One KW wind turbine without civil engineering

https://www.windtowatt.com/index-en.html

by skywal_l • 21 days ago

45 30 21 days ago

einpoklum2• 21 days ago

These people are charging for the f'ing IP! They won't let you just use the design, they want to profit off of you paying them royalties.

colechristensen• 21 days ago

1 kW, 4,900€ for what looks like a mediocre high school science fair project?

You could build something as good with duct tape and an old washing machine for the cost of picking it up for free when the owner is trying to get rid of it without paying to have it picked up.

The Vevor 1 kW wind mill that looks like a windmill instead of TechCrunch×MadMax is $300.

BizarroLand• 21 days ago

To be fair, it looks more like an undergrad science project.

vardump• 21 days ago

I’ve been looking for a wind turbine you could deploy on the roof. I’ve got 15 kW of inverter capacity available.

So far my conclusion has been that it’s not yet time for this.

jopsen• 21 days ago

Wouldn't noise be a concern?

And what is the failure mode?

Foivos• 21 days ago

Also vibrations. Wind turbines are not meant to be close to residential areas.

einpoklum2• 21 days ago

Won't these things just fall off your roof though?

tty456• 21 days ago

If don't bolt them down, sure

zdragnar3• 21 days ago

https://ridgeblade.com/rb1-residential/ looks like the closest thing that I'd want, but with the storms we get I'd hate to think of what kind of pressure that'd put on the structure of the roof.

metalman• 21 days ago

There are exceptionaly well understood minimum requirements needed to build wing turbines and other primary power equipment, the thing shown quite clearly meets none of them, and in fact appears to be built like a folding lawn chair, or perhaps an umbrella, but in any case, not the sort of thing you leave to the mercy of the wind.

jamwise• 21 days ago

Consumer solar has been a game changer, so doing the same for wind would be a huge innovation. But the reasons everyone doesn't already have wind generators on their roof is it's a much harder problem to solve. Not least of which is wind speeds are significantly lower closer to the ground. So I expect their 1kw output has a very narrow "optimal conditions" window. This might work if you live in a desert? Though given enough time with climate change...

derriz• 21 days ago

Yes. The power in wind is proportional to the cube of wind speed - which falls significantly as you get closer to the ground especially in a typical residential setting. Anything below 15m is going to struggle to deliver any kind of useful power.

And wind turbine power scales with the square of the blade length. Which is why turbine blade designs have completely displaced this sort of "wind catching surface" device which scales linearly at best in terms of materials. Solar PV scales linearly which is what makes small and domestic PV practical.

The advances in wind power over the last decade or so have come from engineering bigger and bigger blades.

I don't see domestic wind power ever being practical at all but especially given the competition of solar PV even far from the equator.

chewbacha• 21 days ago

Looks like AI slop marketing, feels like a scam.

drpixie2• 21 days ago

Can't imagine it would survive the first descent storm. Unlike conventiolnal turbines, it doesn't seem to have any way of protecting itself.

drpixie2• 21 days ago

Is there anything on the website that isn't "AI" generated? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear :(

taffydavid2• 21 days ago

The price does seem steep for something so simple it could be modelled with straws in three minutes, but I don't really understand the rest of the negativity.

Don't we want innovation in renewables? Shouldn't we be encouraging this kind of thing, trying out different designs to the traditional windmills and trying to make something easy to build, scale, install and operate?

zdragnar3• 21 days ago

When people are asking for money, it is entirely reasonable to apply some skepticism to the sales pitch.

In this case, they're charging a lot of money for a flimsy-looking product that is unlikely to capture much energy (low wind speeds at ground level).

Animats• 21 days ago

Um, yes. 4,900€ for a 1KW device. That's way above market price.

On Amazon, a 1KW wind turbine is $500 to $1000. About half that on Alibaba. This is a common technology now, with lots of makers. Almost everybody sells a bladed turbine that mounts on top of a pole and has a tailfin to make it pivot in the wind.

What's with this thing? It's at ground level. It's expensive. It's built out of plastic tarps that probably won't survive a storm. The scheme for making it follow the wind looks flaky. Their "business plan" consists of copies of the business cards of people they met at a trade show.[1]

When I read this article, I was near a little 200W wind turbine at a horse barn. Little five-bladed thing up on a pole, with a tail that makes it follow the wind. It powers a few lights. It's been running for years now with no attention. It's 2026, people. This stuff just works.

[1] https://www.windtowatt.com/doc/Market%20Validation%20En.pdf

IshKebab• 21 days ago

Wait 1kW is actually €5k? Lol they have the audacity to describe it as low cost.

Also if you have a real project (which this seems to be), don't get AI to slop out your website. Terrible look.

asdfghjkl11222• 21 days ago

But what about muh agentic workflow and vibe coding? Are you suggesting we should write code MANUALLY in the big 26?!

hex4def62• 21 days ago

Many questions.

A couple:

* 1m² = 1x2m? 4m² = 2x4m? etc. I'm confused by this.

* Why 25 m² (5x10 m) = 20.8kW, but 100 m² (10x20 m) = 62.4kW? 4x the size in m², but only ~3x the power? Shouldn't it be 83.2kW, not 62.4kW? It doesn't make sense efficiency would drop....

* You're speccing this as having a 25 year life (with $50/yr maintenance). I'm feeling a bit doubtful that zip-tied tarps under UV and dynamic load are going to last that long, to be honest. The tracking system also seems extremely susceptible to dirt etc.

* This thing looks pretty janky. I'm also not convinced a good 20-year storm wouldn't completely wreck it. Proper wind turbines have the ability to weather-vane into the wind, lock the rotor, etc etc. Again, in it's current incarnation, I'm doubtful it would survive.

* Your "guaranteed Cp of .32" seems... optimistic. Given it looks like you've built actual units, what are your real-world results vs the CFD numbers?

fecal_henge• 21 days ago

I would guess 1x2 is that the wheel is 1m wide, 2m diameter. This would mean that there is a 1m^2 sized flap* that the wind pushes against.

*technical term

hex4def62• 21 days ago

Ah, I think you're correct. Although the watts per square meter still don't make sense.

walrus01• 21 days ago

For a single unit project or workshop thing to make, just because, sure... Maybe? But for 4900 euros? What are they smoking? I'm rather skeptical of the rendering shot of dozens of these in a bare field.

The mechanical cost and complexity and maintenance issues will surely be more costly and hassle prone over a 5-10 year time span than buying three 400W PV panels (1200W STC rating) and mounting them using some similar hack job DIY ballasted ground mount.

The rotating/moving thing at ground level also seems like a good way to mangle pets, wildlife and small children.

If you really want a "1kW" wind turbine? There's a reasonable number of different chinese domestic manufacturing sources for vertical axis turbines that are nominally rated at 1kW in a brisk wind. And you can mount them on a thick pole 3 meters off the ground so that nobody can stick their arm into it.

asdfghjkl11222• 21 days ago

Chinese souces? The EU recently introduced additional taxes on China because we’re now supposed buy “superior EU products”, it’s for our own good because according to Ursula Chinese products are “low quality” and “dangerous”. Better trust the politicians on this one, the 5k euro AI slop wind turbine is clearly the better and safer choice.

bouchard• 21 days ago

Their "technical validation (CFD)" document looks like AI slop...

smithkl42• 21 days ago

Given all the flat surfaces on this, I wonder how much more difficult it would be to turn the flat surfaces from canvas into solar panels.

dlcarrier• 21 days ago

What would a civil engineer have to do with designing a small wind turbine?

I could see a tower requiring a permit if it goes above some height, but even then it's not likely to need an engineering sign-off unless it goes especially high.

One KW wind turbine without civil engineering

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