Vertical Windmill Designed For Use At Home - Two Explanations Why Not
Most of your electricity cost worries can be solved by taking a vertical wind turbine for home use and installing it at your house
. However, there are a number of downsides. When you are looking at something this important it is good to acknowledge carefully the good and the bad.
Here are the main ways that a vertical windmill doesn't perform as well as other ways of achieving renewable energy at home like horizontal wind turbines:
1. Lack of efficiency - the vertical version of the wind turbine just hasn't arrived yet in terms of efficiency. When compared with a horizontal turbine they are just not even in the same class. While vertical turbines reach efficiencies of 30-35%, comparable horizontal devices can top 55%. That is a big difference and a large amount of energy you aren't getting from the vertical.
2. Costly - vertical wind turbines can be shockingly high. That is because mainly they are highly stylized and made to blend in with the roof structure. Horizontal windmills are largely work horses and almost commoditized, so they are much cheaper. So many of them are out there that the prices of horizontals have just gotten quite low. The same cannot be said for verticals as they are relatively new to the scene and the prices have not moderated yet.
A good thing however about verticals is there lack of directionality. Verticals don't care what direction the wind is coming from. They will just start spinning in the direction of the dominant wind. A comparable horizontal wind turbine has a tail that will turn it in the direction the wind is blowing. So, there is a lot of turning to meet the wind with that kind of turbine.
One more positive is vertical wind turbines are easier to access when problems occur. With all the operating parts close to the base of the unit, they are easier to get to and work on than horizontals, which have the majority of their innards housed up next to the blade assembly.
In the final analysis, this is like any solution - some good and some bad. If you are looking at vertical wind turbines for home use you just need to take into account the positive and the negative. Having the ability to mount several of these in a series on your roof is a huge benefit if you are trying to power your whole house, which is an awesome benefit and very powerful for the future of renewable energy use at home.