Just in: world-famous French designer Phillipe Starck has designed a range of small vertical-axis wind turbines specifically for use by homeowners. Dubbed the "RevolutionAir" the turbines can be placed in yards, gardens, or on rooftops to help generate power for homes.
Available in a clear quadrangular 400W WT model with a power output of 400W and the helicoidal 1KW WT with a power output of 1 KW, the turbines will be produced by Italy’s Pramac and will sell for around 2,500 euros (quadrangular) and 3,500 euros (helicoidal).
How much power is that exactly? According to GOOD, "if you had the big one running at full capacity for an hour, that would give you one kilowatt-hour of energy. To put that in perspective, the average U.S. household consumes 'about 11,000 kWh per year, costing an average of $1,034 annually.' Even if you had the big turbine running at full capacity nonstop for a year you'd still only get 8,000 kilowatt-hours.'"
At the recent unveiling in Milan, Starck was quoted as saying “We have to help people to produce energy, to be part of the fight...Energy should not be a punishment, we should create a desire [among people to produce it]."]]
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Someone else can figure out the math, but even if it does take a few years for the turbine to pay for itself, isn't it still beneficial to use it to reduce the consumption of energy from 'traditional' sources? It's still reducing dependence on coal, oil, and other environmentally-damaging sources by a fairly giant chunk, and I think that's a good thing.
view alina's profile
Math? Sure!
Under fairly rosy real-life conditions, you'll pay your usual $1034 energy cost per year PLUS an additional $709.68 per year for the privilege of owning a Philip Starck-designed turbine. I guess you'd have to REALLY like Philip Starck to buy this. Or REALLY need the eco-cred.
If you want a Philip Starck-designed turbine because you think it will someday be collectible, buy it and store it or install it INSIDE as a piece of art, because if it's outside working, it will not hold its value. Also, be prepared to wait the 30 years it will take for nostalgia to make this thing covetable.
(See calculations below: the key is to make reasonable assumptions. Your results may vary. Any real mathemeticians out there, feel free to correct my calculations, assumptions, and/or my right to pretend to know anything about math.)
Math:
The helicoidal (larger) one would pay for itself in 6 years, 5 months, 26 days, 9 hours, and 36 minutes (roughly), assuming that usage, price per kilowatt hour, and the euro to dollar exchange rate stay constant.
However, this figure omits the cost of shipping, tax, installation, and maintenance. I'm estimating those extra charges would make it more like 7 years to recoup the cost. That's also assuming that the turbine performs as indicated above, producing the 8,000 kilowatt hours mentioned. That's not likely, as it's quite rare to have constant, perfect wind. So, assuming that you get half this performance, you're up to 14 years (roughly) to recoup initial investment.
By that time, the technology will certainly be better and cheaper (assuming something like Moore's Law applies to consumer power-producers), so you will likely have ditched the thing by the end of the third or fourth year for a higher performance model.
Thus, assuming an initial investment of around 5500 (purchase shipping tax installation maintenace) and a 4 year life, the Starck turbine costs you $1375 per year of useful life. Offset this cost by your (more realistic) $376 savings per year, and you lose $999 per year.
This brings your total energy cost for each of those 4 years to $999 (amortized cost of useful life of helicoidal turbine) plus $744.68 (cost of remaining 700 kilowatt hours you must pay for) to $1743.68.
So you pay $709.68 per year over and above your usual electric bill for four years in exchange for the privilege of owning a Philip Starck designed turbine. You style maven, you. How's your credit rating?
view rapunzel's profile
The plus signs I typed didn't show up. That should be "purchase plus shipping plus tax plus installation plus maintenace".
view rapunzel's profile
If you buy two the surplus you produce goes back into the power grid and in some cases pays you back. If you had three, you would be bringing in about $1300 a year. It might pay itself off faster. It also depends where you live and how much wind you get. It's windy now here, but not so much in August.
view funstraw's profile
This requires a bit more than math. While this is a wind appliance that is designed to offset conventional power consumption, the economics are not the only relevant piece of the puzzle. But if you want to stick to numbers, rapunzel assumed a 4-year life of the equipment. I don't think that's really realistic...people that are going to be buying these aren't likely to want a new one in that short a time. I'd say more like 8-10, but even 15-20 years is possible.
Regardless, incentives weren't factored in. It's entirely possible to get one of these at up to 60% or more below rapunzel's estimated installed cost, bringing your simple payback to 3-5 years, or less in some cases. That's with the US federal tax credit (30%),
local and state credits and/or rebates (typically 20-30%), and, if you went with a lease there may be an additional 2-5% or so due to accelerated depreciation or other factors.
What really matters though is the specifics of the site. Wind is highly variable, so anyone looking to buy one of these things should have at least a year's worth of wind speeds at the proposed tower height. I have no idea of the cut-in speeds of these things, but they look light and have lots of swept area so one might assume 6-8mph so they can operate with lower annual wind speeds. A Windspire is rated at 1.2 kW output with similar low-speed operation, and they're about $4500 installed so it's not that much less than the $4,888 USD cost (not including installation) of a comparable Pramac unit. Overall, they're gorgeous and I'm interested in trying one out. Anyone got a link with some specs?
view emilito's profile