News - AirEnergy3D's 3D printed portable wind turbine provides up to 300W

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It's an open source project so you can make your own or back it for £299 to get one shipped.

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Read more.

That is pretty neat! Great use of 3D printing, and a potentially a practical product at the end of it!

Anything that may cut my reliance on the UK's utility companies is great. I'd like an array of these on my roof. Also this is a much better use than the usual blue plastic gnomes we see 3D printed and Amazon's recent 3D printed tat.

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Originally Posted by peterb

That is pretty neat! Great use of 3D printing, and a potentially a practical product at the end of it!

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I wish them success, but I'm very dubious of their claim for 300W output.

Given it's omnidirectional triple helix design and physical size I can see it producing 300W if there's a sufficient breeze.
I'd be more worried about the stability of it if the base isn't being set in concrete.

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Originally Posted by zaph0d

Given it's omnidirectional triple helix design and physical size I can see it producing 300W if there's a sufficient breeze.
I'd be more worried about the stability of it if the base isn't being set in concrete.

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"If".

And at what height (AGL) would it need to be?

Where I am, national wind speed database figures (DECC) suggested 25m is sub-borderline, and to be "viable", it needs more like 45m., That's one heck of a pole on my roof. ;) :D

And, depending on location and installation, it may need planning permission. Which raises the issue of neighbour's objections .... and whether there's any noise, or fear of noise.

Then, for feeding into domestic electrics, there's going to be transformers, regulators, inverters, etc. And certification.

300w might well be useful for mobile sites, powering your laptop in your caravan, etc, but for domestic, UK, sites, microwind is .... dubious.

Also, reading the company's PR blurb, they go on about "poisoning the planet", etc, yet are pushing products only possible because of the very technologies they take potshots at. It all leads me to be very sceptical about the motives of what is, at heart, a high-tech company hijacking the very laudable green agenda to sell their clobber. It leaves a rather sour taste in my mouth.

So, eco-power generation? Hell, yes. The only thing stopping me going for solar is an intention to move house., But printing my own micro-wind turbine? Nah.

The intention (according to the article) is to supply it to areas of the world where there is no electrical power... :) rather than the UK, where solar may produce a greater overall benefit, albeit during daylight hours - but as a portable source for camping, maybe, and certainly cheaper than a 300W Solar panel set-up.

A 300w solar panel can actually deliver a constant 300w to you for hours on end on a sunny day - there have been lots of sunny days so far this year.

The turbine, I would be surprised if it could deliver more than 50w in heavy gusts, we haven't had many days of heavy wind so far this year.

I'd rather spend £300 on a solar panel*


*possibly unless I lived on the top of a mountain in scotland

Neat idea. Could be useful as others say outside the home. Scaled up versions on top of big office blocks could save companies fortunes perhaps, and maybe councils/government?

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Originally Posted by peterb

The intention (according to the article) is to supply it to areas of the world where there is no electrical power... :) rather than the UK, where solar may produce a greater overall benefit, albeit during daylight hours - but as a portable source for camping, maybe, and certainly cheaper than a 300W Solar panel set-up.

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The "may" is a crucial thing there - as someone who's been the recipient of (constant?) double-glazing style selling of those darned things I'm a lot more sceptical. There's too many shysters in that market and I've yet to see ANY figures that aren't based north of effin' Watford ... or Effin itself for that matter

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Originally Posted by Saracen

Also, reading the company's PR blurb, they go on about "poisoning the planet", etc, yet are pushing products only possible because of the very technologies they take potshots at. It all leads me to be very sceptical about the motives of what is, at heart, a high-tech company hijacking the very laudable green agenda to sell their clobber. It leaves a rather sour taste in my mouth.

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All of those accusations/descriptions also apply to the solar panel companies (or at least the ones I've unfortunately had dealings with). And I've yet to hear of ANYONE around here that has seen those stupid hi-tech roof tiles even return enough to pay for themselves, never mind turn a profit. (yes, I know, I'm grumpy today)

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Originally Posted by Butuz

A 300w solar panel can actually deliver a constant 300w to you for hours on end on a sunny day - there have been lots of sunny days so far this year. The turbine, I would be surprised if it could deliver more than 50w in heavy gusts, we haven't had many days of heavy wind so far this year.

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First part very debatable, especially the "lots of sunny days this year" but I realise ymmv. From elementary info (Discovery Channel/Horizon) the turbines actually do pretty badly in gusts, instead what you actually want is a non-gusty supply of wind.

Quite interested in this myself. Unfortunately, as Saracen says, there would be a lot of complications trying to use this for income generating microgeneration. But I can't see that being any different from any other microgeneration scheme.

Depending on the size of the turbine itself I'm wondering if this could be a good way to power a lighting system (connected up to a car battery or similar) for a shed at the bottom of the garden. I was talking to a "renewables" rep at a show a while ago (way to stop him dripping on about [insert swear word] solar panels) and he was saying that you don't need a lot of altitude for these turbines. Typically the height is used to ensure that the turbines are clear of trees etc that would cause power-sapping swirl.

Quite tempted by this project, but won't be supporting it since it's Kickstarter ... where I have a 100% rate of funded projects failing to deliver.

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Originally Posted by crossy

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All of those accusations/descriptions also apply to the solar panel companies (or at least the ones I've unfortunately had dealings with). And I've yet to hear of ANYONE around here that has seen those stupid hi-tech roof tiles even return enough to pay for themselves, never mind turn a profit. (yes, I know, I'm grumpy today)
First part very debatable, especially the "lots of sunny days this year" but I realise ymmv. From elementary info (Discovery Channel/Horizon) the turbines actually do pretty badly in gusts, instead what you actually want is a non-gusty supply of wind.

Quite interested in this myself. Unfortunately, as Saracen says, there would be a lot of complications trying to use this for income generating microgeneration. But I can't see that being any different from any other microgeneration scheme.

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Other microgeneration schemes would indeed have the same requirements. But at least 'proper' microgen schemes include the necessary electrical conversion bits, and of course, qualified filling including the electrical work. My comment wasn't intended as a criticism of turbine power (or that part if my comment wasn't, though in the UK, most domestic locations are regarded as being unsuitable for wind microgen) but of a company flogging 3D printers by jumping on the green bandwagon. The only way to really be sure is to install an anemomemter where the turbine would be, and log wind speeds, and hence averages, for at least several months.

As for the "stupid high-tech roof tiles", my next-door neighbours are about 4 years into their payback cycle, and are on-track for break-even being 8 to 9 years. And they have a 25 year guarantee on the FIT payments. And, of course, the more expensive electricity gets, the faster their system pays back, because they get paid for every KW they generate, then get paid again for every KW they don't use (and hence feed in to the grid), and get "paid" again, in the form of saving ever-increasing unit electricity costs by not buying anything like as much from the mains.

For about 8 months of the year, their electricity bill is effectively nil. It does require some adaption in household routine, like making sure washing machines run at peak generating times, not at night, and (where possible) heating hot water through solar electric rather than gas, and so on. And in that "8 months" is setting off electricity you do buy with feed-in payments for electricity you sell back.

It is NOT a system that pays for itself quickly, of course. It's a long-term "investment". And finally, only time will tell .... like if a future government tries to weasel out of guaranteed 25-yr FIT payments.

One other factor helps, quite a bit, in the "pay-off" period. And that's the dramatic reduction in opportunity cost. One advantage to the credit crunch, and resulting low interest rates (market rates, not base rate) is that the "cost", in sacrificed interest returns from having the money in secure, stable savings, is much lower than it used to be. And that, like rising electricity unit costs, has helped bring their projected break-even point forward from the initial 10-11 years, to the on-track 8-9 years.

There are, of course, still some unknowns, which is why I said "on track to" and not "guaranteed to". One is any potential repair bills they may have to foot themselves, and another is whether those cells maintain generating efficiency over 25 years, or degrade over that period. But unless something major goes wrong in the next 4-5 years, they're sure to be in profit after that.

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Originally Posted by Saracen

As for the "stupid high-tech roof tiles", my next-door neighbours are about 4 years into their payback cycle, and are on-track for break-even being 8 to 9 years. And they have a 25 year guarantee on the FIT payments. And, of course, the more expensive electricity gets, the faster their system pays back, because they get paid for every KW they generate, then get paid again for every KW they don't use (and hence feed in to the grid), and get "paid" again, in the form of saving ever-increasing unit electricity costs by not buying anything like as much from the mains.

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Fair comment but, to leap to my own defence, I did qualify my vitriol by saying that there was no-one locally (to me) who'd got anything other than bragging rights. And, of course, you're 100% correct that the panels need to be part of an overall power-reduction strategy rather than an answer in themselves. Interesting to hear that others are doing somewhat better.

There was an article in Hexus a while ago about a new (Sharp?) panel that was a good deal more efficient. Perhaps it's that technology that's needed to make use of the hazier sunshine that is currently trickling through the window here. And of course, someone needs to "encourage" (with a big stick) the major builders to incorporate panels in at initial build on all suitable housing - not just the "ecologic" developments with the commensurate hike in purchase price.

I'm sure efficiency will (and no doubt has) improved over time. I know the capital cost has come down a fair bit since my neighbours took the plunge. But then, so has the FIT payback rate, or it really would (IMHO) be a no-brainer, at least, for anyone owning their own home, with no plans to move, and a spare few grand sitting in the bank earning beggar-all. It's nowhere near so clear if you have to borrow to pay for it.

I perhaps also ought to mention that my neighbour's roof is basically West-facing, not the optimal South-facing, so their experience of the financial impact isn't even in an optimal installation site.