How plausible is eco-tricity for normal homes?

[downfader]

It gets windy here, and seeing those mahoosive turbines on the telly (though never in real life) it gets you thinking. Could that be done on a small scale for a house?

How about those solar cell things? How good are those? We've got a digital radio that seems to eat batteries like a chubby kid locked in tesco for the night. Would be pretty cool if we could power the thing off some kind of solar power instead imo.

And the thing is - where do you buy this stuff? I've seen little bits and bobs in Maplin but thats it. Anything more serious and it draws a blank.

 

[jimboalee]

It gets windy here, and seeing those mahoosive turbines on the telly (though never in real life) it gets you thinking. Could that be done on a small scale for a house?

How about those solar cell things? How good are those? We've got a digital radio that seems to eat batteries like a chubby kid locked in tesco for the night. Would be pretty cool if we could power the thing off some kind of solar power instead imo.

And the thing is - where do you buy this stuff? I've seen little bits and bobs in Maplin but thats it. Anything more serious and it draws a blank.

The wind turbine thingies only power the bits in the house that could run on 12V dc. They charge a bank of batteries which power the lighting and the stuff that can readily take 12V dc. The house would need a complete rewiring.
Other stuff of low current make use of an inverter to take the 12V dc up to 240 Vac. Not cheap.
Cookers and electric heaters ( in washing machines and tumble dryers ) still need the National Grid supply.

They take about ten years use to break even, so if you are considering moving within ten years, it would be a wasted outlay.

 

[Arch]

The Energy Saving Trust is probably a good place to start looking:

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk...nd-turbines?&gclid=COve676Xt6QCFYVA4wodv2UA1A

Of course, it's hard to generate ALL the power you need, but you can work on doing a chunk of it. I gather the latest thing is a scheme whereby a company installs solar panels for free, but then take a cut of the electricity you generate for a set period to recoup the cost.

There are also two sorts of solar power - PV cells, that generate electricity, and solar water heating, that uses the sun to part heat your hot water, so that it takes less power to bring it up to temperature. Obviously, you get less intense sun in the winter, but even then on a sunny day, you can heat water a little.

Also, there's no point in generating power if you waste it. Don't use that DAB radio to listen to anything you could get via FM, because digital radio eats power, whereas a normal transitor radio sips it. Use low-energy bulbs. Insulate! Don't leave stuff on when you don't need it, etc...

The place I work at has solar water heating, PV cells and a turbine, along with big southfacing windows and a woodburning stove that powers the central heating. We're not self-sufficient in electricity, but it all helps, and we have energy saving drummed into us.

I think it's probably easier to build renewables and energy saving into new builds, but it's not impossible to do your bit.

 

[downfader]

We already do things like switching the lights off, flourobulbs, insulation etc. Got that pretty much nailed. Just wondering about the electricity side of things, how they've changed in the last few years.

 

[Arch]

Heard something to day that made me laugh. My friend was driving us towards Howden, and told me that there's a plan to install some wind turbines, if they can get planning permission, subject to the usual NIMBYs. Apparently one objection was "It'll spoil the character of the countryside".

Now, I dunno how may of you have been to the countryside around Howden, but imagine East Anglia, only flatter, and without the interesting pattern of dykes and drains. There is no character.

Not to mention, the fact that the few major landmarks there are are Eggborough, Ferrybridge and Drax. Huge Power stations!

 

[Yellow Fang]

It gets windy here, and seeing those mahoosive turbines on the telly (though never in real life) it gets you thinking. Could that be done on a small scale for a house?

You can change your electricity supplier to Ecotricity if you want. Not all their energy comes from wind turbines, but all their profits go into building them. Small scale wind turbines are not really advisable for homes. In an urban environment, wind tends to be turbulent and somewhat slower than on the top of a moor, for example. The energy generated by a wind turbine is proportional to its diameter squared and the wind speed cubed. In addition, they can cause vibration problems. Unless you live in the country and have a big garden with space for a fair sized turbine, it's probably not worth it.

How about those solar cell things? How good are those? We've got a digital radio that seems to eat batteries like a chubby kid locked in tesco for the night. Would be pretty cool if we could power the thing off some kind of solar power instead imo.

And the thing is - where do you buy this stuff? I've seen little bits and bobs in Maplin but thats it. Anything more serious and it draws a blank.

You might consider contacting an installer and asking about the feed in tariff. It would cost some thousands of pounds to install, but the feed-in-tariff now makes it affordable. You have to get an accredited installer to fit it, and it has to be connected to the grid for you to qualify for the tariff. From memory you get approximately:

• 38p for every unit (kWh) you generate, whether you export it to the grid or use it yourself.
• 3p extra for every unit you export.
• a saving of around 15p for every unit you now don't have to import.

Pay back times are probably about ten to fifteen years, and is probably better rate of return than leaving it in the bank. You may have better ways of spending the money of course. There is some concern that this is not actually the most cost-efficient way of saving or generating energy. George Monbiot doesn't think much of it.

You can get quite cheap PV panels from Maplins. I think you need a deep cycle battery, and then you can run 12V DC equipment off it. They're probably more suitable for garden sheds, house boats and camper vans.

Radios don't actually use that much electricity. Have you considered one of those wind up radios?

 

[Arch]

Radios don't actually use that much electricity. Have you considered one of those wind up radios?

Digital radios take up way more then analogue. The last time I looked, a wind up one gave something like 45 minutes of analogue per given number of winds, whereas digital gave 10.

 

[jimboalee]

Done some sums.



1 man on a treadwheel can produce 100 W. 10 men = 1kW.

100 men = 10kW. Much like pumping water in Babylon.



Every able bodied man and woman in the country reports to their local generating station for their obligatory 60 minute stint on the treadwheel.



AWOL = Their house is cut off for 1 week.



Free electricity and healthy population. Sorted.

 

[dellzeqq]

I'd ask Proven Energy about turbines (and, sorry Arch, but the EST is a bit hopeless on the technical stuff). You can speculate all you want, but until you have your chosen site surveyed you've got no real idea.

http://www.provenenergy.co.uk/

As for solar thermal (not PV) - yes, if your roof is south facing you'll make your money back in ten years or so (it depends on the pitch....). Worth checking for grants, which come and go and depend on your postcode.

 

[downfader]

Done some sums.



1 man on a treadwheel can produce 100 W. 10 men = 1kW.

100 men = 10kW. Much like pumping water in Babylon.



Every able bodied man and woman in the country reports to their local generating station for their obligatory 60 minute stint on the treadwheel.



AWOL = Their house is cut off for 1 week.



Free electricity and healthy population. Sorted.

Or get our prison population to do something like it.

 

[downfader]

Cheers everyone. Looks like wind isnt the option, we only have a small garden.

 

[Over The Hill]

The wind turbines all seem to be rather over manufactured and expensive. OK so they are well engineered to extract all the energy they can out of the wind but at the cost of using up lots of energy to make and it bumping up their price to make them uneconomic.

I have wondered about a home-made approach. Get a car alternator from a scrappie and attach it to a blade and stick the lot on top of a telegraph pole (a bit like the wind pumps they had on ranches in old cowboy films).

If it costs zero to make then whatever it produces is a plus.

Just run it from the turbine to a water heater feed tank to nicely store for you to use and save on heating all year.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Digital radios take up way more then analogue. The last time I looked, a wind up one gave something like 45 minutes of analogue per given number of winds, whereas digital gave 10.

Correct! Example. That's rather interesting. I suppose a digital radio must have a processor in it de-scrambling all those digital codes while an analogue radio only has transistors and diodes and stuff. Still, my smart meter reckons my digital DAB radio uses 5W, while my analogue clock radio uses 2W. Even 5W is not that much in the grand scheme of things.

 

[jimboalee]

The wind turbines all seem to be rather over manufactured and expensive. OK so they are well engineered to extract all the energy they can out of the wind but at the cost of using up lots of energy to make and it bumping up their price to make them uneconomic.

I have wondered about a home-made approach. Get a car alternator from a scrappie and attach it to a blade and stick the lot on top of a telegraph pole (a bit like the wind pumps they had on ranches in old cowboy films).

If it costs zero to make then whatever it produces is a plus.

Just run it from the turbine to a water heater feed tank to nicely store for you to use and save on heating all year.

Motor alternators need to turn at 1000 rpm to be of any use. At idle ( 800 rpm. The alternator pulley is half the diameter of the crank pully ), the alternator is turning at 1600 rpm.
When the car's engine is doing 5000 rpm, the alternator is doing 10,000 rpm.

To get an altenator up to these speeds, an increasing gearbox needs to be used between the wind vanes axle and the alternator. The gearbox losses take most of the energy and its damned difficult to start from standstill.

Its been tried and failed.

 

[jimboalee]

Go for a damned good ride round on your bike. While you are riding, charge a medium sized 12V dc battery. When you get home, connect the battery to the lamps circuit and it will light the house.

After your ride, you will want to take a cold shower to cool off, so that's not wasting energy heating water.

Walk around with minimal clothing until you feel cold and then put on some thick woolly clothes to keep warm.



Walk or cycle to the shop and buy some 'reduced for quick sale' cold pasties. Drink room temperature cheapo diet coke. No energy wasted cooking or fridging.



Convert your bed into a heat exchanger so you have a little bit of warmed water to wash with in the morning. Or better still, cycle to work and shower there.



You see, you don't need mains electricity.