RE: D.I.Y. SOLAR POWER SYSTEM BY @davethediyguy BEING ENERGY INDEPENDENT Part 2
Interesting. We have smaller turbines. Some of them are very small. Where they put a whole slew of them on the roofs. They have spent billions on commercial turbine wind farms across the country and most are just sitting and not spinning. Our power goes out all the time in storms or if someone crashes a car into a electric pole. Lightning hits the transformers a lot. We're in Florida by the Gulf of Mexico. We just had a big lightning storm and monsoon rain. The commercial wind farms didn't really help the consumers. They charge the consumer to fund them and their just sitting. It hasn't lowered anyone's bill yet only made it more. Big business. The only thing that seems to benefit the consumer here is to make your own. My goal is to eliminate all bills possible. Our place in Colorado the whole community was off grid. It was isolated winters were tough. No mail man or power lines.
Well, we are fortunate that after WW2, when everything was destroyed and had to be rebuild, they put all power lines underground. Except for the very large high voltage overland lines. So the local power lines are not exposed to weather, or to road accidents. Only if they dig a hole in the road without reading the blue prints properly, they can get damaged. But thats rare and only affects a few blocks. The transformers are also more centralised, not many small ones for just a few houses.
The wind turbines (the latest generation) are really enormous. Late at night they transport the parts for them over the highways, when there is little other traffic. They have special transport trucks for that. One single rotor blade is over 30m long, like a wing of a large passenger airplane. And the cone that covers the hub is over 4m in diameter. With its arced openings for the blades it looks like a igloo for giants.
But storm is not good for them, its not "the more wind, the better". If the wind speed is too high, they have to adjust the pitch of the blades to avoid that the thing starts running wild. There are videos on YT showing what happens if that doesn't work. They spin up until the generator starts burning and the whole thing flies apart.
As I said, also here it just brought higher electricity prices for the majority of people. But for some farmers it is a lucrative new income source. As its getting harder and harder to make a living for farmers with smaller farms, many have used their fields to erect wind turbines. Well, and they can still grow crops around the turbines.
That's interesting. They are starting to put the power lines in the ground in the new developments but its still a small amount.