A power plant in your home?!

As a child, many people see the massive power plants that are dotted all over every country in the world. They look up in awe at the massive buildings and structures that somehow make power for them to use in their homes. They think 'wouldn't it be so interesting to work in a place like that! To see how such a vital part of society operates and how electricity, vital for society is produced'. Well what if TESUP now told these people, you could not only operate a power plant but also be the owner of the whole operation? And even that you could potentially operate your own personal power station from the comfort of your own home or garden!?

Well this is the reality for many people! With the advent of cheaper and cheaper renewable based technologies you no longer have to have a very large factory like complex of buildings and machines to generate electricity. Instead you can make use of the environment around you to generate electricity and sell it for a profit! Although it is unlikely to be quite the same scale of energy production as some of those power plants, it is definitely a good way to reduce your energy bills and maybe make a little money!

The best bet for most people aspiring to their own little power plant would be using wind or solar energy generators, namely wind turbines or solar panels. These devices can be easily accommodated on a roof or in a spacious garden. You need only a bit of wind or a bit of sun to get these going. For the roof, particularly a slanted one, solar panels may be the way to go. It can be difficult to fit many wind turbines securely on the difficult roof shape. As the solar panels are flat many can likely fit on your roof. That's not to say you can't also integrate a couple of wind turbines to keep the energy flowing on a cloudy day.?

A wind turbine is likely more suited to a large garden. The turbines can be mounted on poles and usually have a smaller footprint than a solar panel, leaving more space in your garden for the kids to run around or to relax with a nice drink. Wind turbines are great for countries that don't get much sun or coastal regions. Countries such as the United Kingdom or Norway are great examples of both. These very windy countries will keep your wind turbines spinning for a good portion of the year.?

With the cost of energy rising as it is at the moment, now is a great time to generate your own power. Even generating a small portion of your power needs could save you lots of money. For the same reason you can take advantage of skyrocketing energy costs, generating electricity and selling it back to the grid. With the high current electricity costs this could make your home power plant profitable very quickly indeed! And with the lifespan of some renewable generators getting longer and longer, your home power plant can keep generating power well into the future for many years to come!?

All you need to achieve this is a power generator (wind turbine, solar panel ect..), a charge controller to ensure the electricity coming from your generators is properly managed (if you're not sure which one to get, TESUP manufactures it's own controllers which are a great match for TESUP turbines as well as hybrid systems). This could be connected to a battery for easy energy storage to use the electricity later, or be directly connected to the grid. The latter would require a power inverter to convert the power generated by your home power station into electricity compatible with the grid. Luckily TESUP also sells compatible charge controllers! Isn't that great! They can be found by following this link.?

Let's go through a little example study with some exemplar TESUP turbines and see how much electricity you could potentially get from your very own power station. And importantly, how much profit can come from your homegrown power initiative. We will have a look to see how much power an array of Atlas4.0 turbines could generate for you. Due to the Atlas4.0 having a good minimum speed of 4 m/s and good blade design, the Atlas4.0 has a good capacity factor of about 30% in most areas of the UK. This means we can expect the ideal power generation at the Atlas4.0’s rated power of 4kW 30% of the time. As a result about 1.2kWh can be generated by a single turbine over the space of an hour! Multiply this by, let's say 10 turbines for a small wind turbine farm and you are already at 2016kWh potential capacity over a week!

An example of a 4.75 MW solar farm (Soltage Project at 100 Neponset Street, Walpole, MA. (Photo By: Greg M. Cooper / Soltage LLC))

If you're lucky enough to have a field or a large open space attached to your property or perhaps nearby. Or even have a family farm that is not quite as productive as it used to be. It could be very achievable to develop these plots of land into an even larger, fully fledged solar or wind farm! This practice is becoming more and more common. As technology like solar panels dramatically drop in price it is becoming increasingly popular to develop spare land into a large array of solar panels. This is particularly a good use of land that might be unusable for other applications such as contaminated brownfield sites.?

The power you could generate with this kind of scale is larger than you might manage at home and the site would certainly require a lot more attention than just a few panels on the roof. But if it is your dream to own and operate your own power station this could be a great way to make generating electricity into your full time job! Gone are the days of sitting in an office, now you get to spend time outdoors, working on your electricity supply or managing your own finances! It might be a good idea to start with something smaller, however, or hire a professional electrician to set things up for you.?If you are looking for something a bit less daunting, TESUP has a range of flexible solar panels available. The easy installation of these panels is so easy it may not even need a solar installer! The flexible design could even fit on the side of a van for a portable power source!