We've covered plenty of
wind turbines over the years, but most tend to be awfully
conceptual or rather
unsuited to consumer applications. Being eco-geeks at heart we're happy to report on a new one that is both consumer-friendly
and in production now. Mariah Power's Windspire is a 9 meter tall vertical turbine intended for residential or commercial installation, capable of providing about a quarter of the power an "average" household needs (2000 kWh annually). It's "bird-friendly" thanks to a relatively slow maximum blade speed (2.5 times that of the wind) and even includes WiFi so you can watch your carbon footprint shrink wirelessly. The company is accepting orders now, and while prices aren't listed on the website (you'll need to request a quote), we hear you can get yourself into a 2009 model with a 5 year unlimited rotation warranty for around $5,000 -- plus customization if you want one in something other than "Soft Silver." We'll take ours in
magenta, thanks.
[Via
Digg]
posted Dec 1st 2008 7:32AM
So does that mean that 4 of them would supply 100% of the average household power use? Seems fairly reasonable to me in order to get off the grid!
Unfortunately the wind doesn't blow 100% of the time and even then when it is moving, it's not optimal 100% of that time either. You would need at least 5 or 6 of them and some sort of battery setup. However, two of these and a decent solar setup could lower your power bills to almost nothing.
However, it is a step in the right direction. Low cost consumer power options.
You'd only be off the grid until the wind stopped...
Mike, you've hit the nail on the head.
MadMike - that's why many utilities are required to support grid intertie. The excess electricity would be 'stored' in the grid and would ultimately zero out your consumption over the year. However, you'd likely still be on the hook for all those fees utilities love to charge.
Well, when the wind doesn't blow, invite the neighborhood children over and feed them some Hi-C and play ring-around-the-rosy to Hannah Montana...they'll get the thing spinning...just beware of overkill and...whatever you do...don't feed them after midnight.
Grid tie is supported because it's free energy for the utilities. You don't get cash back if you're winding your meter back.
Whether or not you get cash back if you 'wind back your meter' apparently depends on where you live. Washington State has a great program. My power company is required to pay me for power I send back to the grid from my solar panels. In addition, every year, the power company also pays me for the total power I generated from my solar panels, regardless of whether I used it or it went to the grid - it's like double-dipping.
This is not a great idea for getting off the grid. You need six of these at $5000 each - that's $30,000. If you pay $150 a month for electricity (super high bill for conservative estimate), you will reach break-even after... 200 months. That's almost 17 years. Who knows what technology will be available in 17 years? Something a lot better than this.
It's a ridiculous waste of $30,000. If you earn 10% annually on $30,000, it will be over $164,000 after 17 years. You can buy a lot of electricity with that money.
Even if you are hell-bent on "saving the Earth", you can do a lot better with your $30,000 than this.
I would totally buy one of these if I owned my own house. Love the idea and the outcome.
With the thought of efficiency, wouldn't we save a lot of power in North America if we switched from 120V -> 220V?
Another fad soon to bite the dust when reality sets in...
Go nuclear or go dark.
Agreed. As much as I favour renewable energy, its supply will not sustain our needs going forward.
Yeah, wind is such a total fad. I can't wait for it to just go away forever.
I've always been a proponent of nuclear energy. We just need to find a better way to store - or recycle the wastes.
America needs to invest in a digital power grid (2 trillion dollars) so we can make our energy use/transfer more efficient. If we maade our national grid 5% more efficient it would be the equivalent of taking 53 million cars off the road.
I know nobody wants to hear numbers like $2T but I'd rather spend our bailout money improving the countries infrastructure than proping up failed corporations.
@Hbishop: Nuclear is the dying fad. There is only enough uranium to quench the world's thirst for power for the next ten years and that's by todays consumption. The energy need will only accelerate as todays emerging economies will pick up pace.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_PAT
I recommend Jeffrey D. Sachs' "Common Wealth". http://www.amazon.com/Common-Wealth-Economics-Crowded-Planet/dp/1594201277/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228139286&sr=8-1
Here is the next nuclear fad: http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/index.html
:-)
ryback:
There's fuel for well over a hundred years if we use breeder reactors to create more fuel. There are no commercial breeders operating in the US, but we have government ones, and France has breeders too.
$5000 of electricity would last me years...
$20,000 of electricity would last me decades...
Ya, I think this is going to vary by household... but this is a good point. The big up front cost of $5000+ could easily be used to pay these expensive electricity bills in the first place.
I think each family would have to figure out when it would pay for itself over time... if it ever would.
One good reason that I almost like apartment life... my electricity bill is typically no more than $50/mo. I don't know how many kWhrs that is though.
My electricity bill is around 350 dollars a month. Even 25% of that would pay for itself in around 5 years...totally worth it.
I once saw an episode of 'This Old House' where they were discussing solar/wind energy and one benefit was when more energy was being produced than consumed the excess was added back to the grid. The electric company then paid for the power being added to the grid.
This might be another thing to consider when figuring cost vs benefit.
That is a big up-front price. Currently, in our average-size 3 bedroom house, three of us run up a total of about €30 a month in electricity and maybe €20 on gas (for heating/shower... if I could turn it off and replace it with an electric shower I would - most of the bill comes from a standing charge since we're quite frugal with it).
So that's six and a half years of power at our current usage rate before we (might) break even.
This is moot anyway, since we don't live anywhere where we could possibly install such a large device... But it's important to consider the practical cost/savings ratio and time to break even. Most people don't have infinite money, so wouldn't consider installing something like this (at a financial loss) just to help the environment and break away from fossil fuels, no matter how noble an idea it may be.
These things need to get cheaper and more powerful, but it's good to see even a little progress.
It may not be for those who only want to save money, but for those who want to survive the zombie apocalypse it's perfect.
Go nuclear or go dark.- love itXD
A certain room here in our R&D lab uses $460,000.00 a year in electricity, and several of us have been tasked to look into cost-saving plans.
Thanks, Engadget, for helping me score a potential promotion this year!
WTF? Are you trying to create Frankenstein or something? $460k is a fair amount of energy.
Haha. Serious innovation requires serious consumption.
Thats a crazy amount of electricity for one lab !!
You guys need to learn to turn off the lights when you go home and stop letting people recharging their ipods in the lab ;-)
@ seanchk
Actually, that's only a single lifetest room. That doesn't include the rest of the power devouring lab.
I'm going to go out on a limb here, but does anyone here have any experience or advice on large scale wind power production?
I know a guy who works for a company here in Montreal that does exactly what you need.
They look at how you use electricity and find was to save you money over a period of your choice.
They take a cut of whatever you save and do all the leg work.
Looking into tax breaks in your area and such.
I know they do work in New York State. But in sure there must be other companies like them.
solar energy cells can save you a load of cash when it comes to electricity, i have one mounted the roof of my house and i never have to turn the electric heater for around 4-6 months of the year.. but i guess it varies from region to region depending on the weather in your area... and they are relatively cheap as well, mine cost me around $500 and it works like magic, so imagine what a whole bunch of them would do for you...
@ drewmacphee
Yeah, we looked into a few consulting services, but I think that they were proposing plans that weren't in our best interests. Our major setback is that we're forced into a 3-year ROI or no deal.
@ ZIG
Unfortunately, solar is much too cost-inefficient for large business.
Some MechE grad students did a project at my school looking for viable alternative energy sources (including both wind and solar power) to power a large international airports lights. They found that there was no real cost benefit of going alternative, despite the large power consumption of these runway lights.
I hope that helps.
fuck nuclear waste. i want one of these. or twelve
I bet that one of them on their own wouldn't provide enough juicy to power a Crysis killing desktop with Core i7 Extreme, 12GB RAM, SLI, 24 display and whatnot. Like the one below:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/03/intel-core-i7-equipped-falcon-northwest-mach-v-gaming-desktop-ha/
@absinthe party
If they say it can produce 2000KW a year, each turbine would take about 15 years to pay itself off, by which time it will probably be broken.
Yeah, you bring up an interesting point. The 5 year limited warranty kind of throws me off, but according to the Mariah Power website, there is a 3kW Windspire in development, which may help our case. It's an interesting concept to look into, at least, especially with the potential tax credits.
@Absinthe Party
You might want to look at the Energy Ball too at www.homeenergy.se. Unfortunately it is in Swedish, thouhgt they had somewhere in English though. There was a post once here on Engadget, so you might want to do a search....
I would love to buy...but where I live its not 'windy' enough to one of this make any eco-power. But some day...when a have a house in the beach...or something.
Is magenta going to be a meme forever since the 'T-Mobile Incident' ?
It's not just the cost savings we should consider -- think of the environmental benefit too!
And, in case of the collapse of civilisation, you'd still be able to have power whilst everyone else was left in the dark 8).
I would love to have one of these. I have even looked into getting solar panels on the roof. Sadly, it would take me 20+ years to recover my costs for the panels and 14 years on this turbine.
So leave all your lights on, and install new ones. This should speed your payback time substantially.
Don't forget the equipment is likely sales tax free, and you'd be eligible for a 30% federal tax rebate (no cap) on the solar equipment and install, along with a 30%, $2000 cap on the wind equipment. Many utilities and states also offer other incentives. Washington State offers a $0.56 per kWh incentive, up to $2,000 annually, until 2014.
Factoring in all that, plus reduced bills, typically puts payback in the realm of 5-7 years. Most solar panels have warranties that last 25-30 years.
$5,000 to save $220/year in electric bills?
That's a 22-year return on investment. I'm all for the green thing, but this just isn't practical in any sense of the word.
I think it all depends on where you live. Here in NYC, I pay about 32 cents per KWH for both generation and delivery. Delivery alone from Con Edison, NYC's local power company, is about 8-9cents per KWH in my last few bills. For someone here, it would be a much more cost effective option. Of course I could not put one of those on top of my apartment building, but, many of my friends and family who live in the area, but outside the city limits, could. They pay almost as much for their electricity as I do, and the NY metropolitan area has good wind potential.
So, my point is that I think wind makes "cents" where it makes sense. That case being here where electricity is not cheap. For the record, I pay roughly $80 - 130 a month, depending on the season, for my electricity.
Fair enough. I used $.11, which was the average as of April 2008.
Even so--32 cents is almost an eight-year return, assuming no equipment degradation. While that's better, I'd also question if NYC would allow a three-story wind turbine to be installed in your yard, assuming you're fortunate enough to even have a yard. For an area as dense as NYC, I'd think nuclear power would be the best option.
It's a step in the right direction but still very much a niche technology, like solar power. It has reach some level of practicality (cost, size, efficiency) before it'll be adopted by the masses.
It would actually be closer to 23 years and in fact you also haven't taken into account the time value of money.
That would be a rather pointless exercise with all the unknowns involved. Maybe alternative energy takes off and we end up paying a nickel...or it goes the way of the oil companies and we're paying a buck. Will the dollar be worth more or less?
Who knows? I can't take into account variables that have no reasonable predictable values.
Nice math, Shark. A little too much mango in your salsa this weekend?
$220/yr in savings implies an $73.33 monthly electric bill on which you'd save 25%. Not sure you're the intended target of this behemoth?
Also, I'm guessing if that's all you use, then you'll be supplying BACK to the grid when it's working, meaning you'll likely profit or have zero cost were you nutty enough to shell out $5k to eliminate a $73 monthly expense. In this case, you would recover your cost in just under 6 years. If you buy the 1-year extended blade tip-to-blade tip warranty, you'll be covered for the full recovery period.
Assuming a monthly bill of $300 and a $75 monthly savings in an average house, you're talking about 66 months recovery.
I would be worried about pranksters TPing the thing at night, then I wake up in the morning to a cold shower.
This would be great for the cabin my father is planning. It's 1050 m (3 444feet) there is no power grid but plenty of winds. Too bad the local government won't let him erect anything above 5 meters. Maybe it will come in a smaller version later on.
"Must remember to proof read" - It's at 1050m (3 444feet) where there is no power grid....
Stop worrying about spelling when your usage is incorrect... try these options:
A) 1050m (3444ft)
B) 1050 meters (3444 feet)
Skystream has a residential wind turbine that is 2x the size for about 2x the cost and is much more attractive than the weird vertical turbine.
http://www.skystreamenergy.com/
They claim that it can pay for itself in as little as 5 years. I calculate more like 20 with our current electric rates ~$0.10/kWh and their average wind speed rating of 12mph producing 400kWh per month.
I have a 3000sq ft. house and it would take me nearly 20 years to break even on one of these, that's assuming installation and everything else is included in that $5000 cost. I'm all for going green and that's why my average electricity bill is $80 a month. If they could make this thing more efficient, say in the 75% range for the $5000 cost, I'd highly consider it. I will be watching though :)
I live in a two family house fully solar powered. Not only is our electric bill 0 every month but the electric company is sending a 80-120 dollar check every month for the electricity we generate back to them. One must take that into consideration as well when thinking of how long something like this will take to pay off.
So how much energy does the factory use to manufacture and install each windmill?
Would more energy be saved by not even making and installing these windmills?
Depends how long they last.
Large-scale wind (ie one or more massive turbines) is quite efficient and generates much more than the energy cost of building it. It also makes a profit (at least depending on energy prices in general; here in the UK electricity is about $0.20/kWh to the customer). As carbon or other pollution taxes start including some of the hidden costs in burning coal and gas, wind becomes even more competitive.
Small-scale wind is usually not efficient for two reasons: one, you don't get efficiencies of scale that you would with a massive turbine (or a farm of them), and two, it's probably sited somewhere inappropriate because it has to be near your house. This is almost certainly a case in point. Unfortunately, the ways to make an environmental difference at a single-home level are less 'sexy' but a lot more practical: reducing your thermostat in winter, better insulation, reducing transport energy use, and a few of the less whiz-bang gadgets: solar thermal water heating and (maybe) ground-source heat pumps. These technologies can save money as well as helping to save the planet, which I don't think is true for (consumer-level) wind or solar pholtovoltaic.
In other words: don't even bother trying to work out the possible slight benefits of a personal wind turbine unless you've already done some of the definite-large-benefit, short-term payback stuff like properly insulating your hot-water tank, switching to low-energy lightbulbs, etc. These are guaranteed to save you money and reduce CO2 emissions, something like this turbine isn't... If you have done all that, maybe something like this will be useful (if you live out in the countryside, on a hill).
For 'off-grid' of course there's a different set of potential benefits.
Thanks for the answer, but my question was a bit different. I guess I was not clear enough; let me try again.
When this windmill is manufactured it takes energy to make it - create, cut, forge, mill the various parts; put them together, transport them, assemble at the site, and what ever else it takes to build one and set it up. How much energy is spend/used in building, assembling and setting up the windmill?
Lets say it takes 1,000 watts of energy just to build and put it in place. That is 1,000 watts of power from the coal burning power plant that would not have been used if it was not built.
So when calculating the energy cost/savings of this (and any other energy saving device) should not one add in the amount of energy used to build, assemble and set it up? Because if I don't buy this windmill that is X-amount of energy not used by not creating it.
compared to my monthly bills, $5000 / years / 12 months = my monthly bills, but since this thing only provides only 1/4.
20+ years to pay it off assuming rates stay the same.
We have had power bill in our area jump 10%+ each year for the last couple of years. The power company is suggesting a 20% increase next year... after all is said and done it will most likely be between 10-15%. All this means that my power bill has been going up and up at fairly constant rate of about ~7% a year. So in 10 years my power bill will double and in 20 years it will be 4X what I pay now. Considering that I would like to add wind power, solar, geo-thermal heating, what ever to save me money in the long term.
What people are either ignorant of or are ignoring is that there are federal (and sometimes state) tax credits for installing wind & solar systems on a residence.
From this page: http://www.energy.gov/taxbreaks.htm
Residential Renewable Energy Tax Credits
Consumers who install solar electric systems can receive a 30% tax credit for systems placed in service from January 1, 2006 through December 31, 2016; the previous tax credit cap of $2,000 no longer applies. In addition, consumers who install small wind systems can receive a tax credit up to $4,000. Geothermal heat pumps also qualify for tax credits up to $2,000.
We just got a Geothermal system and only got $500. Where's the other $1500?
Thats actually a picture of my WIFI antenna.
Something is seriosuly wrong with your WiFi then.
Well, we just put in a geothermal system. We use less gas but more electricity. One of these would be great, if we had any money left.
Thank God they're not trying to sell these again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrieus_wind_turbine
Apparently these are great at carving large circles in the ground when their brakes fail and they split apart.
The idea is that this thing runs your meter backwards when you are not at home using much electricity and then runs forward when you are using more than what the fan makes.
I called a solar panel company in my area and they said that they could put up panels that would make about 1/3 of what I would need for $23000 out of pocket and that would be reduced to about $14000 with tax benefits and rebates from the electricity provider here. The panels would generate more consistent levels of electricity for me as we have lots of sun here, but not always wind. This would take me longer than the warranty (20ish years) to recover my costs.
I care about the environment, but I can not stop eating and paying my mortgage in order to save it this way. I will do other things to try and help.
Let the early adopters pay the premium to get these things moving, then when 2nd and 3rd gen products come out that are much more cost effective come out, the average folks (me) will be able to do more.
This thing was made for our cottage. It would cost us ~10000 to get power lines run in (not to mention the purchasing of the property allowances). We don't have near the power requirements of a full fledged household. I see this being great for people where the power grid hookups are not feasibily (camps, remote places etc.)
If families in the U.S.A. really use 8000 kWh on average, there is a lot to be gained by implementing conservation measures. Western European families use about 2800 kWh on avarage, so that's a nice target to aim for. Saves you the trouble of buying one of these windmills too.
For those of you who think your current electric bills are cheap, once carbon cap and trade take place you may find a doubling of your rates to pay for renewable offsets.
I put in my solar electric system years ago...$35-$45 a month from the utility plus no monthly cost. It's a capital investment but it sure beat what my retirement stock portfolio did and secures another monthly cost going into retirement. Besides, I can always take it with me if I decide to live off the grid entirely.
Im at a facility right on the beach and in dire need of some green power..... These are perfect.....
Will it blend? Duh! It is the blender.
I knew I should have bought a house farther out in the fields. The HOA would sue me within seconds of installing a wind turbine in my backyard. The SkyStream Turbine units are cool too. Hrm. Maybe in a few years we'll sell this house and move to a much larger lot where I can go ahead and install some wind power. It's usually windy enough here, at least it'd help out.
Many people posting comments are missing the point of the real value of wind energy and green energy in general. The point is...It's time to pay the piper for our energy habits. Each one of us has the responsibility to our children to do whatever we can to provide them with a healthy stable place to live, learn, and grow. Not to mention our responsibility to the earth. Everyone is forgetting that there are billions of people on this earth. This attitude of self importance is one of the main problems with today's society. People wake up!!! It's not always about you as an individual and why should you have to spend this or settle for that. The truth is we will all be facing some serious energy crisis situations in the future if the mainstream energy consumption sentiment stays the same as it is now. The question is what will you do about it? Most likely you will sit back and complain about not having this or not having that. America freaking wake up! We freaking rule! Let's stop being babies and work this country back to where it should be. Waaaah why should I spend some extra cash on green energy, when I could buy my 5th hi-def flat screen TV. Waaaah I need 4 bathrooms and 20 rooms in my house. Waaaah I need 16 windmills to have enough energy for my heated pool, hot tub, ice melting driveway, and indoor skating rink. The fact is; it should almost never be about you as an individual when it comes to energy consumption and energy generation. It's time to sit back and figure out what makes your life worthwhile. If it turns out you only value things...there is not much this comment can do to change your perception. Selfishness and greed is what poisoned our soil, atmosphere, oceans, and fresh water systems to begin with. The time is now to start thinking of what you will do when it's your chance to make a change for the better. Will you cry about having to sacrifice some inconsequential item or luxury? Most likely, yes you'll be curled up like a baby because you believe you are entitled to them. I won't because I'm already off the grid. I have 1 125W solar panel and some batteries. It's true it changes the way you live, but in a lot of ways it's a change for the better. No person ever made a bigger mistake as the one who did nothing because he thought he could only do a little. If we all do a little it adds up.
You really think the people you describe in your tirade are the majority of people? I would love to do more to reduce my energy uses. I have replaced all of my interior lighting (that all still worked in my brand new house) with the high efficiency bulbs 6 years ago. I also recycle all of my paper, plastic, and metal cans. My car get 30+ mpg on the highway.
I would love to cover my roof with solar panels, but I can not go hungry for years or get a loan approaching the value of my house to do so.
I think most people want to do something, but are not willing to starve themselves or eat the childrens' college funds to do so. If that is being a baby, then waah, waah brother.
You could have saved a ton of typing with this:
"I don't even know what "right" and "wrong" are. I have a very low IQ. The combination enables me to type very long internet sermons in which I assert superiority to my fellow man, while demonstrating inferiority to molds and fungi."
This wind turbine could be mounted on roofs of high rise blocks in cities, where housing associations could pool together and share the benefits. At $5,000 each I would hope that they started paying for themselves after 3-4 years.
I would hope that Kim Kardashian would return my phone calls. No luck yet.
Wind is still a little bit cheaper than solar, but not by much (though it can theoretically run 24 hours a day if you have wind). Hopefully these get much cheaper, 1/4 the energy need of a household is about 5,000 watts. If I can get 10 hours of wind from a 500watt wind generator, I can buy one right now for $500, this one just happens to be quieter and safer for birds.
They better ramp up and get cheaper quick because once printed solar goes mainstream (I.E. not business purchase but consumer) in 1-2 years, solar will drop in half at least, making it reasonable to purchase (about 10 year return on investment).
Have to weigh in a bit...
...if you are building, the best cost/value you can incorporate would be solar hot water, and passive solar heating...both are inexpensive and have quick paybacks, and are virtually maintenance free...
...more expensive, but capable of heating your whole home would be a 5 century old tech popular in Europe called a masonry stove, masonry heater, Finnish stove, Russian Stove or German Stove....burns wood but unlike a fire place which is around 10 percent, they are around 93 percent efficient. . .
If there was such an effective burning technique, we could put a handful of coal in one of these stoves and heat the house for a week.
I call bullshit.
Larry can call bullshit all he wants, but some friends in Germany built a new house in 2000 and it has one of these stoves in the living/dining/kitchen area. It's awesome. The windows are all double-pane, with automatic blinds, the doors are almost all air tight (and made of tempered glass), and everything is arranged around a central entry/stairway to keep drafts to a minimum. And they use this interlocking block 'stone' to build the exterior of the house. I was blown away. Only problem is allowing for some air intake, lest the high-tech version of that ancient stove suck all the oxygen from the house! We're so far behind, and, let's face it, conscientious building techniques haven't exactly been on the top of the list in America. And, no this couple isn't rich. The house is probably only 1600sq ft.
Why vertical? Why not horizontal, and then along the apex of the roof?
The problem with a lot of the estimates here in posts on how long it will take to pay these off is that they imagine energy costs staying the same. But that's unlikely to happen... Think about the gas spike recently and how long the current price lull is likely to last. As energy costs rise (and energy reliability falls, frankly), these are far more likely to pay for themselves more quickly than many of the estimates here. So in addition to the tax breaks that GreekPi mentions, you have the fact that you've effectively locked in a standard energy price with these devices that won't increase, which makes them even more cost effective over the payback period. The Windspire turbines are rated at a 30-year lifespan, so even if it were to take 15 years to pay for itself, that would still be only half of the life of the turbine. And the likelihood is that it would take far less time--likely only the 5 to 7 years GreekPi mentions. That ain't too shabby...