Here's a critique of small wind turbines. Basic problems:<p>- Unless you're in a fairly windy location, wind turbines are useless. Most places aren't windy enough. Power goes up as the cube of wind speed.<p>- Tower height is a big deal. You have to go up about 80-100 feet in most places to get good wind. Also, wind turbines on buildings are useless - the building disrupts the airflow too much.<p>- A small wind turbine is nowhere near as reliable as the average car. So you need to be able to fix something that's 100 feet up. Tilt-up towers are a good thing.<p>- The turbines themselves aren't that expensive. Here's one for $450 from Wal-Mart.[2] It's nominally rated at 450 watts. It takes 28 MPH wind to get full power. That's not common.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.solacity.com/small-wind-turbine-truth/" rel="nofollow">http://www.solacity.com/small-wind-turbine-truth/</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.walmart.com/ip/45798215" rel="nofollow">https://www.walmart.com/ip/45798215</a>
Can someone find another source for this? Because the one up now is hardly what you'd call credible:<p><a href="http://theusualroutine.com/2016/05/24/russia-orders-us-tell-world-aliens-will/" rel="nofollow">http://theusualroutine.com/2016/05/24/russia-orders-us-tell-...</a>
Real-world tests of small wind turbines in Netherlands and the UK<p><a href="http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6954" rel="nofollow">http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6954</a>
I am curious to know the cost of maintenance. Industrial sized equipment is subject to severe corrosion [1], I am not sure if the cost is really one time.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.financialexpress.com/archive/corrosion-india-losing-rs-152-lakh-crore-annually/247576/" rel="nofollow">http://www.financialexpress.com/archive/corrosion-india-losi...</a>
Smells like BS to me. Lots of marketing boilerplate about having a "green heart" and the importance of clean energy, no hard data or technical details, no discussion of competitors or what their advantage is over other wind companies, the product is "coming soon" but there's no hint of where they'd get the necessary capital and manufacturing equipment.<p>As a friend once said: "Nobody stops you from making a press release. A 'project' is a series of documents and sometimes people, not always or typically a powerplant..."
Good luck to them but given the intermittent nature of wind, the main problem with wind energy is storage not the turbine. So a turbine like this, which is probably rated at 500 Watts or so, must be coupled with a battery pack like the Tesla's Powerwall. Even then, 2-5 kWh is not significant. The power consumption of a typical refrigerator 1-1.5 kWh/day.
the major question is how would a household pay a cost of an iPhone (around INR 50,000) if they can't afford electricity. I know that I sound cynic but that's the truth in India. Rural areas which lack electricity mainly do so because of lack of enough demand that can pay for the electricity. There are NGOs/Non-profits like 'Barefoot College' providing solar-lanterns which IMO is a better way forward: Empowering people by enabling them in making those lanterns which in turn light their houses up. The cost of lantern is factored in the labor work they do in making them.
> a low-cost wind turbine that can generate 3-5 kW hours of electricity every day<p>I'd say it's for a very narrow definition of "a house":<p><a href="https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=97&t=3" rel="nofollow">https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=97&t=3</a><p>I guess it could work in India, but households in most developed countries spend much more energy:<p><a href="http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity-consumption" rel="nofollow">http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity...</a><p>BTW, much better article here:<p><a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/avant-garde-innovations-develops-wind-turbine-to-light-up-homes-at-a-fraction-of-power-bills/articleshow/53015680.cms" rel="nofollow">http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation...</a>
Buy a solar powered fan and point it at the wind turbine. You are now covered for 2 cases. Wood burner for 3. What else?<p>Modular power from multiple sources is where the gold is.