, how soon do you start breaking even, what are the maintenance costs ...blah blah

discuss

You can get it installed at your house for free in many states. I literally mean that you can call some 1-800 number, they will work it out with the government, and they will hook you up with solar power. You will pay them nothing if the commercial that I saw (which actually looked legitimate) had any merit. I think there are special tax rebates or something being offered to folks to help bring about some energy conservation.

NJ has (or had) a really nice tax deduction for solar.

That said a friend of mine has it atop his house. In the middle of summer, with the air blasting in 100 degree weather.. he pays between 10 and 20 dollars a month in electricity

It depends on the state you are in and how big your electric bill is. My wife does solar system design for primarily residential systems here in California. A lot of her customers break even in 5 years or so and then go into positive. That is a function of the weather and local electricity rates. Panels and inverters are designed to have a useful life of about 25 years. I cannot speak to how it would work in Ohio.

For residential wind- as in a neighborhood, I think there's some possibilities in micro-turbines. The typical horizontal type do have noise issues, but vertical ones seem to be just as efficient, and a lot quieter.

The big "problem" for them is power- they are typically good for 1hp. Well, I've seen peaks of 1kW. But I see this as an avenue for some research- combine some slick composite construction with wind tunnel research (probably some CAD work, too), and you can construct a really good micro-turbine that can supplament you power for pretty cheap.

Actually, if you scour e-bay- you'll find 1kW generators that are to be used for micro-generators. If you were clever in construction, I'd bet you could make a 1kW generator for <$1000. Wouldn't that be an interesting GRM project?

Eric

we're looking into a wind generator at our house. Accordingto the NOAA our particular area AVERAGES 12mph winds 24/7 so we could produce peak power out of the generator at all times. It's peak power is about 1.5 times what we use in a month, so we would have money back from the beginning. What's holding us back is the intial $22k install price.

alfadriver wrote: For residential wind- as in a neighborhood, I think there's some possibilities in micro-turbines. The typical horizontal type do have noise issues, but vertical ones seem to be just as efficient, and a lot quieter. The big "problem" for them is power- they are typically good for 1hp. Well, I've seen peaks of 1kW. But I see this as an avenue for some research- combine some slick composite construction with wind tunnel research (probably some CAD work, too), and you can construct a really good micro-turbine that can supplament you power for pretty cheap. Actually, if you scour e-bay- you'll find 1kW generators that are to be used for micro-generators. If you were clever in construction, I'd bet you could make a 1kW generator for <$1000. Wouldn't that be an interesting GRM project? Eric

You have my interest, PM me

I really don't know that much outside of some basic google searches- micro wind turbine, vertical micro wind turbine.

Apparently at the 2008 Windpower conference, they were a big thing- http://cleantechnica.com/2008/06/20/vertical-axis-turbines-the-future-of-micro-wind-energ/

Here's a kind of DYI page http://www.windstuffnow.com/main/ but I think I would buy the generator instead of building it- wire and magent placement are pretty important to efficiency.

And a brief page about blade design http://club.cycom.co.uk/vertAxis.html

One thing to think about- if you can figure a way to get a good cord design (the core of the wing), you can translate that into blue foam pretty easy, and then wrap that with a glass, mylar composite (see model plane fabrication), you could quickly make the blades for a vertical axis design. Then use simple, low weight plates to hold together, transfer power to generator, and you are all set.

The egg beater design would be a lot harder to fabricate, since it would be a complex 3d cut, but possible none the less.

And I'm not an expert, just an automotive engineer.

Eric

Flyin' Miata has 54 solar panels on the roof. We get a lot of sun here. They help out during the week and feed up to 10 kW back into the grid on the weekend. Dunno about exactly how much they're helping with the electric bill, as we installed them when we moved into the building.

I am leaning towards wind as my property gets a lot of constant wind and Ohio is not known for its sun....

I just read that Pocono Raceway in PA is to become the worlds largest solar power generator with a capacity of 3GW. I would not have thought that to be feasible outside of AZ or NM so Ohio might have enough sun if PA does.

On a smaller scale, I have a single panel that I use in my unpowered storage/lawn building. Charges a bank of batteries from 2 uninteruptable computer power supplies. These charge my batteries for the hand tools, runs a light and a radio, battery tenders for the riding mower and the scooters. Even pumped up a pancake compressor a few times.

Being interested in alternate energy since the mid 70s has me being a most efficient energy user. It is hard to look at your utility bills and realize that I often pay more in taxes on the various fees that are tacked onto my bill than I pay in actual power used! Now it is hard to worry about gas/water/electric bills when they added up to over $100/month only once in the past 6 years.

I am going to check into the state plan for solar with tax breaks though.

Bruce

THE PROBLEM for us building a homemade wind mill is the fact that we see 40-60mph winds in the spring and winter many times. We'll need somethign that can be shut down to not destroy itself.

If you really want to get into some alternative energy and have an old pool that no one uses, you could harvest biodiesel from algae and run it directly in your old oil heater...You could also purchase an old diesel generator and power that if you want some electric.

Algae is the future of combustibles!!!

Here's a kind of DYI page

Do yourself it? Sorry. Pet peeve, ALFAdriver.

If you live in California, you can use all those abandoned pools in your subdivision to grow algae.

Aussie:

You've got mail.

You still going to the Challenge? We could talk then.

I'd love to ditch the $400/mo heating bills in the winter.

Hell yeah, I am going to the challenge, now to build a wind powered challenger

http://www.golandsailing.com/

Trying to find a oil burner for my old engine oil for heating the shop.

Bringing this one back from the dead. I'm in Ohio and was hoping some people might be interested in solar. I found a cool DIY solar panel site. Anyone ever make their own solar panel ?

Thanks Dan

dankspeed wrote: I found a cool DIY solar panel site. Anyone ever make their own solar panel ?

Whats the site?

I was eying up the Harbor Freight solar panely thing to use on my float chargers on my motorcycles or run a small heater in the garage.

My dad wanted to do this for a long time, probably still does. There are some houses in my area with geothermal power as well. Anybody have the site for "government installation?"

I want to do a small solar setup, just something big enough to get my feet wet with. I'm in Florida, so sun isn't an issue. I do live under trees, which is one of the biggest reasons I haven't really given it a lot of thought. If we get those trees taken down before we move out, I think I'm going to put a small array on the roof of this house. We have a pretty large addition with a flat roof that would work perfectly for mounting an array. With a tracking system, I could probably offset a good deal of our cooling costs during the summer and possibly sell back in the winter. I guess I need to find work that pays better than what I'm doing now and get to it.

Concerning the wind power, check out a wind map. What you think is a lot of wind really is not enough to make any appreciable juice. I live in TX where there is tons of wind, but its still listed as a poor place for wind power. A friend of mine has a farm in northern PA with a wind turbine and it basically covers about 2% of their electric bill.

Having said that, windmills can be pretty cheap to do if you find the right parts. You need to generate 12v DC which can be accomplished with a simple automotive alternator that you can get cheap. The problem is that it takes about 5 hp to run them and it takes a LOT of wind and a big turbine to make 5 hp, and even then you're only making about 500 watts. The biggest cost (especially right now) is the 150 ft of 2 ga copper you would need to get the juice down to the batteries/inverter.

To do it "right" you need some form of wind control just like a turbo needs a boost control. If you set it up to be fine at 80 mph wind you'll never see any juice from it. If you set it up to make juice at 20 mph wind, it will self destruct during the first good windy day. Wind turbines need a means (either mechanical or electronic) to turn perpendicular to the wind during damaging times so they don't fall apart. Sort of a wastegate for the windmill.

I thought that it might be neat to set up the head on a differential. Have the turbine drive the pinion and have an axle shaft come down the tower. That way the electrical service parts are down here, not up there. It would add friction and inertia, but you might recover that loss with the shorter 12v transmission distances.

Here is a wind map. Notice that they take these measurements at 80 meters high and with a relative unobstructed area of 2.5 km. Even at 260ft above grade, there isn't too much that is "good" wind turbine stuff in OH.

Here is a map that shows average values at 50m, a little more realistic. It puts you and me both in the worst category of "marginal."

There are also links on the internet to build your own solar panels. You can build them for about $200 per panel and 10 of those might make a nice little dent in your bill.

They're going to continute to get cheaper as the market gets more flooded with them.

RI doesn't do a tax credit, so it'll be awhile before I can afford an array, but boy, is it appealing. Some day...