A reader emailed me a picture he took of his neighbors house where they’ve installed two wind turbines. I find that pretty strange honestly. It’s good of course that they’re thinking green but I would have guessed solar power would work great in Kuwait and not wind. I mean how many days of the year is it windy in Kuwait?
Thanks Imad
31 replies on “Wind turbines?”
The wind may be enough at that height, but the solar pannels here in kuwait always get to much dust on them and then brings down their output…
We’ve took picture of them last week but those turbines were facing different direction. Someone commented our post that those turbines are only for decoration.
I’ve heard about a house in Mishref uses solar power but not sure where exactly
Brilliant, its a small step. And yes Solar power is abundant, by next year there will be more of such sustainable ideas. Whatever the idea is, as long as its ecofriendly, it works! Its a great market to start solar panel sales…anyone listening? I have one back at home and it costs around 120KD to keep around 1000liters of warm water supply.
Maybe the owner is making a statement. Good for them regardless.
i find kuwait pretty windy.. i find them running most of the time.
These turbines are next to my house, so I’ve been trying to see everyday how they are doing… and till now at least one was turning almost every time I passed them. I was told the ministry had a couple set up in Kuwait and was testing them out. Solar panels on the other hand will be everywhere soon.
i see this everyday
when im dropping my brother to school
The long one is always rotating when i pass by it.
Actually a study was made fir Kuwait and wind turbines are more effective than solar. I was mind boggled too.
in mishref
?
solar energy can be collected through various technologies. traditional photovoltaic (PV) cells are commonplace in the world, but in Kuwait they actually underperform at peak times because the ambient temperatures at the hottest points of summer actually make the PV cells far less efficient. They’re good up to about 40 celcius or so. There are other technologies that combine the power from the light and the heat and have proven much more successful.. Good effort and whoever can should try to implement something at the scale of their homes, but until energy actually becomes more expensive, I don’t think people will budge from fossil fuels.
with all the dust maintaining solar cells would be a real headache. my guess is these wind generators are 400-500 watt probably used to power garden features.
PV cells as effective as people may think are still one of the most inefficient renewable energy sources. They cost way more then they generate. As hh said, they do not perform effectively during peak times due to excessive temperatures. Also due to dust conditions in Kuwait PV cells become extremely inefficient as thin dust layers on photovoltaics can reduce their efficiency by substantial amounts (in order to stop the dust you need to keep cleaning them and therefore waste water instead….kinda catch 22)
However wind turbines at these scales do not require high wind speeds as they are designed for dwelling energy replacement and not supplying massive amounts of energy to an area.
One of the most cost efficient systems that could be used in kuwait is solar thermal panels (during winter seasons) that use the suns energy to create hot water. Kuwait has plenty of sun even in winter.
Other then that biomass and biofuels wont hit kuwait until fossil fuels become higher priced.
One of the ministries has actually been testing wind turbines for a few years now. They’ve been planning on installing these systems to power up certain industries and factories, with plans for much larger expansion. Solar panels will also be used in the new few years.
solar energy is BS!
it can only be used to light a small pulp
it is not as advertised,, the solar energy technology has very poor efficiency compared to other resources like wind/water falls/rivers/…etc
Wind wins over solar…. but may be not in Kuwait. It is pretty impressive if it is not a demo but a working system
I have seen these windmills recently and they looked pretty cool going round and round… but i agree solar power would make more sense… but then again i think they are close to sea so they might have more currents on daily basis? and maybe they do have solar system… a house near ours has a strange solar system piping thing going on i guess to provide hot water…
I want these in my house! they look cool and would probably help with the horrendous electricity usage in this country.
Wind turbines can be pretty noisy are the neighbours okay with this?
well i think this would be a better option
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrating_solar_power
coz kuwait have the resources now so they can afford such expensive setup.
but its actually cheaper at the end
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrating_solar_power#Costs
i took some pics to send them to mark but someone was faster than me. anyways, scientifically these are windmills not turbines.
just for information, these won’t produce huge power output and like all green stuff these are not cost effective at short terms but we have to invest in renewable energy to save our planet.
god gave us differant energy type on every spot on earth we can’t say this or other type is good or bad, every spot is differant and we have to study the place before investing.
as for the solar, there are differant types of solar energy technologies, not just the photocells or water heater, we can heat the air and power a large turbine or generate super heated steam
to run a steam turbines.
finally, all kinds of energy are in some how generated by the sun! this is a fact.
btw, BWTC Bahrain was the first tower in the world to incorporate wind tribunes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jldks2DcUuc
I was told they were just for looks and don’t really work
these fans are like cars they can be tuned and modifed in order to make the most of different wind conditions; it takes years to get the best setup because there isn’t any data before this tower. That been said experts consider the 15% these fans should produce of the tower’s total consumption it hugely exaggerated. but these were the first and they should only get better in future towers.
for looks only. Dude, i hope this is not the new habba..
Well the solar water heaters are not alwawys 100% solar, it works in dual mode where if the solar power is not good enough, it trips over to electric power and vice versa. But yes would be difficult to implement in Kuwait as electricity is almost free and fossil fuels are cheap. Alternate energy should be given a chance, heard there will be nuclear plants as an option in future? Green energy should be given a chance.
i pass it everyday, even in non windy days these work! i guess their working and not just for looks
As commented by someone. Kuwait has been seeing the possibility of installing Solar and other sources of natural energy. Windmill has proven to be better than other sources. Solar energy needs clear weather which is not suitable for dusty weathers. Therefore the conclusion is that windmill is best for Kuwait.
for looks? that’s very stupid they do look efficient i pass by them every day they’re turning around all the time!
i guess they staterd putting those wind turbines and still working on integrating the energy system it doesn’t make sense that some one would put them just for the looks this is really stupid
Hey Mark, I realize this is an older post but I saw wind turbine blades leave the Shuaiba port yesterday.