subject: Home Wind Turbine: 3 Ways They Could Be Improved [print this page] The home wind turbine could be a great solution for rising energy costs at your home. But, they aren't perfect devices and these are the ways the technology and the customer service experience could be improved...
Improve cut-in speeds - This is the speed at which you can expect to get some energy coming out the other end in the form of electricity. Much of the R&D money that is spent on wind turbine technology is invested in the aerodynamics and weight to performance ratios of the blade system. This is a very tenuous dance though. It would be relatively easy to make wind turbine blades which start at a very low wind speeds. That would allow us to make power in almost any low wind conditions anywhere in the country. The problem with that is that you compromise your ability to make power in gusts and stronger winds by doing that. The lighter weights that work so well at low speeds to get the wind turbine turning, work against you at higher speeds and limit the amount of energy you can extract from gusting winds that are stronger than normal.
Introduce plug and play - This is really exciting concept. The easier you can make anything, especially something that most people are unfamiliar with like a wind turbine, the more likely will be the people will take action and get one. Rather than having somebody purchase a separate mounting system and go to the trouble of having to figure out a lot, it would be better if these devices were plug-and-play. That is, do all the calculations up front and then design a system specially made, just for you and then ship it to you for installation. As it is now, much of the work has to be done by the homeowner and customizing off-the-shelf item to their home.
Smaller and cheaper - The evolution of these wind turbine kit devices is going to be toward smaller and cheaper. That means that we will not have massive devices that we spend hours and hours agonizing over where to put them. In the future will be less expensive devices that have an easier initial entry point financially. Also, the smaller they are, the cheaper they're going to be. In addition to that, the smaller they are the more locations there will be that will work for them.
In conclusion, the home wind turbine can be the best thing to come along for the average homeowner but as technological improvements come along, we will see the home wind turbine really start to gain traction with a much larger market segment.
