How to Build a Wind Generator to Produce Electricity
Wind energy is clean energy. There are no greenhouse gas emissions from wind energy, making wind a superb solution to global warming-induced climate change. Wind energy entails significant installation costs and maintenance requirements, but wind may be the right energy source for you home if you live in a consistently windy climate.
Wind turbines harness the kinetic energy of the wind produce electricity through a simple connection to an off the shelf generator. The wind rotates blades which spin shafts connected to a generator to produce electricity.
There are two types of wind generator systems for the home. The stand alone systems are not connected to the grid and generate power only for the house to use. The grid connected systems send excess electricity back to the utility company. Both systems are wired to a charge controller, battery and inverter for convenient use.
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Things You'll Need
- Materials for tower
- Anemometer
- Battery
- Blades
- Brake
- Charge controller
- Controller
- Gear box
- Generator
- Inverter
- Shafts (low-speed and high-speed)
- Wind vane
- Yaw
Instructions
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How to Build a Wind Turbine
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Build the tower. Towers can be made of tubular steel, concrete or steel lattice but need to be high because wind speed is greater at higher points. A 10 percent increase in cost associated with making a tower 100 feet as opposed to 60 feet results in 25 percent more power produced. Also, a tower has to be tall enough so that the bottom of the rotor blade is 30 feet above any obstacle within 300 feet of the tower. A guyed tower is the least expensive but requires a lot of space on the ground. It is stabilized via a tripod of guy cables and earth anchors, the radius of which has to be 1/2 to 3/4 of the tower height.
The wind turbine includes the generator and is mounted onto the frame of the tower.
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Install the wind turbine. The wind turbine consists of the anemometer, blades, brake, controller, gear box, generator, low-speed shaft, high-speed shaft, yaw and wind vane. The blades will turn the low-speed shaft, which can handle 30 to 60 rotations per minute and is connected to the high-speed shaft in the gear box. The high-speed shaft can handle 1,000 to 1,800 rpm, the speed necessary for most generators to produce electricity. An off-the-shelf induction generator that produces 60-cycle electricity is suitable for wind turbines.
The anemometer measures wind speed and sends the information to the controller. The controller will start the turbine at 8 to16 mph and turn off the turbine at wind speeds of 55 mph to prevent system damage. The brake can be mechanical, electric or hydraulic and is necessary to stop the motor under unsafe or emergency conditions. The wind vane indicates wind direction and is linked to the yaw, which drives a motor for upwind turbines to position the rotor to face the wind as the direction changes. The wind naturally will turn a downwind turbine.
A wind turbine that gets 14 mph winds on average over the course of a year will generate 300 kilowatt hours (kWh) a month. The average household in the United States uses about 8,900 kWh of electricity per year.
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Connect wind turbine to the house and/or national grid. The turbine creates electricity that must be used immediately or stored. A turbine should be wired to a charge controller to prevent the battery from overcharging; a battery to store excess electricity for future use; and an inverter to convert the electrical current to a usable form, direct current to alternating current. All of these are then wired directly to the essential loads breaker panel and the main breaker panel of the house to transfer the live electricity to the house outlets and light sockets. The main breaker panel is hooked up to a meter on the outside of your house that supplies you with electricity from the national grid via your utility company but can be retrofitted to transfer excess wind energy back to the national grid if you choose to do so.
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Tips & Warnings
Have a licensed electrician make all electrical connections. Buy wind turbine parts from reputable experienced suppliers. Install all parts according to manufacturer specifications.
