Windation – A Power Plant On Your Roof
You are looking at the Windation wind powered energy generation unit.
It sits on 70 square feet of your roof and generates 6,912 kilowatts a year. It’s quiet. It won’t massacre birds. It has an integrated turbine, a design that has been in use since 1904. If the wind is blowing, it provides electricity for approximately 1000 square feet of office space.
Why doesn’t every house have one of these on the roof?
Their website is sadly missing all the important information like cost, availability and installation. They seem to be marketing these to business and urban buildings, but homes could profit from this just as well. Does that mean the cost exceeds the grasp of the ordinary homeowner?
I’ve contacted them for information, but until then, I eagerly await. As soon as I find out specifics, I will update this entry.
Via: Twitter / anntorrence: This could be a gamer-chan …
Update 3:55 pm: I just got off the phone with Mark Sheikhrezai, the founder and CEO of Windation. He was nice enough to answer my questions.
The WES-2KW is the unit that will probably work best in a residential setting. It is an 8 foot by 8 foot unit, so unless you have a flat roof, it would be rather difficult to mount it on your home. At the cost of $30,000 for this unit, you would have to show some serious dedication to wind power to add it to your house.
That’s why their focus is commercial buildings. Their larger unit, the WES-5KW is $40,000 and fits easily on the roof of a commercial building. They are working on getting approval from the California Energy Commission and CE (which is a European certification).
Their products are made in Nebraska, so they are U.S. made.
Mark Sheikhrezai was so personable and willing to answer questions, so if you have a deciding vote on the planning of a commercial building, remember Windation.
Some rough numbers:
At 6,976 KwHr/Year, that’s approximately the power to run 8 100 watt light bulbs all year. Or rather to offset them, since you couldn’t literally run your lights on it — they’d only work when the wind was blowing.
1000 square feet of office space sounds like a stretch, unless you’re in a climate where heating and A/C are rarely needed. It could run a few light bulbs and computers, though.
Assuming it ran at full capacity and the power company had the ability to use the power you were sending back to the grid at all times, it would save you about $650 a year on your electric bill and would take about 45 years to pay for itself.
So that’s why not everybody has one on their roof. But I’m glad they’re working on the concept, because one day it will be cheap enough to make sense.
Comment by Michael Moncur — October 1, 2008 @ 4:07 pm
I’m an engineer in wind turbine technology for almost 15 years. I know this kind of Vetical Axis Turbines (VAT) in many shapes. Sad to say, but this concept of Urban wind power is not feassible. I have serious doubts about the promished production of 6000kWh per year. If anybody is interested in this VAT turbine or any other turbine, please ask the supplier for a independent measured Pv table. This tabel gives the generation Power (P) versus the windspeed (v). After this, make a windspeed measurement on the top of your roof and make then a calculation what production you can expect. Calculate what is the pay back time. My experience: it is not below 12 years…
Comment by Paul — April 6, 2009 @ 4:27 am