Heat your house with a mechanical windmill (2019)
> Renewable energy production is almost entirely aimed at the generation of electricity. However, we use more energy in the form of heat, which solar panels and wind turbines can produce only indirectly and relatively inefficiently. A solar thermal collector skips the conversion to electricity and supplies renewable thermal energy in a direct and more efficient way.Ooof. What? The first paragraph and it's just utter bollocks. Combine a solar panel or a wind turbine with a heat pump and despite generation losses it will outperform any thermal collectors - there's a reason these got virtually phased out!And on top of that: local windmills, that may work out on farms in backwater rural towns with no grid worth calling it that, but good luck getting a permit for windmills in anywhere else, and when there's no wind you're straight out of luck whereas an electric heat pump can always be powered from the grid, or in the case of a massive power outage, from an on-site backup generator.