Sadly wind turbines don’t really scale down like PV panels. The energy produced by PV panels is a linear function of their surface area. For wind turbines, it scales with the square of the blade length.

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KaiserPro 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

This is true, but if you already have a battery, getting an extra 200-400w when the sun isn't shining is really useful. (for a UK based house. Not so sure about the USA.)

The cost isn't as good as solar though. a 1kw turbine is expensive.

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padjo 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

They also need regular servicing and proper locating away from turbulence. Micro scale wind makes absolutely no sense economically.

	▲	janc_ 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Economic sense depends on individual/local circumstances also.

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MandieD 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Wow, that would take care of our usual home office base load (Germany, not using electricity for heating)

	▲	archi42 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's a siren call for us techies, but reality is less pretty than our fantasies of "cheap base load". I got an offer for a "essentially free" residential turbine including the pylon (8 to 10 meters, the legal limit for a "Kleinwindanlage") in SW Germany - just had to dismantle it and put it on my lawn. And of course pour a huge foundation [2x2m?] and have an accredited electrician do the necessary alterations. Nope. It didn't even produce enough electricity to offset the maintenance costs - no idea how I should offset the costs for moving it, even with the free capex. And I did the math about 3 years ago: Prices for both PV and batteries dropped a lot since then. For late fall/early spring I would be better off by adding a PV carport (2 cars). I could also finally automate charging my batteries while electricity is cheap during Dec/Jan, might even be worth bumping my existing battery from 28 kWh to 42 kWh. To be fair: The math might work out in the Northern Germany; but I would not bet on it.

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aidenn0 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Doesn't the area described by a turbine's motion scale with the square of the blade-length, so given a circular area covered by a turbine, the power will scale linearly with that area?

	▲	derriz 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yes but you’re not paying for the area the blade covers - you’re paying for the blade. Simplifying (to an extreme) for the sake of illustration - a 20m blade costs twice as much as a 10m one but produces 4 times the energy. Obviously, cost scales more than linearly with blade length but it’s a bit like big O - the n^2 factor dominates. This is why wind turbines have been getting bigger and bigger. And why the cost of domestic or small-scale wind turbines remains stubbornly high despite the dramatic fall in the average cost per MW seen for wind turbines - as the falls are largely driven by the ability to manufacture larger and larger turbine blades. While falls in costs for solar PV can be seen at every scale.