Ridgeblade Wind Turbines

Key to this taking off is mechanical noise, first thing people will be cautious about. and then attrition, Canada might not get the kind of wind we get! 🌨️💨😭

The Irish supplier doesn't advertise this as a product on their website, yet i see them popping up all the time on facebook advertising the Huawei Solar PV Roadshow!

On the face of it, I'd buy one - but you'd be mad to be the test pilot here in Ireland. I'd like to see some actual installations along with telemetry for yields, noise, total cost of ownership etc. Knowing the planning approval position for residential. If you lived out in the countryside with the nearest neighbor 250 meters away though, could be a "no brainer" if it works. In the middle of Rathmines or Tallaght.....hmm.

As Jkforde mentions, noise will be the biggest hurdle here. Moving parts, with the best design in the world, will eventually start to squeek. Rotating shafts on the apex of your roof aren't exactly the most accessible, even if it just needs a squirt of WD40.

I can almost imagine the hatred from your neighbours as it sqeeks away at 2:50am.

and just to add, check this out (great channel btw)

If I was living out the country and had the space down at the end of a long garden, I think I'd give a self-build a go, out of pure enjoyment in getting something to work. Probably a vertical axis one as they are easier to build - (but less efficient). Probably out of a washing machine motor or something. Actually, if you want something truly awe inspiring. This guy.....

(967) How I Built A 3 kW Off Grid Wind Turbine - YouTube

Is on a WHOLE OTHER LEVEL.....I like to think I'm handy enough but nahh, I'm playing with my Thomas the Tank engine toolbox compared to this bloke.

Still while I love the idea of Wind, hard to see beyond solar though. No moving parts, sits quietly there producing away happy-as-larry. ....it's just such a great tech. You have these "magic panels" and slap em' up on your roof and you can watch tv or surf the internet with the power they make. :-)

Isn't a rooftop turbine exempt from planning permission? I know this is different but in principle it's still a rooftop turbine

I think the major obstacle for this is that it's only going to make sense for urban houses. Anywhere with open space would probably be better installing a ground mounted turbine

In urban environments the air flow isn't great, so any turbine isn't going to perform particularly well. So you'd want the turbine to be very cheap so that it has a chance to pay for itself

This however, looks like it'll be quite expensive

Nope, rooftop turbine isn't exempt sadly. You can read the whole provision yourself here.

Planing Permission for wind turbines - exemptions - Eurecca.ie

Somewhat disappointing but I get it. There's a number of good logical reasons why you wouldn't want to support that by default. Noise and pissing off the neighbors is one, but there's the very real danger of some 200-300Kg thing coming down in the middle of a storm in off the Irish sea/Atlantic. You want that away from any dwelling.

That said, with the way that the ridgeblade has all the fans enclosed, and is mounted fixed to the roof so there isn't large lever forces at play, I think a lot of those concerns are mitigated. Financials as you say are key raisin. With solar just being so convenient, a well known playing field, it's a hard competitor to beat. The great thing about wind though is that it complements solar well. When it's dark and miserable, think Nov....it's quite windy and of course it can generate at 4am. Even if it was 1Kw, being able to do that 24 hrs a day has a lot going for it.

I for one are rooting for them. Hope they can pull it off and come up with a competitive product.

Yeah I hope they work out as well. Where I live there's a fairly steady breeze most of the time, plus the ridge of my roof is just over 6.5m which seems to fit the standard module lengths

It could be a good complement to solar panels, especially for the many overcast days we get. If the price is right

It's a bit odd tbh. It's a few blades and a bloody motor. It's not as actually alot to get running. I suspect theres more to the story , particularly at the costs involved.

I did some provisional math on it last summer for myself out of curiosity and if you were getting 40-50 decent windy days during the year, you'd payback your install costs in 8-10 years. Depending on how much you spent of course :-)

The problem of course with those residential (horizontal jobbies) is that they simply aren't feasible in a urban environment. Sadly. The vertical ones are probably more feasible, but you'll always have the irate neighbour phoning you or the council up to complain about a "sqweak".

If I had the space "out the country" and no immediate neighbours - I'd setup a 500W one.

I was thinking the same earlier jk, as in how would I go about it myself. Not sure how much you know about these, so i'll err on the side of telling you stuff you already know but first of all, with a wind turbine you need a "sink load" for when the wind is blowing. It's not like a solar panel where the inverter will only "pull" down what you need. The Wind turbine will push the current, and if it's got no where to go.....that's "bad mojo". It'll most likely wreck the turbine.

Ideally, it'd be great if there was a way of charging the same batteries that we use for our solar, but I'm not sure that's easily possible. If i was doing it, as a pet project I'd probably have it charge a set of 24/48V batteries, and then hook them up to an inverter and use the juice somehow in a seperate circuit. Plugging in a mining rig or something into it. But I'm just shooting the breeze. Hopefully one of the more savvy heads here will suggest something.

I'd assume the solar batteries would charge anyway from the power created from the turbine. As soon as the solar Inverter detects power being exported it would redirect that to the solar batteries. I have two solar inverters here, one being hybrid and the other non hybrid. The hybrid inverter detects any excess power from the other inverter array and adds that to its own solar power to charge my batteries combined

Not sure about the fact that they output in DC. I thought they were all AC, but they may have a thing called a "bridge rectifier" built into the chassis. I must admit, I'm tempted to get one. Your probably on the money Chris, but I'd be planking it that an over voltage would mess up my inverter/battery, so if I was to give it a lash, I'd probably setup a separate isolated circuit and move some load from the house onto it. Tumble dryer would be perfect for that, or washing machine. A freezer would have a lower load of course, but then you run the risk of food spoiling if the battery ran out of juice.

Sure it's not free, but quite manageable compared to the €6-10K that most of us have spent on solar installations. I reckon you'd probably get something up and going for <€1K.

That said, looking out the window here in South Dublin today after the windy week or so we've have and there's not a puff out there. In terms of priorities, I guess spending that €1K and adding 2x panels to my existing east array may be a better option.

<Sigh but I really want one - sad face!>

I did start a thread on small scale PV and turbines to keep things simple and costs down.

I'm happy enough to charge 5v USB devices, and run as much of the property as possible on 12v dc,staying well away from inverters,planning and going into the grid,all the way up to 230 ac and back down again to 5v and 12v dc.

I note met office a few days back saying Lerwick in Scotland had 49 minutes of light in the Day.

The turbine I'm using supplies 5 Amps into a 12 lead acid supply, cost €200 , 100 Watts.Carbonfreeenergy.ie. Based in Mayo.

Just be aware of shadow problems when positioning a turbine.

Over 200 people looked at the thread,one person considered having a go..

I really would love to give this a go. Sadly the physics not the money puts me off. The principle is sound to me. Even 60Watts you can do things. Ok your not exactly going to fire up the tumble dryer or charge your Nissan Leaf (not that I have one), but a phone charger is what 15-20 watts when it's charging? I like the idea that your tablet and phone could be wind powered! Would make feck all difference to your leccie bill, but the concept is kinda nice, no?

The problem is the wind. Everything I've read into it leads me to believe that in a housing estate the wind is too turbulent or non-existent unless your 50-60ft up clear of obstacles, as in 50-60ft up from the top of your roof. Mounting it 12-15 ft off the shed I reckon I'd be lucky for 15Watts, and at that it would be patchy.

Respect to you though for giving it a go. Kudos.

Thanks for your useful comments and fair points.

That's been my experience in the past and I've stayed away from them for decades for the reason rightly give.

The modern 3 phase turbine has a smaller cut in speed than I would have imagined,giving an output at very low wind speeds. To be honest I try to feather it out of wind some days, as you know a lot of turbines spin around in gusts doing little but wearing the bearings out and not charging anything.

This turbine is no more than 20 feet off the ground, and supplements small, 30 w PV panels.

Turbine €200, PV panel €40. Bit of fun,wee project in these dark days, worth a punt.

Not worth arguing over ,plenty of big threads afor that, not for me though.

Thanks for the interest.

Right again, however some game changers have come along. Its surprising how much light a one watt LED bulb puts out. and Chrismas Tree Lighting.

Bluetooth smart speakers, RF wireless speakers, set top boxes, ( I use mine for RTE Gold music station), Pond pumps. Fans in Summer.

All the above running on 12v or 5v dc. If 230v ac needed at a couple of Amps 97m,a 12v dc inverter is quite cheap. The 12v battery supply charging the 5v USB portable power banks, and 3,7v lithium rechargeable cells.

There's also a move away from AA batteries, ( one billion dumped every year), to lithium rechargeable.

EV breakers yards are near me, they are happy to sell 3.7 v rechargeable high capacity cells much lighter than lead acid,which loose 40% capacity with cold weather, lithium loose 20%.

A fun project can quickly morph into other directions, learning as we go.and no wallets have been severely injured in any of the above!

Happy and a bright Christmas.