wind turbine on your chimney? 24/7 home electricity What do you think?

PennyForThem_2

In the Sunday Telegraph today

http://www.secretenergyturbine.com/index.php

Basically a wind turbine which fits on chimney like a pot or on roof like a 'bell tower' - stores to batteries as far as i can tell.

Has anybody got any comments on this? Seems too good to be true especially as cost = 1.5k (not including installation).

FAQ says may get feed in tarrif but that would need approved installer - which makes me sceptical as well


Views?

moonrakerz

"The Secret Energy Turbine Ranging from the tiny Chimney Pot 30cm 25 watt system"

Most wind turbines operate at 10 to 20% efficiency, so you will be lucky to get 5W out of it, enough for one very dim CFL.

("But the research found wind generation was below 20% of capacity more than half the time and below 10% of capacity over one third of the time")
See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12985410

Absolute bargain for £1500 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Do people actually fall for this ??)

SailorSam

The thing is you need to make lots of small changes to different things in your life to make real savings.
I did a OU course a few years ago on sustainability and remember reading about housing i think it was around London, (Bed-Zed project) i can't remember all the details but they had cowels on the roof, i think for ventilation and wind power. There must be web pages about it.

grahamc2003

PennyForThem wrote: »

In the Sunday Telegraph today

http://www.secretenergyturbine.com/index.php

Basically a wind turbine which fits on chimney like a pot or on roof like a 'bell tower' - stores to batteries as far as i can tell.

Has anybody got any comments on this? Seems too good to be true especially as cost = 1.5k (not including installation).

FAQ says may get feed in tarrif but that would need approved installer - which makes me sceptical as well


Views?

Do you realise how tiny 25w is?

If you wanted to run a single bar electric fire, you'd need 40 of them working at their maximum.

Hope you have a lot of chimneys!

Or if you wanted to charge a typical car battery, it would take, under perfect conditions, between 1 and 2 days, again, with the chimney generator working flat out all that time (and bear in mind what a previous post said about the capacity factor of these devices). In reality, under normal conditions, it would take 4 to 8 days to charge a car battery.

Cardew

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Do you realise how tiny 25w is?

If you wanted to run a single bar electric fire, you'd need 40 of them working at their maximum.

Hope you have a lot of chimneys!

Or if you wanted to charge a typical car battery, it would take, under perfect conditions, between 1 and 2 days, again, with the chimney generator working flat out all that time (and bear in mind what a previous post said about the capacity factor of these devices). In reality, under normal conditions, it would take 4 to 8 days to charge a car battery.

But it would charge a 1.2v 1,000mAh AAA battery in only a few hours;)

Kamilindoto

You actually need fairly significant windspeed in order to benefit from a turbine... many areas do not have sufficient speed or consistency to really generate reliable electricity. Try looking up windspeed numbers for your local area - generally class 3 or higher is considered suitable.

Zenoka

Kamilindoto wrote: »

You actually need fairly significant windspeed in order to benefit from a turbine... many areas do not have sufficient speed or consistency to really generate reliable electricity. Try looking up windspeed numbers for your local area - generally class 3 or higher is considered suitable.

How do I look up my wind speed and what is class 3?

Sorry to sound dumb!

Mankysteve

Kamilindoto wrote: »

You actually need fairly significant windspeed in order to benefit from a turbine... many areas do not have sufficient speed or consistency to really generate reliable electricity. Try looking up windspeed numbers for your local area - generally class 3 or higher is considered suitable.

Its not just wind speed. It turbulence which is the most limiting factor in urban areas. Which is why there every where in Holland nice and flat.

Moist_von_Lipwig

Zenoka wrote: »

How do I look up my wind speed and what is class 3?

Sorry to sound dumb!

The EST has a windspeed calculator - all you have to do is enter your post code and type of area you live in.

penrhyn

The turbine is sufficient to power the next generation of electric heaters coming on the market.
These use bio-neural gel to reduce the input power needed for effective radiation and are marketed by Borg Enterprises.

celerity

I am frankly amazed that James Caan (of Dragon's Den fame) is still happy for his name to be associated with that "Secret Energy Turbine" website. It is embarrassingly amateurish and worse, is filled with incorrect data and weasel phrases to avoid giving hard data.
If they could bring down the wholesale price to about £200 then I could *just about* see that they could be a nice idea in a new build estate, to power outside lighting or something. At the current cost and with the difficulty in retro-fitting to existing builds, the idea is a complete non-starter (and I am speaking as someone who has always dreamed of having a wind turbine, so I'm definitely in their target market).

/\dam