Wind Generators For Home Use - What Homeowners Need to Know About Residential Wind Power

When most people think about the idea of using wind generators for home use, the image that first comes to mind are those rows and rows of giant wind turbines. And for most people, it's this image that causes them to shy away from the possibility of using wind energy themselves.

Fortunately, residential wind power has come a long way in recent years. These advancements in technology have resulted in wind turbines being much smaller in size, as well as multiplying the efficiency of collecting and storing wind power. It's these improvements that have made wind power accessible and feasible to most home owners.

How Do Wind Generators Work?

Wind generators or wind turbines are utilized for a number of factors however the primary reasons would be to produce power in the wind. This might sound challenging but it is feasible. You encounter power in the wind anytime somebody runs past you rapidly.

A second after they pass, you are able to really feel the wind that was produced. This wind which you experienced, if created in large enough quantities, could be converted into power. You might have observed the tall wind turbines standing in the fields whenever you drive by.

There is the older classic design windmill that was used to crush grain when the windmill blades would turn, the blades would turn a mechanism which was attached to some device that would crush grain for flour. You will find a number of various areas which are ideal for generating wind energy and based on where these places are, will depend on how much power is generated.

Wind Generators For Home Use - What You NEED to Know About Residential Wind Power

If you are tired of rising energy costs, you're not alone! Fortunately, the cost of harnessing renewable energy sources such as wind power has dropped dramatically in recent years because of advances in the technology.

Generous federal and state tax credits and rebates have also helped to increase interest in wind generators for home use. By powering your home with a wind generation system, not only are you able to lower your energy bill significantly, but you are helping to save the environment at the same time.

When most people hear the term "wind generator" it conjures images of mammoth towers hundreds of feet tall. The reality is that wind generators for home use are significantly smaller and more attractive than they used to be.

A typical small windmill may stand only 30 or 40 feet tall and have a two or three blade rotor with a diameter of around 8 to 25 feet. These wind generators are usually built on a guyed-lattice tower, although more expensive free standing models are also available.

Building a Wind Generator - Some Tips to Build a Wind Power Generator

Wind generator can be used to capture wind energy, which can be transformed into electricity. There are some basic steps that need to be followed to construct a wind generator. This is an alternative and best way to generate electricity.

Some of the simple steps that need to be followed to build a wind generator includes:

• If the wind generator has to function properly it has to be positioned in such a way, so that it is able to receive maximum winds. So it has to be positioned some 20 feet higher.
• You must also make sure that the place chosen does not include trees that are capable of blocking the direct sunlight.
• Batteries can be used to store the excess electricity produced. Mostly rechargeable batteries are preferred.

Wind Generators For Home Use - Why You Should Own a Home Wind Generator

Wind generators for home use are becoming more popular for many home owners because they are an excellent means to supplement your energy use. Having a well built quality wind generator for home can save you a fortune on electricity and can possibly supplement your whole house electricity. You can either choose to purchase a manufactured wind turbine generator or build your very own homemade wind turbine. Whatever choice you make, building a homemade energy source is quite easy and will save you hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars buying one at your local retailer.

Advantages of wind power generators for home use

First of all there could be many benefits of owning a home wind power generator but here are 3 points why homeowners should go green and install wind generators outside their homes.

1) Reduce power outages - Home wind power generators could possible reduce the amount of electricity generated by power utility companies. In many countries power outages are common due to exceeding power generation capacity.

Homemade Wind Generators - Tips and Plans to Go the DIY Way

Homemade wind generators are the right solution as an affordable renewable energy source. Building a wind generator may be a daunting task if uninitiated to DIY or lacking technical knowledge, however this can be overcome with a good plan of action and the aid of a wind turbine design.

First of all, it should be found out whether a wind power unit is the right solution for your household electrical energy as opposed to solar power units. To do so, a wind resource assessment can help you decide for a wind turbine.

A wind resource assessment is based on Wind Power Density, which is the annual power available per square meter of turbine area. If you do not have a clue on how to get this information, check out NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab). They have maps for any particular area to help you decide on the feasibility of the project.

Once established that a homemade wind generator suits your purposes, check out ground clearance for mast positioning, as the blades should be as clear of obstacles as they can for optimal efficiency. The higher the blades, the stronger the wind, however a very tall mast requires an exponential amount of materials to build it, making it preferable to construct several smaller and shorter wind generators to contain costs and as a safety back up, should one fail.

Homemade wind generators of 1000 to 3000 watt can cost as little as $150 to $220 and take a weekend for construction. Materials can be purchased at a local hardware store or delivered by mail. The main components of a wind generator are: a steel pipe mast and its rigging, a nacelle (containing the motor), a Dc motor, the blades, a battery bank for the generator and possibly a DC motor analyzer software for maximum efficiency.

The blades can be either purchased or even made cheaply in few hours. Normally they are designed in a 3 blade set up to contain construction costs while providing good conversion of wind power into kinetic power.

To protect the blades and the mast from sudden, strong gusts, the windmill should have a cheap yet effective spring loaded system to allow the blades furling, which means the blades turn their edge to the wind beyond a certain resistance so as to minimize it and avoid breaking.

To allow the windmill to turn the blades facing the wind and get constant power, a simple tail will do the job. There is no need for complicated hydraulics or motor assisted mechanics like in large farm windmills. An important aspect of homemade wind generators is the battery bank to store energy from the generator. These can be found free or cheaply from old fork lift trucks and recycled back into life.

To do so it may be necessary to build also a homemade de-sulfator to pulse the battery back into action. This may seem like a complication, but a bonus point of making a de-sulfator is that these old forklift batteries can be recycled systematically and sold for profit as a stand alone business on top of the electricity savings, not just for the generator.

A DC motor analyzer software should also be complementary to a good wind generator design, providing critical data to optimize efficiency. It all sounds like a lot of hard work to do and it might even be, but it can save you $ thousands over ready made windmills. In fact, homemade wind generators avoid the hefty initial investment of ready made kits that could take a very long time to recover, while saving on electricity bills just as well.

If you do not have idea on how to build homemade wind generators, check out this website. It could save you thousands. Click on homemade wind generators.

Build a Wind Generator - How to Make Your Own

We figured learning how to build a wind generator was our best option to make power for our off grid home.

We found some great wind generator plans too.

Our choice was a hard one. We could either diversify our Renewable Energy System, a choice between hydro power from our small stream or put up a wind generator. We also had the option to just buy more solar panels. We decided to learn how to build a wind generator and here is why - You may want to build your own too.

There are times of the year when even a hundred solar panels and 10 times our present battery storage would not run our home. In the fall and winter the sun may not shine for weeks at a time.

Thus, no power is produced from the solar panels, no matter how many we would have. We really wanted to smooth out the wrinkles in our charging cycle as well as produce more power for our home, that meant adding more solar panels just wouldn't work for us.

Hydro power is probably the most cost effective option if you have enough running water with an adequate drop to produce power. Water power will produce 24/7, but we had a problem with this option. From November until April our stream freezes solid and in order to produce power we need running water. Unless we could figure out a way to run ice through the hydro turbine that is.

That left us with the wind generator option. A quick assessment of our site told us we had wind energy potential. Open space and a site that was free of obstructions for over 300 yards. We would only need a 40 foot tower to get up to the good wind.

So, we started shopping for a wind generator. The wind definitely went out of our sales, so to speak, when we started looking at the price of new and used wind turbines.

During our search for a wind power turbine a friend of ours suggested why not build one. He had done just that recently with some plans he had downloaded from a website called Homemade Wind Generator. We took a look at the nice job he had done on his wind generator and decided to download our own plans.

We learned how to build a wind generator that cost us less than $100, including the small cost of the plans (still under $20), but compared to the price in the thousands for a new or used wind generator to meet our needs it was a real bargain. The plans were simple and easy to follow and provided sources for all of the material we would need. Isn't it time you built your own.

Once we knew where to look, the DC motor used for a generator was quickly located, as well as the free PVC pipe we used for the blades. Our family is quite happy learning how to build it and It produces about 1000 watts of power at 24 volts. We have plans to build a wind generator for the front yard next.

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