Homemade Electricity Generators: How Much Power Do You Need?

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Homemade electricity generators, whether in the form of a wind turbine or solar panels, are an effective way to greatly reduce or even eliminate the cost of home power. Of course they also serve the additional benefit of reducing pollution by converting the sun’s nearly renewable energy into useable electricity.

Before embarking on the construction of a homemade wind or solar generator it is important to understand how much electricity you currently use. This will be helpful in deciding how many windmills and solar panels to build and whether or not you wish to completely or just partially replace the services of your current power company.

How Much Power Can Your Homemade Electrical Generators Produce?

Some do-it-yourself wind generators, for example, are designed to generate 1000 watts of electricity in a constant 20 mile per hour wind. If the average wind speed in your area is closer to 10 mph you will obviously need to reduce your expectations. Good wind generator plans should include a wind speed versus power out chart.

Homebuilt solar panels typically put out about 100 watts while using 80 solar cells. This will vary depending on weather and a few other variables such as how often do the solar panels’ cover glass need cleaning.

Once you build and install your home power generation system keep track of its total electrical production in kilowatt hours. This can be done by installing a meter in line with the total system or one for each energy producing component. Earth4Energy

Use Your Electrical Bill To Learn Your About Your Actual Usage

Many electric bills offer a wealth of information about your electrical usage on an annual basis as well as the totals per month. The monthly totals will help you determine the maximum power needed in the most demanding months.

In Michigan, for example, the typically hot month of August will often require the most amount electricity in Kilowatt-Hours because of air conditioning. This is the most critical month for a completely off-the-grid system because it helps determine the maximum peak amount of power needed.

How To Determine The Electrical Power Needs of Individual Appliances

Modern appliances are required by law, at least in the United States, to carry a printed label or engraving that describes its power requirements. For example a television set might be labeled 65 Watts. This means that if the TV was left on for an hour it might use up to 65 Watt-Hours of electricity.

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Often these labels do not describe the peak power demand in Watts but instead give the amps and voltage requirements. In order to convert these measurements into watts just multiply them together. Amps X Volts = Watts.

Some small appliances are rated in Milliamps. This is equivalent to one 1/1000 of a Watt. For example: a cell phone charger might be rated at 850 Milliamps at 9 Volts. Convert Milliamps into Amps by moving the decimal point over three digits to the left. 850 Milliamps becomes .850 Amps. The charger requires 9 Volts X .850 Amps which equals 7.65 Watts.

Other appliances may only list the amperage. A kitchen vent fan might just read 2.0 Amps with no voltage or wattage value displayed. Since the fan is connected directly to the household current rated at approximately 120 Volts then the Watts can be calculated as 120 Volts X 2.0 Amps = 240 Watts.

Another tricky device is a guitar amplifier. Mine is rated at 15 Watts but this is a little deceiving because this is the power of the sound output. It actually takes 75 Watts of electricity to produce the 15 Watts of sound.

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Now Add Them Up

Add the Wattage values for all of the appliances that you might be running at one time. For example:

(4) 60 Watt Light bulbs = 240 Watts

(1) Television = 60 Watts

(1) Laptop Computer = 65 Watts

(1) Coffee Maker = 900 Watts

(1) Cell Phone Charger = 8 Watts

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Total Watts required to operate all of these items at one time = 1,273 Watts

If you simultaneously ran all of the above items for one hour they would require =1,273 Watt-Hours of Power. One windmill generator producing 500 Watts would then need to be charging your battery storage bank for 2.5 to 3 hours.

If you tie your wind and solar electricity in with the household power grid, (with the aid of a licensed electrician of course), then you really do not have to budget quite so carefully. If the homemade electricity generators don’t bank enough power on a dark, windless day the grid can always make up the difference.

  Review: Earth4Energy            Rated 9.7 / 10 

This is an instantly downloadable step by step manual for inexpensively building, (as low as $200 each), your own electricity generating solar panels and windmill.

Earth4Energy Has Earned Our Highest Rating!

This is an instantly downloadable step by step manual for inexpensively building, (as low as $200 each), your own electricity generating solar panels and windmill.

After I purchased the Earth4Energy eBook I was able to read through the entire manual in one evening. This practical, hands-on manual is designed to quickly get you started building. No unnecessary technical jargon is offered.

It is very specific with lots of helpful and easy to understand diagrams and photos, (with only a few exceptions). The information is very specific and yet allows for adjustment if the parts you obtain vary from the author’s example.

At the time of this review, I tracked down the recommended used and free parts sources and found them to be easily available as promised.

I like the fact that the Earth4Energy manual is constantly being updated. Refinements and tips are available free on the Earth4Energy website to anyone that purchases their manual.

UPDATE: The Earth4Energy Company has begun to produce a whole series of short and focussed videos that show critical details for building windmills and solar panels.

Some of the initial videos show the essential methods and tricks for easily soldering electrical leads to the individual solar cells as well as exactly how to connect all the cells in an entire panel. These and future videos on windmill construction are available on a special "members only" webpage that is available at no extra charge to anyone that buys the main eBook.

I have increased this program's rating from 9.0 to 9.7 because of these instructional videos. Earth4Energy is now my highest rated program.

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