Will One Wind Turbine Be Enough To Power My Home?
Filed under: Alternative Energy Questions, Build Wind Turbine Questions, DIY Wind Turbines
Before deciding to build a wind turbine some people like to ask just how many wind turbines they will need to convert their home to alternative energy. For those that live in a windy area (preferably where average wind speeds exceed 12MPH) a DIY wind turbine is an excellent way to reduce, or eliminate, the power bill. The question that needs to be answered is, will one wind turbine be enough?
That question can actually be a little difficult to answer without first knowing the specifics of the situation.
If you built the wind turbine that is laid out for you in the Green Power Easy guides, as it is specified it will create about 400Watts of power/hour in 20MPH wind speeds. If the wind blew for 10 hours out of the day, that turbine is then capable of producing about 4KW hours of energy every day.
If you calculated your power needs to be around 4KW hours per day, then a turbine built to our specs you may be enough. However there are other things to consider. Even if you need more energy than that turbine is capable of producing, you still may be able to adjust the design to suit.
As stated in the Green Power Easy guides, simple things like increasing the size of the DC motor you use as a generator will allow you to produce more energy with a single wind turbine. In fact if you found a 110-130V DC motor that operated well at a lower RPM (say 1250 RPMS), you could easily triple the power production of a single turbine.
Of course if you do this you would then need to increase the blade diameter to turn the larger motor. The whole turbine will take up more room, and for some, two smaller turbines are still a better solution.
In general when trying to calculate how many wind turbines that you need you should first refer to the Green Power Easy guides. The guides lay out for you the exact steps needed to calculate your energy needs, and they make suggestions on how to alter the design of your turbine to product more power.
If you aren’t yet a Green Power Easy member, you can get your guides by clicking here.
Is It Possible To Go Off The Grid With DIY Solar or DIY Wind Power?
Filed under: Alternative Energy Questions, Build Solar Panel Questions, Build Wind Turbine Questions
One question that prospective members sometimes ask is whether or not they can go completely off the grid with Green Power Easy. The answer to that question is, of course, yes. But, I wanted to take a little time to clarify this idea a bit.
The Green Power Easy guides come as four separate eBooks. If you’ve taken the time to read our homepage then you already know that as a member you get:
- Green Power Easy – The Easy Guide To DIY Solar And Wind Power
- Green Power Easy Implementation Guide – Learn How To Convert Your Entire Home To Alternative Energy
- Green Power Easy Parts Guide – Collected Links To Get All Of The Parts You Need At Prices Anyone Can Afford
- Green Power Easy Rebates Guide – Learn How You Can Get Tax Rebates For Your DIY Solar and Wind Power projects.
- Green Power Easy TV – Solar Panel Videos – The 1 Hour Video Series That Covers Building a 100 Watt Solar Panel.
With the material that comes with membership, the part that will be most important to those looking to go off the grid is the implementation guide. The main guide teaches you how to build the components you will need, but the implementation guide teaches you how to determine exactly what you will need to convert your entire home.
Go Off Grid - Learn How With The Green Power Easy Implementation Guide
With the Green Power Easy implementation guide you will be given step-by-step instruction on how to determine your energy requirements and then design your green power system to suit. It includes instruction on how to determine the number of solar panels/ turbines you will need, and gives you information on designing a battery bank to store power for off-grid applications.
It’s important to note that this portion of our guides is one of the elements that sets Green Power Easy apart from the competition. There are other guides that will teach you how to build a solar panel or a wind turbine (our instruction is clearer though), but none of the other DIY solar and wind power guides include instruction to go off the grid.
If you’re looking to take your home off the grid and live with renewable energy only, a great place to start is with the Green Power Easy guides.