I read a story today at The Free Lance-Star about Roger Cavendish, a Caroline County resident that installed a vertical axis wind turbine at his home. He states that for the vertical axis wind turbine to begin operating it need an 8 mile an hour wind but once started can turn and generate electricity with winds as low as 3 miles per hour.

Roger invested $7,400 into his vertical axis wind turbine and is very confident that he will get his money back. He says that this one time investment isn’t like the continual cost of paying workers to drill for oil or run a power plant. He feel this is a one time investment that will not only produce over 50% of his electrical power usage over time but will also contribute to our nationwide green movement.

First off to me a $7,400 investment for a vertical axis wind turbine is not a bad investment. On the low side if he knocks $75 a month off his electrical bill he will have returned his investment in about 8 years. With a little more it will get done sooner.

Now what if he could get the same results with just a few hundred dollars invested, plus a little more work of course. There will also be a lot more fun involved if you enjoy family projects and/or tinkering.

What if you had the knowledge to build a vertical axis wind turbine yourself? Would you build one?

Roger bought a vertical axis wind turbine pre-build and the pole to put it on. He dug his hole and set the pole in cement. The hole took 2 hours, the cement took 29 days to set. What could you do over 29 days along the lines of building your own.

I know a lot of people worry about whether they could actually build a vertical axis wind turbine but I have to say that I think anyone equipped with the correct knowledge and a willingness to follow directions can build their own vertical axis wind turbine.

Personally I would use a slightly different design but that is because I am partial to having all the electrical producing equipment close to the ground instead of up in the air 35 to 100 feet. It is just easier to get to down here.

I like the idea of building a vertical axis wind turbine using a drive that turns around vertically instead of horizontally like the blade driven vertical axis wind turbine turns. This way you can have a shaft turning you alternator close to the ground and not producing everything up in the air with your electrical cord running down to the ground.

If you note the picture I have to the right of this post you will see it depicts a round devise with half moon pipes going around it with the half moons all turned in the same direction. The most complicated part of this design is the gear the turbine will turn on.

If you get the gear the vertical axis wind turbine turns on to hard to turn it makes you have a higher volume of wind for it to turn and produce electricity. The practical aspect of this design for a vertical axis wind turbine is that it doesn’t have any problems handling wind repellence.

You see this vertical axis wind turbine is designed to simply turn round and round. This round and round motion turns the shaft to the alternator which produces the electricity. You can also use a multitude of different materials to build this pedicular vertical axis wind turbine design. Your only limit is your imagination.

I can furnish you with the knowledge but you have to furnish the imagination. Click this vertical axis wind turbine link to get your complete guide to building your own vertical axis wind turbine.

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It has been noted by some in the news and power industry that wind and solar energy generators had their limitations. I agree with that statement. The thing is that with the different styles of wind generators that you can build for home use the arguments in the article referenced goes out the window.

Here is an exert from PNW local news: Readers should be aware of wind turbine limitations. The number of wind turbines per square mile is restricted to between 5 and 8, depending on size, to minimize the propeller blade-wake effects between turbines. The most popular Danish turbine is capable of generating 600 KW power at optimum wind conditions. Ideally, it would take close to 1,700 of these turbines spread over more than 200 square miles to match the output of a 1,000 MW conventional power plant. You can read the rest of the story here.

Residential wind turbines can be constructed in many different ways. If you use the spindle type construction where half moon pieces of large pipe or half barrels are built in an S shape to catch the wind, they don’t interfere with each other when separated by a couple of yards and if built on a diagonal they can be put side by side.

It is true that on occasion clouds will block the sun’s rays and the wind will be calm. The thing is that both happening at the same time is rare. If you are off the grid then you should have a backup battery system to run necessary appliances for that time frame. If you are connected to the electrical company then you can use their electrical output to compensate for your residential wind turbine failing to generate the needed electrical power.

The same holds true for power output by your home solar panels. When the clouds block the sun you have your residential wind turbine to produce power and your battery storage units to support them or you have the backup of your local power company.

Also as improvements are made in the output of power from wind generators and from solar energy generators I believe you will find that in the near future clouds will not bother energy production from solar panels and storage units for holding large amounts of power will become available.

Technorati Tags: residential wind turbine, solar generator, wind generator

Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens wants to lower U.S. dependence on foreign oil with a plan that implements wind power. Katie Couric reports on Pickens’ energy-swapping proposal.

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