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Wes Lemarr Newbie Joined: 07/09/2008 Location: United StatesPosts: 35
Posted: 01:30am 08 Feb 2010
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Hi Guys,
A questions, how many installed Kilowatts of wind generator power would it take to supply an average two bedroom house, given average wind conditions?
According to the government the average two bedroom house in the US consumes about 10,656 Kilowatts per year.
I am guessing it would require something like a 4 kw wind generator?
Look forward to your comments.
Wes LeMarr
JimBo911 Senior Member Joined: 26/03/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 262
Posted: 04:34am 08 Feb 2010
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Wes
To supply ALL the electrical loads for a two bed room house on wind power only is a tall order. I've been working (playing)with sustainable energy for some time and now have never known or heard of a residence being power by wind alone. Wind is too fickled and unpredictable. Wind mills spend most of their time producing less then their maximum rated output. I have visted a home here in windy Illinois that is VERY efficient(strawbale construction)and has a AWP 4kw mill sitting on top of a 108' tower and the owner told me that once or twice did his mill out produce their consumption. This system is grid tied interactive with battery back up. Any home powerd by wind alone would definitely need battery storage.Jim
ChrisOlson Regular Member Joined: 19/01/2010 Location: United StatesPosts: 60
Posted: 05:42am 08 Feb 2010
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I think that the "average" home uses more electricity because it's convenient than an off-grid home uses. If you replace your 'fridge with a propane unit, heat your water with solar and/or propane, heat the house in the winter with wood, cook with propane, and pay attention to installing energy efficient lighting I think you'll find your electricity consumption is considerably below average.
So if you design the home to use less electricity I think you can get by on wind and solar power with a small genset for backup - in fact I know you can do it because I know people who live off-grid that make it work.
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Chrisoff-grid in Northern Wisconsin, USA
Greenbelt Guru Joined: 11/01/2009 Location: United StatesPosts: 566
Posted: 05:49am 08 Feb 2010
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Wes Lemarr;
Its difficult to answer the big question. average wind is the place where you live? also average power usage is related to your personal environment,,Duluth,Minnesota, Los Angeles basin in a foothill canyon.
Is your home heated with electricity, Do you heat water from the grid. How many hours of the day (24hour)does the wind speed exceed 10 mph. If you have a seashore home in the western US. Alaska. Hawaii the wind is constant at 12 to 20 mph. much of the day Hawaii gets some nice wind.
With A well insulated home and battery backup including a stand by generator,you could kiss the grid good bye.
If your 4 KW mill produced EDIT; 3 KW for 8 hours each 24, This would put you near the government figure, or 2KW for 10 hours and lots of batteries. Its very easy to spend a lot of money....for nuthin
Edit; had my numbers crossed up, my 3 bedroom with wife and I, powered all electric,use 26 KW Day, Yearly average.Edited by Greenbelt 2010-02-10Time has proven that I am blind to the Obvious, some of the above may be True?
GWatPE Senior Member Joined: 01/09/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2127
Posted: 11:46am 08 Feb 2010
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Hi Wes,
this works out at about 29kWhr/day.
My house is 4 B/room. We use about 6kWhr/day in summer, and about 10kWhr/day in the winter. The difference is solar hot water requires electric booster in winter.
The best indication is to measure and log the windspeed at the location for a full year. Have someone calculate the wind reigime from the data. The available energy can be calculated with some accuracy.
I know of one family that was running the whole house with stored wind energy. This had a Skystream 3.7, and was in a good wind location. The windmill produced many times more power than needed, and most was dumped into heaters. At some times during the year a diesel genset was still required in low, and wind drought conditions. Solar panels are about to be added to reduce the diesel consumption as well.
Gordon.become more energy aware
KarlJ Guru Joined: 19/05/2008 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1178
Posted: 12:53pm 08 Feb 2010
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Our farm has dad there 4/7 days a week and his consumption is only 3-4Kw/day (this includes running a few transfer pumps to shift water, would be half that if we didnt do this but still more economical to shift water up 20m from the house supply then 60-70m from the bore supply.
The twin stator mill in his location I'm hoping will supply more than enough grunt for the home use and the 4KW of solar will all feed the grid.
If there were more people there it may be a different story, but the system has the potentail to do better than 25-30KW/day on average year round.
the solar should average better than 20KW/hrs/day as is oriented almost dead north and panels at 38degrees (the latitude)
Wind resource has the potential to deliver another 10.
My logged data tells me I have 8m/s for about 35% of the time and 10m/s for 18% of the time 12m/s for about 5% of the time, this is from where I was logging, unfortunately not the windmill site which is better!
only time will tell.
I think with the right useage a 2KW mill / skystream or the like in the right location has the potential to deliver the year round consumption but only way to effectively "store" it is via the grid, you can never have enough batteries when its windy and similarly you can never have enough batteries when its not windy.Luck favours the well prepared
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