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It's not their fault if you don't look around their site for a link as obvious as Power Production

We at Windside belive that the energy production should be informed in kWh/year basis and this production figure should be based on measurements done in real life circumstances.

Commonly used maximum rated power has very little to do with real life results and therefore it is important to find out how many kWh the turbine is like to produce on annual basis at different wind speeds.

Followed by a chart of KwH mapped against turbine size and average wind speed.

the real reason it's expensive is that the parts cost and take energy to make.

now, something that might be feasible could be covering for example entire alps in small http://www.windside.com/ installations. if only for the reason that such installations don't depend on massive 50 meter blades.

of course, nature freaks would freak from that.

http://www.windside.com/

This will work is in faster and slower winds than your traditional propeller. It's silent and durable. Cheap and easy to install.

Going a bit astray, has anyone seen the episode of Science Channel's "Eco-Tech" featuring the rooftop windmills designed by Aerotecture? Pretty cool.

looks a lot like the ones a finnish company has been making for almost 30 years. Windside Production Ltd.

You can put it on the south side of the roof (for north hemispherians). Add a wind turbine or a few, and you've covered the majority of weather conditions.

Here are some links I collected after a previous /. mention of these turbines:
Windside Products
TMA Global Wind Energy Systems
PicoTurbine (for fun)

Most windmills get pretty noisy.

The specs on these claim 0 dB Measured sound emission.

A windmill is too big and too much of an eyesore to be installed in backyards.

They don't have to be eyesores.

windside out of finland are "vertical spinning cylinder" style you mention and also very decrative if you want.

> Not sure what the differences might be. Winside apparently has been producing these
> vertical axis windmills for extreme environments for, they say, about twenty years.
> But they do seem costly. They use a helix type design for the blades, see:
> http://www.windside.com/products.html

Differences, hmm..
Windside, 1979, Risto Joutsiniemi, Finland.
Linux, 1991, Linus Torvalds, Finland.
TMA vertical axis wind turbine, 2005, USA.

The two first entries come from Finland, and two last entries are open source. Maybe they would all be open source had the concept been known in 1979.. :)

From: http://www.windside.com/
"Windside works, when others don't, with gentle summer breeze and in a violent winter storm. It works, when others are in deep frost. Windside produces electricity at least 50 % more in a year than traditional propeller models. All the year round. Many things make it extraordinary. And therefore it gives the best value for the money."

Not sure what the differences might be. Winside apparently has been producing these vertical axis windmills for extreme environments for, they say, about twenty years. But they do seem costly. They use a helix type design for the blades, see: http://www.windside.com/products.html

From: http://www.windside.com/
"Windside works, when others don't, with gentle summer breeze and in a violent winter storm. It works, when others are in deep frost. Windside produces electricity at least 50 % more in a year than traditional propeller models. All the year round. Many things make it extraordinary. And therefore it gives the best value for the money."

Not sure what the differences might be. Winside apparently has been producing these vertical axis windmills for extreme environments for, they say, about twenty years. But they do seem costly. They use a helix type design for the blades, see: http://www.windside.com/products.html

WS-turbine that has slow rotation speed is quiet and safe for birds.

The quantity of turbines improves the efficiency of the system, and improves the ability to maintain power quality. I think the problem with what has been done today is that people are going too much for the HUGE turbines. A few dozen 10kw turbines on a building would make an impact. It wouldn't do everything, but it can run a chiller or UPS system and reduce the overall oil dependancy.

An interesting link on novel wind turbines is www.windside.com. They are vertical axis turbines, and therefore have much slower tip speeds (thus less impact on wildlife).

As far as costs go, the industry will require subsidies for a while, to develop the industry more. The same holds true for fuel cells. However, the cost per kw is competitive with everything but oil-fired plants. Looking at long-term financials, and ...uncertainty of imported oil, it's worth some subsidies now!

They have compact wind power devices from Windside, a Finnish company. Their equipment regularly runs at -60C, not sure how much colder it could take, though.

For the summer, supplemental solar would work, and batteries (somehow magically kept warm) can provide a good buffer.