I thought it would be nice to get a wind turbine since that could produce some useful electricity in months that contain the letter 'r'.

11k EUR

2 kW

Price of electricity is like 10 cents a kWh average throughout the year

11000/2/0.1 = 55000 hours

Will pay off if it produces 2 kW for 6 years straight. I don't think I'm getting one.

i mean, if you're in flat open farmland with a steady breeze why the hell not run up a pole?

Trees and rolling landscapes block a LOT of wind. You need to be someplace flat and sparse to have any luck.

The main issue is the small size tends to increase the required wind speed required to initially overcome friction, and those higher windspeeds are rarely sustained at ground level. Large turbines work efficiently because they are up above the turbulence caused by houses, trees, buildings, etc.

I don't save links to everything I ever read, so you'll have to search it up if you're curious for more details.

This guy tested a $100 solar panel and windmill and found the solar panel was much, much better. https://youtu.be/iHulKsD35Hc

This guy gets into the math behind the Tesup Atlas wind turbine. Basically the real output people are getting could be matched by 200-400watts of solar. https://youtu.be/6ixUmlN-cYc

The 2 biggest problems with scaling down turbines.

1. Hard 60% efficiency limit called the Betz Limit

2. Wear and tear on smaller parts is the same as bigger parts but with lower output efficiency.

I guess a 3rd is that the surface area to volume ratio is probably what makes large turbines practical in the first place.

Where did you read that?

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/09/urban-windmills-harm-the-environment

Physics are quite simply not on the side of small-scale wind power. Which is fine, it doesn't have to - solar works really well for small-scale applications.

I've looked into it for exactly this reason. 1 kW at night would go a long, long way for me. It doesn't work.

If you're lucky, a small turbine might be able to charge your phone. Maybe. Intermittently.

The turbines scale exponentially with blade size, not linearly. And none of it works well at suburb/city height. You need this things 100ft in the air with large blades.

At that point you might as well get a real one and power your neighborhood. Those things really don't scale down effectively.

Wind is too variable. Sun comes up every day, and getting laminar wind is difficult in suburban areas. Expensive and turbines wear and get iced in winter. They can work in rural settings which is why they have been using turbines on farms for over 200 years.