| By :
Roger Brown
The vertical wind turbine for home use can be the answer to your power cost problems. But, there are also some weaknesses. It is especially important in this type of analysis to acknowledge objectively those weaknesses and compare them in that context to other options you have. Those areas that vertical wind turbines aren't as strong as your other options are: 1. Inefficiency - vertical wind turbines are quite inefficient as compared with horizontal wind turbines. One reason for that is that they don't take maximum advantage of the prevailing wind. What I mean by that is they are more buffeted by the wind than driven by it. Most vertical wind turbines have an efficiency rating in the low to mid-30% range, while competing horizontal turbines are generally 20 percentage points higher than that. 2. Expensive - wow… verticals can be very expensive. The reason for that is multi-fold. One of the main reasons is how new they are to the market. Economies of scale have begun to take hold in horizontal wind turbines but not yet in verticals. 3. Also, manufacturers of vertical wind turbines work very hard to make them ornamental and to blend in well with their environments. That makes them much more acceptable to the neighbors but the styling adds cost. While vertical windmills are very powerful in that they can handle wind from any direction and don't "furl" when the wind blows too hard, they do have inherent limitations that you must be prepared for. Another good point is that verticals are typically easier to work on. That is because the operating part of the wind turbine is housed closer to the ground. One of the reasons wind turbine technicians get paid so much is due to the fact that their jobs are so high up in the air. Most of the horizontal wind turbines they work on are 100 feet high. In conclusion, the vertical wind turbine for home use is a great solution but you need to be aware of their limitations before trying to buy one. The vertical wind turbine for the home may well be the best thing that ever happened to this industry in spite of its limitations. Being able to mount multiple units easily on a roof in an urban setting, like can be done with a vertical turbine, makes those roofs abundant sources of power in big cities where there may not be any other good renewable options.
|
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.articleforbacklinks.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
