Domestic Wind Turbines

1kw is not saving anyone any money for a long long time. The cost will take 20 years to get back in a drip you will never even notice.

Once they produce a 5kw version it may be worth looking at.
 
bris said:
1kw is not saving anyone any money for a long long time. The cost will take 20 years to get back in a drip you will never even notice.
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For an average household, it should pay for itself in about 1 year?
As @Firestar_3x said, it's actually going to be generating around 400w on average in uk wind conditions.
So 0.4 x 24 x 365 = 3504kWh generated per year and the average household uses 3700kWh per year.

Realistically, it's not always going to be generating electricity at the times you want to use it and storage isn't very efficient but even if you can only use it half the time you need it, that's still only 2 years for it to pay for itself.
Unless my maths is wrong?
 
touch said:
Looks like it is creating a funnel type shape. The wind speed increases as it gets directed into a narrow channel. It's nothing new or fancy, buildings and mountains (and any other obstructions) also increase wind speed as the air flows around them - that's why most of the records for highest wind speeds are usually from the tops of mountains.

It still has the same power because the pressure will drop as the speed increases.
Similar to a river flowing through a narrower section: the water flows faster through that area but has a smaller cross-section so the actual volume of flow is always the same.
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Ok makes sense, but, I dunno... still sounds like pretty bad marketing to me.
 
touch said:
For an average household, it should pay for itself in about 1 year?
As @Firestar_3x said, it's actually going to be generating around 400w on average in uk wind conditions.
So 0.4 x 24 x 365 = 3504kWh generated per year and the average household uses 3700kWh per year.

Realistically, it's not always going to be generating electricity at the times you want to use it and storage isn't very efficient but even if you can only use it half the time you need it, that's still only 2 years for it to pay for itself.
Unless my maths is wrong?
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What is their metric for "average"? Mean or median? Electric or gas heating? How many people in the house?

An electric shower uses 10KW of power so for a household of 4 people it's not even going to balance out the electric usage of that one appliance.

But then you actually have to look at the cost of electric vs the cost of the device, there is no price listed...

Furthermore their comparison to solar is disingenuous because a 1KW solar installation is atypical.

Dis86 said:
They can't even get the axis on their chart correct.
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Yeah power measured in volts, wtf?!
 
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Energize said:
What is their metric for "average"? Mean or median? Electric or gas heating? How many people in the house?
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I didn't look into it in that much detail, just took the headline average. Apparently it was summarised from the data here if you want more info.

Energize said:
An electric shower uses 10KW of power so for a household of 4 people it's not even going to balance out the electric usage of that one appliance.
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No, it wouldn't be ideal for a very high power draw like that.

Energize said:
But then you actually have to look at the cost of electric vs the cost of the device, there is no price listed...
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You get one if you pledge £843 to the kickstarter*. Just noticed I didn't mention I was comparing to uk average electric bill (£700) in my post which is taken from same data linked above. It wouldn't be far off paying for itself within 1 year if you can use all the power it generates but probably more likely 2-4 years.

*chances are, like most kickstarters, nothing much will come of it and you won't actually get one
 
Firestar_3x said:
Average wind speed here is 5 m/s, on that basis the unit would produce, on average ~400 watts, not terrible but not great.

Also the thing looks huge and would need elevating a good height, which I imagine would need planning permission.
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The average wind speed at house height will be no where near this, probably half at best.
I have a wind turbine with it's hub at 35 mtr, a mile inland from the north west coast in an exposed position & it's monitored average wind speed is around 5.5 to 6m/s
 
FISHGUTS said:
The average wind speed at house height will be no where near this, probably half at best.
I have a wind turbine with it's hub at 35 mtr, a mile inland from the north west coast in an exposed position & it's monitored average wind speed is around 5.5 to 6m/s
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Makes it even less worthwhile then!
 
How much noise does it make... Imagine a whole block with multiple of these on each building...
 
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