Wind Powered Energy Generation

[grahroll]

From the topic “Solar PV Inverters”

@gordon

There’s Buckley’s chance of any local council allowing wind turbines in urban or adjoining urban areas, far too many people would object. However, that isn’t really a problem because, for the dollar spent, in almost every location in which people live, a PV system will produce more output. This is especially the case in urban areas, as the air is very turbulent due to buildings and trees, but wind turbines work best in non-turbulent air, and are more prone to failure in turbulent air due to high induced stress on the turbine.

For a domestic scale wind turbine to be effective financially and in energy output, it needs to be situated at least 10m above obstructions within 100m, and needs to be located in an unpleasantly windy location that is frequently cloudy. Many small wind turbines up to 1-2kW output need consistent ~40km/hr wind speed to operate near their power rating. Some of the micro-turbines as used on boats (~50W) need 45-50km/hr.

Wind turbine grid-connect inverters do exist, although the available range is extremely limited.