Why can’t they put solar-panels on the blades and sides of the 300-500 foot tall turbines? Wouldn’t this increase effeciency? Therefore, boosting pay-back time, profits, energy-output?
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
so if the wind was out of the north, the blades would not have sun on them.
Panels have to be tilted, so the structure would have to be modified at an expense greater than the energy they recieve.
BESIDES, PV panels are the most expensive, way to get power. They are not worth the investment.
No.
The solar panels would never be balanced. Those blades need to be very balanced. Additionally, how would the solar panels get the power from a rotating blade to the ground?
It is better to have separate units.
What we ought to be concerned with is having large solar panel farms. These are counter-productive to going green, as they still require long and harmful power transmission lines.
Solar panels ought to be put on top of buildings which would be using that power.
Any additional power not used could be added to the power grid.
For those types of clean energy that are not practical on the roof might get space near the building, keeping the transmission lines as short as possible.
Large farms ought to be owned by the nation, keeping the cost of the power to the customer as low as possible.
Power companies rip off consumers with their price gouging.
It is time to let the burden of making a few rich at the expense of the many end.
Good to know someone is thinking and coming up with original ideas, so thanks for contributing…
Put a large powerful solar collector on the end of the turbine too i.e. facing the sky!
Far as I know, solar works on day-light (doesn’t have to face the sun).
So your idea is not to be put down.
Metal blade turbines – are heavy – wooden windmills – heavy… so some added weight to the wind-turbine’s paddles would be OK robably.
Great if solar device not made of glass (so unbreakable).
I think panels on the roof are old hat…
Hmm, how would that work though? This is how I understand electricity is made…a giant magnet is turned inside a copper? coil and a magnetic field is generated, something about the field happens & we tap into the electricity & disperse it out to the grid. So, what turns the giant turbine that turns the magnet? Steam. How is stream made? water is heated and how is water heated? By burning fossil fuels, coal, natural gas, etc. (Note: my info. might be out of date & it’s obviously a very basic description… I really need to look into this & learn more about how electricity is generated what exactly it is.) So, I would think wind energy just turns the turbine & solar would be redundant unless your thinking of powering the wind turbine when there is little wind? I think they try to make sure to put wind turbines where it really is windy most of the time though. I didn’t assume you meant to put solar panels on the fan blades, is that what you were thinking? FYI, I have heard of a newer design solar panels that are made of clear cylinders so they don’t need to tract the sun b/c light gathering is much more efficient. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cylindrical-solar-cells-give-new-meaning-to-sunroof
Glad to see you thinking though, keep it up! Knowledge is power & the more knowledge you gain about a variety of subjects & processes the more you truly understand the truth & depth of that statement.
Its a pretty intuitive idea, actually. The only flaw that comes to mind is that although it may seem efficient, the solar panels would not be in place long enough to capture sunlight, because the blades would be in constant motion.
thtas an awesome idea but we dont have to do that because if just three states in US got its energy from the wind turbine, it could power the entire nation, who knows for how long but the whole country… (:
PLEASE ANSWER MY QUESTION!! ITS ABOUT GEOTHERMAL ENERGY =]
It isn’t really original. I bet anything you got the idea out of Artemis Fowl, which is mentions. The problem is with the idea, unless we can find a way to capture sunlight faster, the blades would spin to fast
It would work better to put the solar panels on the ground beneath the windmills.
Land underneath wind farms is perfectly usable for other things, and it gets plenty of sun.
But then, if you think about good places for solar panels, “parking lots” make even more sense yet. There’s plenty of em, and people like to park in the shade.
Did you know you couldn’t even put a layer of PAINT on the commercial wind turbine blades, and have them balance properly?
Did you know it would take a crane, and specially trained men, just to service a “normal” wind turbine blade. The men are called sky climbers….it’s an EXTREMELY dangerous job.
Do you know why wind turbine towers are white? Because it can reach 120 degrees (F) inside them on hot summer days. How would you feel if you were a man who climbed up a ladder, inside a 300 foot tower to service the wind turbine….would you be able to do that job, in 120 degree temperatures? Remember there is NO elevator, NO running water, NO bathroom, and yes you will be up in the tower in those temperatures for 8 hour lengths of time. Of course that is a bright white tower, which reflects the sun’s rays away. Now imagine being in that tower covered with dark black solar collecters. How hot do you think it might get? 200 degrees (F)? Hotter?
Places were wind turbines do well, are often not places where solar collecters do well. Solar collecters do not actually do that well in high wind areas….tends to damage them.
The heat you would be talking about generating on the wind turbine tower would cause all of the expensive computers inside to melt down.
Wind turbines cost about one million per mega watt, plus another half million to install. So a two mega watt wind turbine would cost $ 2.5 million dollars to purchase and have installed.
Wind turbines pay their purchase price, instilation cost, routine upkeep costs back in 3-8 years. The average pay back time is 5 years. After that the wind turbine is making a profit for it’s owners. Most wind turbines are designed to have a 20-25 year lifespan. After that very nearly 100% of the wind turbine is recyclable.
Adding solar panels to wind turbines would not work…indeed it would melt down everything in the turbine.
~Garnet
Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years
Husband working in the commercial wind turbine field over two years now