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Shea Gunther

Small wind is fatally flawed

When it comes to wind power, size matters. Small wind turbines just don't make the cut.

Mon, Apr 20 2009 at 9:51 AM EST
 4

Photo credit: Flickr user Ideonexus
I'm as big a fan of wind power as anyone around; I started Renewable Choice Energy in 2001 (now one of the nations leading provider of wind credits) and I think wind power needs to be a big part of the solution to the world's problem of dirty energy.
 
But small wind turbines have never struck me as something to get excited about. Industrial turbines are huge machines, towering more than four hundred feet with massive 250' foot blades churning through the air. Small turbines have blades that are 3-15 feet across and they rarely sit over 100 feet up in the air.
 
Zeeland, a Dutch province, ran a year long test with twelve different small turbines setup across a windy field. The results were pretty dismal- three of the turbines broke, the others generated just trickles of energy. The smaller the turbine, the sharper the dropoff in energy production was. The three foot wide Energy Ball would be hard pressed to reliably keep a CFL bulb lit.
 
Their performance is further sullied when you consider the lower windspeeds most urban and residential settings have. Trees and buildings are windspeed killers and are both abundant where small turbines are most likely to be placed.
 
A good illustration of wind's economy of scale is the energy generated by a 60 foot wide industrial turbine near the test site- though it only cost 17% more than all twelve small turbines combined, it created over 20 more energy.
 
Low-tech Magazine said it best on this one
Wind power rules, but small windmills are a swindle. Bigger is, in this case, better.
 
Low Tech has a great rundown of the results of the test with all the numbers. Swing over there and give it a read.
 
 
Are you on Twitter? Follow me (@sheagunther) there, I give good tweets.
 

And if you really like my writing, you can join my Facebook page.

 

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anonymous
Jenny 04/22/2011 11:31 AM

I'm coming in late to this article but I've been using your program for years and just found this link. I'm not sure if anyone still reads the comments on this but I just wanted to say how much I support your program. It seems like there has been a lot of talk about switching to less energy using sources in your home or monitoring your energy usage by kill-a-watt monitors.... More

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anonymous
Anonymous 04/21/2009 09:28 AM

Maybe you've seen this and just don't think it's feasible, but these guys claim they can fill the small scale void left by turbines. http://www.humdingerwind.com/#/home/

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anonymous
Noah Pollock 04/21/2009 08:52 AM

While I agree that smaller wind turbines are less efficient at producing electricity than larger turbines, power output is only one part of the picture. If you took a holistic look at the other environmental and social factors related to energy production (for example, the loss of ecosystem services provided by migratory bats who are killed by large, ridge-top wind turbines) - perhaps it is worth compromising a bit on efficiency. This holistic approach to analyzing solutions is how we approach.... More

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anonymous
Elliott 04/21/2009 08:42 AM

The article seems to show that really small cheap ones are useless, but you want to just give up on the idea? The Montana and Skystream performed significantly better than the rest, though it is true the industrial size one does produce significantly more power. But doesn't the same logic go for large industrial farming operations? The amount of food produced per acre is greater, but is that the end of the analysis?

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