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One KW wind turbine without civil engineering

windtowatt.com

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Re: One KW wind turbine without civil engineering

#32
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people are asking for money, it is entirely reasonable to apply some skepticism to the sales pitch. In this case, they're charging a lot of money for a flimsy-looking product that is unlikely to capture much energy (low wind speeds at ground level).

Um, yes. 4,900€ for a 1KW device. That's way above market price. On Amazon, a 1KW wind turbine is $500 to $1000. About half that on Alibaba. This is a common technology now, with lots of makers. Almost everybody sells a bladed turbine that mounts on top of a pole and has a tailfin to make it pivot in the wind. What's with this thing? It's at ground level. It's expensive. It's built out of plastic tarps that probably…

If we ignore the price, which is astronomical and silly, then everything else is forgiveable, I think.

Yes it's made from plastic tarp, which makes it lightweight and easy to manufacture or repair. Yes it's got low potential at ground level but that makes it far safer and simpler to install.

This design or a variation of it could be built with PVC pipe and plastic bags and deployed in a field for next to nothing, bringing power to a community that didn't have any.

It's insanity to want to charge near 5k for this, but if this was an open source / free thing we'd all be championing the ingenuity

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