Archive for the ‘Home Windmills’ category

Home Windmills – Save Money – Save The Planet

July 26th, 2010

Concerned about our reliance non-renewable energy, which is not only having serious impacts on the environment, but is now really starting to hurt your wallet?

Looking for a source for free electricity?

Did you realise that the electricity that powers your home is at least partially created from the burning of coal? Coal is one of the biggest sources of electricity in the world. Coal is turned into electricity by heating water into steam, and using that steam to push the turbines which create the electricity.

With the environment suffering, and fossil fuels running out, the time is right to seek alternatives. One very feasible alternative way to generate your own electricity is with a home windmill. This reduces the reliance on coal, and will cost you less in the long run.

The two things you need to create a home windmill, know-how and materials, are now both easily and cheaply obtainable.

Building a home windmill is much simpler than you might imagine. All a windmill does take the mechanical energy of the spinning rotor and turn it into electricity through the process of magnetic induction, which is nothing more than moving an electrical conductor in a magnetic field, or moving a magnetic field near an electrical conductor.

How well your windmill works depends on a couple of things. Obviously wind speed is important, but even low winds will generate electricity if the windmill is built properly. Other factors that come into play are the dimensions of the home windmill blades, and how high above ground the windmill is. It is also important to know how best to store unused electricity for later use using battery packs.

Once you are generating your own energy, you will be using less energy from the grid, and paying less in your power bills. These savings can then be reinvested back into other electricity generation systems, such as solar power, to help move you towards complete independence from the power companies. In some areas you can even sell excess energy back to the power companies!

Of course by generating electricity using your own home windmill you will also be helping in a small way to relieve the pressure on the fossil fuel systems currently being used to generate power. Although your own contribution will only be tiny, every little bit counts, and you will be leading by example. And laughing all the way to the bank!

The biggest thing to understand about building a home windmill is just how easy it is. Mankind has been using wind power for centuries to move water and grind grain. And in the early 1800s we learned how to convert the same movement into electricity. So this technology is not new.

What’s new is that it is easier than ever before to build your own home windmill, and do it for only a couple of hundred dollars! Learn more here.

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How Home Windmills Generate Electricity

July 20th, 2010

A home windmill or residential wind turbine operates the same way as any other type of turbine-based electricity generator. Regardless of the type of “fuel” used to power the turbine, the principles are the same.

In the early 1800s a British scientist, Michael Faraday, discovered the principle of magnetic induction. In simple terms, what he discovered was that if you moved a magnet near an electrical conductor then electricity was generated. Similarly if you move an electrical conductor near a magnet then electricity is generated.

On top of this, the opposite is true. By introducing electrical energy into a wire near a magnet, the magnet can be made to move.

This discovery lead to what we now know as electric motors and generators. Motors and generators are two sides of the same coin. Motors take electrical energy and convert it into mechanical energy (movement). Generators take mechanical energy (movement) and turn it into electrical energy.

After much experimentation it was discovered that one of the most efficient ways to generate electricity using this principle was to have a coil of wire rotating within a magnetic field. This is the principle behind most turbines, whether it be a nuclear power station, or a home windmill in your back yard!

home windmills generator 300x214 How Home Windmills Generate Electricity

Click on the image to see animation

There are numerous ways to create the necessary rotation, of which steam is one of the most common. When water is heated it will eventually turn to steam. And the expansion of steam creates a lot of pressure and can be used to move even very large objects. Ever seen a steam train?.

There are many ways to create steam for use in power generation, including the burning of coal or other fossil fuels, or through nuclear reactions. The energy created from burning fossil fuels or from nuclear reactions is used to heat water to turn it into steam. An alternative source of steam is that from geothermal vents, where the steam is created deep inside the earth.

Hydro-electric power on the other hand uses the motion of water to power the turbines, while windmills obviously use the power of the wind.

All of these methods involve moving a fluid past an object, causing it to rotate, and hence creating the ability to rotate a wire coil through a magnetic field, and hence producing electricity.

Because this is such a simple mechanism, it can be scaled to all sorts of different sizes, from power plants generating enough electricity to light up a city, to wind-up flashlights or radios. (think war movies and their field radios, powered by winding a crank).

And of course the same mechanism is used in windmills, from the biggest windfarms to the most basic home windmills anybody can erect in their own back yard. Wind turbines are nothing more than a basic generator, taking the mechanical energy of the wind and converting it into electricity.

Interested in creating your own home windmill and starting to drastically reducing your power bills? Learn more here.

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Home Windmills For Power Generation

July 18th, 2010

Home WindmillHome Windmills for wind power generation allow you to save money and help the planet at the same time.

The world has recently seen significant economic upheaval on a global scale. Entire countries have gone bust. The impact of this is being felt around the world and will continue to be felt for a long time.

One of the most significant impacts has been in energy prices which have soared to unbelievable levels. There was pressure on energy prices before the global recession, but now that pressure is even greater.

Climate change is another hot topic. Humans are not the only species capable of altering their environment to suit their needs, but we are the only ones able to make changes on such a phenomenal scale. And now through our manipulation of the Earth’s resources we now find that we have placed our planet at a tipping point.

Much of the world’s energy, including electricity, comes from fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are a scarce resource and they are starting to run out. It is getting harder and harder to extract the fuels from the earth and the demand for fuel is increasing ever more rapidly.

The emergence of China and India as development powerhouses is placing great strain on the energy supply, and as a consequence prices are on the rise.

On top of this, the consumption of fossil fuels to create electricity is placing the planet at risk of overheating to a point where it will never recover. Every time fossil fuels are burned, hydrocarbons are released into the atmosphere and contribute to rising global temperatures.

The impacts of this are not well understood, but the evidence that climate change will be devastating is starting to pile up.

234x60bannera Home Windmills For Power Generation


With home windmills anybody can make their own small difference to both the economy and the climate. You can reduce your electricity bills dramatically through using a homemade wind turbine, while at the same time helping to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

Using the power of the wind to generate your own electricity to run your household results in less cost and leaves you with cash in your pocket that you can put to better use.

Building home windmills is simpler than you think, and the cost of building a home windmill is tiny compared to the potential savings. It can be done for less than $200!

Find out more about how you can save money and generate your own wind turbine power with home windmills.

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