Recent Developments May Make Personal Wind Power More Practical
Installing a wind mill to generate electricity seems like a good thing to do to save the environment (by reducing the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity) and save money on your electric bills. But, there are some important things to take into consideration before jumping into the wind generation business.
First, you will need to determine if your location has a sufficient amount of the right kind of winds to make electric power generation practical. Then, you will have to identify the right hardware for capturing wind energy (the wind mill) and converting it to electric power (the turbine).
The costs of the hardware and installation of your wind-to-electric power generation system will have to be weighed against the savings on your electric bill. You may want to arrange with your electric power provider to have your system hooked up to the electric power grid, so that any excess power you generate can be put into the grid as a credit on your account, and so that you can obtain power from the grid, when there isn’t sufficient wind power to meet your electricity needs. This would eliminate the waste of power you can’t use, and make the system more affordable.
Two recent developments may make personal wind power more practical. A new kind of wind turbine has been designed by ExRo technologies (www.exro.com), according to a report in MIT’s Technology Review. Electric turbines typically operate efficiently only within a narrow range of rotational speeds. If the wind-driven speed of the turbine is too great or too low, the power generated will not be enough to offset the cost of the equipment. To counteract this, conventional wind turbines are designed with front-mounted transmissions (similar to the transmission in your car), so that the turbine will turn at roughly constant speed, even though the speed of the wind mill varies greatly. The transmission adds significantly to the capital cost of the system, and presents ongoing maintenance costs, as well.
The ExRo solution replaces the mechanical transmission with an inexpensive electronic equivalent, so that the turbine can generate power efficiently at a much greater range of speeds, and with less energy losses due to friction in the mechanical transmission.This solution also allows for efficiently capturing the energy of winds that vary greatly in intensity, so that more locations, with varying wind characteristics could be used for wind power generation.
The development of a new kind of battery (see www.premiumpower.com/aboutrfc.php) that is fully recyclable and has a projected service life of about 30 years, could make residential wind power generation systems more practical. The battery is based on the use of non-toxic zinc bromide, and can store energy three times as efficiently as the lead-acid batteries used in today’s cars. Assuming that this kind of battery is made sufficiently affordable, the home user could store most of the excess electrical energy generated from the wind mill, and not have to worry about selling the excess electrical power back to the power grid.
These are but two of the ways that wind power can be made more affordable for home use, through innovative technological development.
About the Author: I am retired from full-time work for the Federal Government, as a physicist, and am now taking the opportunity to do a lot of things for which I previously had not the time. That includes experimenting with hydroponics in my backyard greenhouse; training my five White German Shepherd dogs; landscaping my new 4-acre homesite; writing articles on energy conservation and renewable energy technology; and writing a futuristic novel. My other interests include evolution of the human mind and consciousness, and tutoring at a local prep school.
