Why are all the wind generators so big ?surely miniturisation is the way forward

[mmuuzzyy]

Surely a lange bank of something similar (but more robust) to these would create enough juice as a larger unit but get round all the planning permission problems... what do you reckon ?

http://www.firebox.com/product/2111/HY-Mini-Wind-Turbine

[utilitarian]

Surely a lange bank of something similar (but more robust) to these would create enough juice as a larger unit but get round all the planning permission problems... what do you reckon ?

http://www.firebox.com/product/2111/HY-Mini-Wind-Turbine

Are you being serious?  Wind energy is harnessed through physical contact.  The more surface area you have, the more energy you can capture from the wind.  So yes, you can have smaller turbines, but at the cost of less energy production.

[infringer]

Short answer yes it'll work surely a bank of smaller wind turbines will work...

However, the power that you are able to generate greatly increases with larger turbines...

You need to at least generate 12v.

You want it to furl and hold up in a storm nothing like hard work being ripped apart by a good wind and talk about a spoil work and money gone with the wind literally...

The other issue you may run into is the if you wanna hook it up to the electric lines using net metering you'll have tons of wire to bury and it may get more expensive to have a device to do the energy conversion...

But if you are looking just for a simple project just to test out a turbine use a small hobby motor and make a mini turbine with a battery charging circuit then charge your batterys for free good cheap starter project entry level wind turbine project. I used a motor from an old floppy disk drive ...

There is tons of info out there and all of them point to the fact that bigger is better.

I prefer the axial flux design by hugh piggot (probably spelled that wrong)...

I have an idea for wind turbines which I havent quite seen yet myself but to try to explain it is impossible I would have to draw something hrmm ...

Hey think less of the common design of the spinning blades is my suggestion you can capture wind in many differnt ways look into it it is amazing the things they do to harness wind power and if you come up with a good idea please share.

-infringer-

-infringer-

[JamesThomas]

Something like this perhaps:

http://www.motorwavegroup.com/new/motorwind/indexproducts.html

[PhiScience]

 As the population of wind farms increases so will the population of mosquitoes and harmful insect pests.
The low pressure behind wind turbine blades is causing the lungs of bats to hemorrhage and kills the bats.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=wind-turbines-kill-bats
http://www.fort.usgs.gov/BatsWindmills/

Hopefully this will not put massive extra expenses on the renewable energy industry.