Why not many people have wind turbines?

sevenhills

Sailbad said:

They're not actually common in the boating community. Solar is very much more cost effective, simpler, quitter and lower maintenance.

I believe that they were more common before solar became so cheap. Now just used by those desperate for a few more kw.

anon_ymous

This looks interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkRqVBpO2BQ

Ectophile

waqasahmed said:

This looks interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkRqVBpO2BQ

It's only designed to fit on the edge of a flat roof, though.  And only then if that makes it point into the prevailing wind.  It can't spin around to face the wind.

anon_ymous

Ectophile said:

waqasahmed said:

This looks interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkRqVBpO2BQ

It's only designed to fit on the edge of a flat roof, though.  And only then if that makes it point into the prevailing wind.  It can't spin around to face the wind.

Sure. Not suggesting it's anything for regular roofs, and the video even say it's for flat roofs. I posted it here mostly because it's interesting 

diystarter7

waqasahmed said:

Ectophile said:

waqasahmed said:

This looks interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkRqVBpO2BQ

It's only designed to fit on the edge of a flat roof, though.  And only then if that makes it point into the prevailing wind.  It can't spin around to face the wind.

Sure. Not suggesting it's anything for regular roofs, and the video even say it's for flat roofs. I posted it here mostly because it's interesting 

Thank you, I found it interesting and recall seeing stuff like this in the USA as we drive up and down to places there and often thought WTH was that.
Thanks

[Deleted User]

diystarter7 said:

waqasahmed said:

Ectophile said:

waqasahmed said:

This looks interesting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkRqVBpO2BQ

It's only designed to fit on the edge of a flat roof, though.  And only then if that makes it point into the prevailing wind.  It can't spin around to face the wind.

Sure. Not suggesting it's anything for regular roofs, and the video even say it's for flat roofs. I posted it here mostly because it's interesting 

Thank you, I found it interesting and recall seeing stuff like this in the USA as we drive up and down to places there and often thought WTH was that.
Thanks

Pretty sure Jay Leno had a few interesting things like that on his garage.

Qyburn

I wouldn't want a wind turbine on our roof.  Apart from structural issues the small turbines that I've seen in action are quite noisy so imagine that not just close to hand but actually coupled to the building. For the small "domestic" 6kW turbines that were popular a few years ago, Environmental Health was normally recommending something like 70 or 90m separation from any occupied dwelling. 

mark_cycling00

unpopular opinion coming up...

As a country we need to decide whether we use our limited funds (i.e your money that's taxed and the money you're lucky enough to keep in savings) into domestic energy or large-scale production facilities (i.e. wind-farms, solar-farms)

As individuals we want our own stuff and to reduce our bills. The problem is that each £1 spend on domestic installation, you'd get far more energy produced by spending £1 on large-scale facilities. As a country we want large-scale facilities to solve the problem much quicker but that doesn't win votes.

My simple calculations are 4:1 in favour of large-scale facilities on average.

It would be much better for everyone if as people we invested our £10,000 into a share of a new large-scale facility, were given 50% of our share of output and the other 50% put into the grid to lower prices for everyone else. The payback period would be 50% of the domestic equivilent

Krakkkers

You can do that now with ripple.
The fact is if we committed to that large scale infrastructure someone else would benefit and we would still have high prices.
In principle i agree with you but in practice we would not benefit.

MattMattMattUK

mark_cycling00 said:

unpopular opinion coming up...

As a country we need to decide whether we use our limited funds (i.e your money that's taxed and the money you're lucky enough to keep in savings) into domestic energy or large-scale production facilities (i.e. wind-farms, solar-farms)

Money that is paid in tax the government gets to spend as badly as it wishes, money left over after tax an individual gets to spend as badly as they wish.

mark_cycling00 said:

As individuals we want our own stuff and to reduce our bills. The problem is that each £1 spend on domestic installation, you'd get far more energy produced by spending £1 on large-scale facilities. As a country we want large-scale facilities to solve the problem much quicker but that doesn't win votes.

That depends on the type of insulation and the overall cost of the energy produced. Loft insulation pays for itself in a few years at most, similar with double glazing, cavity wall or external insulation takes decades if ever, draft sealing pays for itself in weeks. Large scale developments take decades and solar and wind will not solve our energy security issues, the only viable choice at the moment is nuclear. To cover our energy needs with nuclear we need around 120-200 reactors depending on how much and at what rate we transition over, eg. all current electricity usage, all domestic energy usage, all vehicles to EV etc. and that that scale we the would cost around £4-6 billion per reactor, depending on scale, timeframe for the build, number reactors at each site etc. PV and wind in theory are cheaper, but the problem is that to be functional they require large scale storage which is expensive and batteries need replacing, with a functional life of around ten years, PV is also not great in winter and on "calm, grey days" we would have serious energy shortages if we relied on renewables and battery capacity. 

mark_cycling00 said:

My simple calculations are 4:1 in favour of large-scale facilities on average.

Simple calculations do not work because energy supply is complicated.

mark_cycling00 said:

It would be much better for everyone if as people we invested our £10,000 into a share of a new large-scale facility, were given 50% of our share of output and the other 50% put into the grid to lower prices for everyone else.

Most people do not have £10k to spare. One can invest in energy production, but then one gets 100% of the return, why would I invest £10k in a scheme which only gave me half of the return, when I could invest in a scheme which gave me 100% of the return?

mark_cycling00 said:

The payback period would be 50% of the domestic equivilent

It depends how you define the payback period, for nuclear, based on current prices it is around 15 years from the point of energy production beginning, for large scale PV and solar it is 5-8 years, but once you factor in the need for over-capacity and storage it is 20+ years, if one was only getting half the return then those ROI periods double.

The only real way out of this and the only real path to energy security is the government needs to commit to fund and build (state owned) 10+ nuclear reactors every year for the next 20+ years, at a cost of £50+ billion per year. Raising VAT to 25% and putting 2p on income tax would cover that. For the energy security and long term cost savings I would be happy for the government to do that, but around 96% of the electorate are against any tax rises that they have to pay themselves, so it is not going to happen.