Current Home Wind Turbine Breakthroughs
Size and the requirement of a consistent, very strong wind were the larges issues with early types of wind turbines. Early versions of windturbines needed very strong and consistent wind to get them turning. While they were spinning they produced a large amount of electricity, but because of their height and size requirements, they were not a good fit for many people. These wind generators needed to be mounted quite high up in order to get consistent wind because they were being used in residential areas. In order to generate maximum energy This meant that the homeowner had to install a heavy duty tower to mount the wind generator and this was expensive and usually generated complaints from neighbors. Many towns also have restrictions on tower heights and wind turbine installations. Because of these things, areas with lots of open space that don't have many tall trees or buildings were better suited to the older, larger wind generators.
Recent developments in wind turbine design have helped these homeowners by reducing the size of the turbine. more recent designs require much less wind to turn and are much smaller than older types as well. Because of innovative construction materials, more modern wind generators are also much lighter than older models. The result is that they can produce a decent amount of electricity even though they aren't mounted as high up as the older units. The blade design of these more recent wind turbines is more efficient which allows them to be more efficient and also much quieter. This can allow many homeowners who live in smaller neighborhoods to install these more recent wind generators and generate green electricity without causing much disturbance to their neighbors.
The more modern wind turbines can turn more quickly and produce power sooner than the bigger ones because they are much lighter. A wind generator has to be pointed into the wind for it to generator electricity. Generally, this is done with a rudder on the tail. With the larger wind generators it took a strong wind to orient them before they could start spinning to generate power. In a light wind, they might not even spin up and never generate power. These newer, lighter wind generators require less wind to orient them and can start spinning more quickly as a result. This means that even though these older and larger wind turbines could generate more power when they were spinning than the newer versions, they were actually spinning less often. Because they spin more consistently, the newer and smaller wind turbines will produce nearly as much energy over an entire year as the heaver ones. Many of the newer wind generators can be mounted directly to a roof and significantly reduce installation costs because of their much smaller size. For any homeowner looking to generate green electricity from a passing breeze, a homemade wind turbine can be the perfect alternative.