Green Blog

Though we may just be starting on it and learning it, harnessing wind for energy is not a new phenomenon for the man kind. We only need to look at our history to know that this has happened before. Our ancestors have used these renewable sources of energy for water in faraway areas and even extracting the grains out of the crops.

The vertical wind power that most companies are now talking about was initially used by Egyptians about 3,000 years ago to turn wheat into flour. Now some companies are planning to use these vertical windmills for homes on a small scale. These are particularly helpful in places which don’t have a constant flow of wind or where the direction of the wind keeps changing.

The turbine used in this endeveours does not endanger the bats or the birds since it has a different kind of rotation and design. Moreover, in such cases, a windmill of a mere capacity of three kilowatts is sufficient for the power generation for one house. Unlike the horizontal ones, its also not noisy, does not require a lot of area or height!

For the art lover in you, some of these designs are just awesome. One model, in particular, can be found at various locations in the UK where popularity is gaining. Mercedes-Benz is working with manufacturers right now to set up charging points next to these vertical towers. It is hoped that power generated will provide enough power for 30,000 miles of driving per year for its new line of electric care, Smart fortwo.

The well known talk show host Jay Leno has a 10 Kw version installed in his garage which is about 17,000 square feet along with a 500 watt unit a smaller garage. Though right now the costs of the installation and the initial purchase price is quite high to the line of $20,000, its generally speculated that this will decrease as the residential owners demand more of such units. The Popular Mechanics website has a lot of ideas in this field by Jay Leno which have been applied.

Not just targeted toward residential areas, the vertical turbine is being put to use on rooftops of hotels everywhere from London to New Zealand. Recently, a new company presented its model at the US Botanical Garden in Washington, that had been independently tested in Utah, bringing rave reviews. Still relatively new, this small (many under six feet in height) offer feasible options that many thought there would never be available to them.

Modeled on sailing engineering, a different model of vertical windmill utilizes a turbine whose vanes are lines with solar cells. This creates a combination of wind and solar power which enhances the efficiency of the generated power. These are light and don’t take up a lot of space as well. There are newer inventions and patents in the market since the last decade.

As we discover more and more about our history of energy, options available and the realism that this will work, you can’t help but get excited about all of the new technology today in renewable energy. Join a few websites on green energy and stay abreast on the latest inventions. Germany is a leader in promoting wind energy and many international sites are available as well. Don’t settle for what you feel is unrealistic in alternative energy when there are so many choices coming on the market.

If you want to know How to build a wind generator this video will show you How to build a wind generator by clicking on this link.

Solar power seems so overwhelming, yet there are classes out there that are specifically made to teach us everything we ever wanted to know about solar energy. Wouldn’t you like someone to just spell out the basics on solar power, so that you can mull them around in your head and eventually make sense out of it? If you want to start out slow and gradually build on your knowledge, continue reading.

Start by creating a project to teach you all about solar energy. You will need a battery. Car batteries will not work, as they aren’t designed to deep discharge. They have very thin plates to keep their weight down. For solar batteries are different. They will need to provide long periods of deep discharge with just a few hours of a full recharge during the sunny time. Golf cart batteries are perfect batteries to use for this project. They are slow to discharge due to the thick plates, and don’t need a lot of charging. With just a small amount of amperage, these batteries are very heavy. So many may need to be banked together for a large application of electrical use.

Next step in the project you will need solar panels. Voltage of the panels is important, but size is not. The voltage needs to be higher than the battery. For instance, if there is less power going into the battery than there will not be any power coming out of the battery. The panel needs to have more pressure to push into the battery. Wattage also needs to be higher than the battery. As long as the watts and volts are equal to what you need, you can purchase large or several small panels.

Figure out the amount of power you will need or intend to use, and that will determine how big your batteries will need to be. This takes more work but the basic rule of thumb is watts = volts x Amps. Adding up volts and amps of everything you would like to run on solar to get the grand total with the formula.

The solar panels will determine by the number of amp hours that you will use in 24 hours during sunlight. Estimated at 6 hours of total sunlight hours, take 1/6 of an amp times the 14 volt panel. The answer is 2.33 watts, but now you’ll round that up to 3 watts. You need a 14 volt, 3 watt panel to generate one amp of power to power your pond pump.

Now that you have power that is stored in your batteries, we need to convert the DC power over to AC in order to provide your electrical products. You can get an inverter which comes in all different sizes, and some have many options. A simple inverter unit is sufficient. It just needs to support the loads that you are going to draw through it. Estimated voltage that some motors have is 7 times their rated power just to start up.

Your connections and cables are very important because they will need to support the load of current. You don’t want to skimp when purchasing your small wire, it could burn out causing a huge fire.

Maintenance work by checking on the process of your energy and battery function is required. If all this information makes sense, and you are ready to learn more, it’s time to sign up for a class.

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