This is hilarious

[Everest]

I suspect something viable will show up, but I don't think any of these are ready for mass adoption yet.

I'm not so convinced there will be something viable for domestic installations. Small turbines are not efficient at low wind speeds and for many of us (maybe different in Scotland) we just don't have enough windy days.

Add into the equation that turbines are mechanical devices and so many reports of domestic wind turbines only lasting 2 to 3 years before mechanical failure, coupled with increased installation costs and maintenance, I don't see it being cost effective compared to the alternative - which is solar with battery backup, of course. With solar and battery backup we have used virtually no peak electricity for 3 years now - only had a handful of winter evenings running out of battery, 2 years ago, before we increased our solar production.

Why -

Purely because solar and battery is cheaper and passive and requires less maintenance.

 

[securespark]

If my understanding of the timeline is correct, EVs first appeared in some form or other in the 1820s and 30s.

In 1881, Gustave Trouvé built the first electric car (although it was more a bike with a third wheel driven by a motor).

Thomas Parker built a 4 wheeled EV in England in 1884.

The first gasoline powered vehicle is said to have been designed by Austrian Siegfried Marcus in 1864.

But the first practical one was the Benz Patent Motorwagen, a three wheeler, invented 1885.
Benz did not introduce a 4 wheeled version until 1893.

So I think we can safely say that EVs beat ICE to the market.

And they were briefly popular.

But died out because the charging network was dreadful.

 

[Everest]

But died out because the charging network was dreadful.

... or because there were no rechargeable batteries at all - you had to replace them after a journey with new one

 

[Everest]

Which reminds me...

 

[salty]

Brilliant!

 

[Rolfe]

If my understanding of the timeline is correct, EVs first appeared in some form or other in the 1820s and 30s.

In 1881, Gustave Trouvé built the first electric car (although it was more a bike with a third wheel driven by a motor).

Thomas Parker built a 4 wheeled EV in England in 1884.

The first gasoline powered vehicle is said to have been designed by Austrian Siegfried Marcus in 1864.

But the first practical one was the Benz Patent Motorwagen, a three wheeler, invented 1885.
Benz did not introduce a 4 wheeled version until 1893.

So I think we can safely say that EVs beat ICE to the market.

And they were briefly popular.

But died out because the charging network was dreadful.

They died out because the battery technology available at the time wasn't up to it. Some public chargers did appear, but the advances in ICE technology left the EV by the wayside. Nevertheless people tried to get them to work all through the 20th century with little practical success until GM produced the EV1 in the 1990s. Then recalled and crushed them all to protect their ICE business.

 

[Rolfe]

That wasn't a derail at all! Merged back in.

 

[QLeo]

Not entirely accurate:

Speaking as one who has had wind chargers for 25+ years, and depended on them for winter power for 18 years, the one question with all these "new" designs is why don't you see more of them. The main reason is they really don't work, have a small operating window, are hard or impossible to control etc etc. They tend to be high on marketing and low on performance.
We tend to have the opposite problem, having burnt out numerous devices in the winter winds we get. But the current (hah!) Superwind on top of a 7m pole gives us appreciable amounts in winter, when the solar panels give us, for all practical purposes, nothing. (6.5 hour day length this far north, but geography means the sun is only visible for perhaps 2 hours, and it's so low on the horizon, it's hard to gather on the panels) The Superwind is also great at looking after itself. Even in 80+mph gusts, when we're cowering in terror, it reacts quickly enough to have lasted 10 seasons. A remarkable piece of engineering.
But no good for charger Goth Leo, our car.
However, Leo does top up our house battery in winter when wind and solar are lowest. I rather like the idea of going to the village to fetch joules.

 

[Martinonline]

Professor Hannah Fry has 2 series on modern (?) technology and one covers EVs (not Hybrids). In that she says that Edison and Ford co-produced an electric car and that EVs were taking off in America until Ford created the production line and his Model T was cheaper than the ICE cars and EVs of the time.

In respect of batteries she says it was the low energy density of the heavy Lead Acid batteries that stopped development of EVs until the creation of the Lithium battery (for personal devices originally) and inspired a firm called 'Tesla' (not Elon Musk's at the time) to create a single expensive prototype EV. Musk then turned the tables on Ford with his production of affordable cars.

She also the longevity of the Lead Acid battery Milk Float. (I was the driver of a battery-powered Mobile Butcher's van in 1966.)

Finally she hits the kerb in a Dutch prototype solar-powered EV.

It's an positive programme with some interesting technical details.

 

[Everest]

The Superwind is also great at looking after itself. Even in 80+mph gusts, when we're cowering in terror, it reacts quickly enough to have lasted 10 seasons. A remarkable piece of engineering.
But no good for charger Goth Leo, our car.

That's good to hear and obviously you have a lot of real-life experience compared to the rest of us, who can only go by info we have read.

Would it be possible to share with us the (approximate) cost of the 'Superwind', including installation and any production figures from using it over the last 10 Winter seasons?

 

[QLeo]

That's good to hear and obviously you have a lot of real-life experience compared to the rest of us, who can only go by info we have read.

Would it be possible to share with us the (approximate) cost of the 'Superwind', including installation and any production figures from using it over the last 10 Winter seasons?

Here's a blog post from way back when - The Superwind's first winter - The Quibble Locker
I think it was £1500 at the time, and I did the installation. I do have some figures from the last few years when I finally got around to putting in a monitoring system, but I don't have those on the public internet.
Soon after I bought that one, Superwind brought out a much larger device, but that wasn't necessary for us. The general thrust of this thread more or less fits our experience - in the early days of our installation, solar was incredibly expensive, and wind relatively cheap. Now, unless you scale WAAAAY up, solar is by an order of magnitude cheaper, but we still have that hole in winter production, for which we need the wind charger. In our case, it doesn't need to be big, or powerful, as gales tend to last days, so we either have a glut of power or a shortage in winter. Feast of famine. But as solar prices have dropped (thanks, Germany, in the mid 2000s onwards for subsidising panels, thereby dropping prices for all of us) we've been able to elongate the period of the year where we get most power from the sun.
The graphs show, though, averages of what just 350w of wind can do vs 1500w of solar, at least in our location. We have now added another 800w of solar to the mix, to try to get another week or solar on either side of mid winter.

 

[Bam Bam]

The graphs show, though, averages of what just 350w of wind can do vs 1500w of solar, at least in our location. We have now added another 800w of solar to the mix, to try to get another week or solar on either side of mid winter.

The two mostly complement each other well, glad you've got a good set up.

Those of us in suburban houses on the grid have to choose whether it is cheaper to
1. get our electricity from a giant (efficient) wind turbine in a good location or
2. get it from an expensive and poorly performing turbine in our suburban garden (which also no doubt annoys the neighbours).

Grid wind is always going to win that battle.

Home solar makes sense, but home wind only does in a few rare cases (off grid in particular, or very remote with a handy hilltop away from any buildings/trees etc.

Maybe commercial buildings or tall blocks of flats will be able to have wind devices at some point. Would be great to diversify supply.

 

[QLeo]

The two mostly complement each other well, glad you've got a good set up.

Those of us in suburban houses on the grid have to choose whether it is cheaper to
1. get our electricity from a giant (efficient) wind turbine in a good location or
2. get it from an expensive and poorly performing turbine in our suburban garden (which also no doubt annoys the neighbours).

Grid wind is always going to win that battle.

Home solar makes sense, but home wind only does in a few rare cases (off grid in particular, or very remote with a handy hilltop away from any buildings/trees etc.

Maybe commercial buildings or tall blocks of flats will be able to have wind devices at some point. Would be great to diversify supply.

Yes, I would absolutely agree with you, except for the last sentence. Wind turbines need a clean airflow. The devices sold as "urban" or "rooftop" are snake oil. There are so many studies on the need for clear air flow, it's amazing that, even now, every now and again, yet another promise of making use of what seems like power-filled winds in urban areas arises, never to come to fruition, because Physics. Wind turbines need maintenance too, which means access. I help a neighbour locally, who has a much larger unit than ours. When we drop that tower, it bends in the middle alarmingly. You'd need some fancy arrangements for doing this type of thing in urban locations. But the joy of solar is that it can go anywhere. Imagine if they started putting shelters on EV charger locations, the roofs being solar panels....

 

[Bam Bam]

Imagine if they started putting shelters on EV charger locations, the roofs being solar panels....

You get that in some places. Redbridge P&R Oxford has a few over the FastNed section, but not covering the whole car park. Would be good to shade the cars as well in the summer.

Much more common in France where they have more sun.

 

[Everest]

Imagine if they started putting shelters on EV charger locations, the roofs being solar panels....

The Fastned ones have big solar canopies

 

[Everest]

I help a neighbour locally, who has a much larger unit than ours. When we drop that tower, it bends in the middle alarmingly. You'd need some fancy arrangements for doing this type of thing in urban locations

see also this interesting read on another forum I'm active on...

Wind Turbine Tower DIY Build

I feel like sharing more details about my small wind turbine build. Some members of this forum have been interested and I can tell by the questions asked and opinions put forward that small wind turbines are too often shoddy, short-lived, and troublesome. Challenge accepted, I said, many years...

diysolarforum.com

 

[GaryMG4]

The Fastned ones have big solar canopies

I doubt that the solar roof could even power one of those rapid chargers.

 

[Everest]

I doubt that the solar roof could even power one of those rapid chargers.

agree... this is how you need to do it...

Massive Tesla Solar Powered EV Charging Station in Barstow California

You guys will love this. I took some high definition pictures of the inverter they are using at this massive installation. And it gets even better. I found a broken 250kW Tesla charger near a transformer! Check it out:

diysolarforum.com

 

[QLeo]

I doubt that the solar roof could even power one of those rapid chargers.

Rule of Tesco applies - every little bit helps.

 

[Gadget Geek]

Speaking as one who has had wind chargers for 25+ years, and depended on them for winter power for 18 years, the one question with all these "new" designs is why don't you see more of them. The main reason is they really don't work, have a small operating window, are hard or impossible to control etc etc. They tend to be high on marketing and low on performance.

Like many start ups, it's the scaling of production from the lab to industry. They need financial backing, and not many of them get it. The majority of the turbines in the video were in the validation stage. The majority would be unaffordable for home consumers until economies of scale take effect.