“Electricity” can be made with a plastic bottles windmill! ?

that  can produce about 4.6 million kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity pre year

[Contents]

* Required materials and tools

* How to make a plastic bottle windmill / generator

* Mechanism to make electricity with the wind

* How much power can be generated by the wind?

Today, let's experiment with “plastic bottle windmills” that can be easily made with familiar things, and experiment with wind power generation that produces electricity by the power of wind.


“Electricity” can be made with a plastic windmill! ?
Wind power generation that produces electricity by the power of wind. Let's challenge the work to understand the mechanism!
Because we use cutters and scissors, make it with adults as much as possible.


<Required materials and tools>


・ 350-500ml PET bottles (2)
・ Power generation motor (with cord)
・ LED beans bulb (No LED bulbs)
・ Bean bulb socket (with cord)
 ·cutter knife
・ Scissors
・ Percussion
・ Oil magic
・ Vinyl tape and cellophane tape
・ Other (masking tape, seal, etc.)

 How to make a plastic bottle windmill / generator


Process 1

1: Install the LED miniature light bulb in the miniature light bulb socket.

Process 2

2: Connect the cord of the motor for power generation and the cord of the socket. Let's "twist" the end of each cord neatly.
* The color of the cords to be connected is not necessarily the same.
* If not connected properly, the light bulb may not shine.

Process 3

3: Use a vinyl tape to fix the power generation motor to the base plastic bottle.
* It's easier to remove the cap and fix the motor directly to the mouthpiece.

Process 4

4: From the bottom of the plastic bottle that will be another windmill, draw a line that will be used as a mark to cut it, at a distance of 1/5 to 1/4 of the entire plastic bottle.

Process 5

5: Draw a line to mark the windmill's wings from the line marked in (4) to cut the cut toward the mouth. At this time, be careful not to cut the root until the wings hit the base plastic bottle and the windmill will not turn.
* The number and size of the wings will change if you change the number of lines and the interval.

Process 6

6: Cut the bottom part of the plastic bottle along the mark line drawn in (4).
* If the PET bottle is hard, cut it with a cutter and cut with scissors.

Process 7

7: Cut with scissors along the mark line drawn in (5) and spread it outwards to make windmill feathers. Try to make it easier to catch the wind by bending the tips and roots of the wings.

Process 8

8: Use a perforation in the center of the cap to make a small hole to attach the windmill to the motor. (* 1)
Attach a cap with a hole in the pinhole of the windmill. If you make the hole in the cap larger than the thickness of the motor shaft, the windmill will run idle. Adjust the size of the hole little by little. (* 2)

process 9

9: Mount the windmill on the motor. Attach the cap to the windmill, and insert the motor shaft into the hole you just made.

* 1 There is power. When it doesn't open, please ask adults.
* 2 If the motor has a gear, first insert the gear into the motor shaft and make a hole in the cap to fit the gear. By inserting the gear firmly into the cap, you can prevent the wings from spinning around.


Let's turn the windmill to generate electricity!


Let's wind the wings with a dryer or a fan and turn the windmill. When the windmill rotates and electricity is generated by the motor, the LED beans light bulb will shine.
* The sample uses a dryer to blow the wings.


Make a few windmills of different shapes and sizes and experiment to see which one shines brightest.

Let's make your own wind generator by putting masking tape and seals on the base of PET bottles and windmill wings, and coloring them with magic and paint.

Mechanism to make electricity with the power of wind


Wind power generation uses the power of wind to produce electricity.

Wind power generation facilities

・"Tower" is as tall as a large building
・"Rotor" combined with large blades that catch the wind
・"Nacelle" that contains a generator that produces electricity and a "speed increaser "
It is made of three.

When the strong wind flowing in the high sky is received with large blades (blades), it will begin to rotate as the rotor turns around. The rotor and the nacelle behind it are connected, and the rotation of the rotor is transmitted to the nacelle. Inside the nacelle, a machine called a gearbox further increases the speed of rotation transmitted from the rotor. And the power of the faster rotation is transmitted to the generator and converted into electricity.
* In some cases, the rotor and generator are connected directly without using a gearbox.


The power generation facilities of the Kansai Electric Power Group's Tahara 4 Ward Wind Power Plant have a tower height of about 80m and a rotor diameter of about 80m.

Difference between "shape" and "size" of a windmill
There are  many different shapes and sizes of “windmills” used in wind power generation.
There are two types of windmills, depending on the “direction of the axis” that conveys the rotation of the windmill.
Wind turbines with an axis orientation of “ground and horizontal” are “ horizontal axis type ”, and wind turbines “ vertical to the ground” are “ vertical axis type ”. It ’s called.


A typical horizontal axis type windmill is the “propeller type”, and in the case of windmills used in wind power generation, the number of wings is often three. Propeller type windmills rotate faster with fewer wings. Other horizontal axis type windmills include the “Dutch type” with cloth on wooden wings and the “multi-wing type” with many wings.

There are various types of vertical axis windmills, but the ones that are mainly used in wind power generation are the Darius type and the Savonius type. Both windmills have the name of the inventor. The vertical axis type windmill has a convenient place that "turns in any wind direction", but there is also a problem that a larger space is required compared to the horizontal axis type.

Next, let's look at the difference in the “size” of the windmill. If the wind is the same speed, the windmill will be "the bigger the wind, the stronger the rotating force" = "you can make a lot of electricity".
When experimenting with wind power generation using plastic bottles, let's compare various types and sizes of windmills.


How much power can be generated by the power of wind?

Are you worried about how much electricity can be produced by “wind power generation” that produces electricity with the power of wind? In the case of wind power generation, the amount of electricity generated depends on the size of the wings that catch the wind and the speed at which the windmill rotates.

Taking the Kansai Electric Power Group's Tawara 4 Ward wind power plant as an example, a single wind power generation facility can generate about 4.6 million kWh (kilowatt hour) of electricity per year. That's about 1,500 units of electricity used every year in your home. (* Assuming monthly power consumption of 260kWh / house)
Wind power generation that can produce electricity simply by receiving the power of the wind without using fuel such as oil or gas. Not only in Japan but also in various places around the world.

But not only is it good for wind power, but there are still more challenges.
If the wind is blowing, you can generate electricity, but the wind is not always blowing with a constant force, so the amount of power generation is not stable. There are also other problems such as the noise caused by the rotation of the wings and accidents (bird strikes) where birds are trapped in the wings.