Any good experiences with wind?

[brandnewb]

It's been windy here the last couple days, the 15 year old A.R.E. turbine running at max, 2490 watts into the grid, any more and it self furls while putting a bit of power into the dump load. Last time I checked it had produced 74 KWH in this current wind event, probably over by now. The Windy Boy inverter display re-sets to zero when the wind dies. My 5 KW PV ain't doing squat, as it's pitch black outside!

that is outstanding. can you share a bit more about the turbine please? like elevation, area type, noise level and such?

 

[callita]

while solar panels do generate enough energy in summer during the daytime, nothing is generated in winter and at night time on any night of the year... I was thinking of a small top-up system and as I am living on a hill I thought that putting a small turbine would be benefitial... any ideas? I can only have a vertucal turbine, the other one needs planning permission. I did view some YouTube DIY turbines. I also had a quote from a salesman, he wants a lot of money, I do not want to pay that much. I didn't expect such un-ethusiastic remarks on wind power though...

 

[SunnyGoat]

While solar generally has a long ROI compared to grid power small wind literally has a negative ROI. That is, that small wind will cost your more to own it than it will ever produce.

Some will point out exceptions, but they are so few and such special cases they aren't worth mentioning.

By the way, I think small wind is really cool but do it with the understanding it's just something to play around with it. Regardless of size or manufacturer small wind will never be a reliable or predictable part of your energy system. Anyone who's has actually installed small wind and/or lived with it will say the same.

And congrats on getting to build a place in such a cool area!

While solar generally has a long ROI compared to grid power small wind literally has a negative ROI. That is, that small wind will cost your more to own it than it will ever produce.

Some will point out exceptions, but they are so few and such special cases they aren't worth mentioning.

By the way, I think small wind is really cool but do it with the understanding it's just something to play around with it. Regardless of size or manufacturer small wind will never be a reliable or predictable part of your energy system. Anyone who's has actually installed small wind and/or lived with it will say the same.

And congrats on getting to build a place in such a cool area!

while solar panels do generate enough energy in summer during the daytime, nothing is generated in winter and at night time on any night of the year... I was thinking of a small top-up system and as I am living on a hill I thought that putting a small turbine would be benefitial... any ideas? I can only have a vertucal turbine, the other one needs planning permission. I did view some YouTube DIY turbines. I also had a quote from a salesman, he wants a lot of money, I do not want to pay that much. I didn't expect such un-ethusiastic remarks on wind power though...

I just joined the forum today and I must say I am a bit surprised at the general negativity towards small wind turbines. I've had an Istabreeze i1500 for 6 months now ( 2.2m diameter on a 5.5m mast) and I'm really pleased with it. We have 6kw of solar which is doing next to nothing right now. But, in the last few weeks as it's gotten windier the turbine is typically making about 1 to 2kwh a day, some days nearer 4kwh which keeps my batteries up so that's great. I'm in the north east of Scotland in a moderately windy place, but much better in the winter months. I'll just switch off the turbine during the sunnier calmer months. I spent £650 inc shipping on the turbine and about £300 on wire rope, concrete ready mix, scaffold tubing and fittings. ( & a lot of digging! )Also about £100 on a DIY controller circuit with 850watts of dump load. Oh, and another £200 on heavy 3 core wire. Not including my 5kwh battery bank ( shared with solar ) the whole lot has come in around £1300. Assuming that I'll maybe just replace the odd slip ring or bearing over the next few years and based on the output so far it does seem worthwhile and should cover it's costs in about 8-10 years based on grid @ 33p/kwh and 300-400kwh per year ( would have been a negative ROI when electric was only 14p/kwh ). Not a very exciting ROI, but if the grid electric doubles in April then it's definitely worthwhile. But..... wind generation does need a MUCH higher level of effort and knowledge with plenty of scope for making mistakes leading to poor outcomes. Probably why it gets a bad rap on a solar forum. You very seldom hear of failed solar projects. It just works. Of course, ROI is not relevant if you're wholly off grid. IN that case, I would say hybrid solar/wind is a great way to go.

 

[brandnewb]

I just joined the forum today and I must say I am a bit surprised at the general negativity towards small wind turbines. I've had an Istabreeze i1500 for 6 months now ( 2.2m diameter on a 5.5m mast) and I'm really pleased with it. We have 6kw of solar which is doing next to nothing right now. But, in the last few weeks as it's gotten windier the turbine is typically making about 1 to 2kwh a day, some days nearer 4kwh which keeps my batteries up so that's great. I'm in the north east of Scotland in a moderately windy place, but much better in the winter months. I'll just switch off the turbine during the sunnier calmer months. I spent £650 inc shipping on the turbine and about £300 on wire rope, concrete ready mix, scaffold tubing and fittings. ( & a lot of digging! )Also about £100 on a DIY controller circuit with 850watts of dump load. Oh, and another £200 on heavy 3 core wire. Not including my 5kwh battery bank ( shared with solar ) the whole lot has come in around £1300. Assuming that I'll maybe just replace the odd slip ring or bearing over the next few years and based on the output so far it does seem worthwhile and should cover it's costs in about 8-10 years based on grid @ 33p/kwh and 300-400kwh per year ( would have been a negative ROI when electric was only 14p/kwh ). Not a very exciting ROI, but if the grid electric doubles in April then it's definitely worthwhile. But..... wind generation does need a MUCH higher level of effort and knowledge with plenty of scope for making mistakes leading to poor outcomes. Probably why it gets a bad rap on a solar forum. You very seldom hear of failed solar projects. It just works. Of course, ROI is not relevant if you're wholly off grid. IN that case, I would say hybrid solar/wind is a great way to go.

do you have the 3 or 5 bladed variant? I am worried about the noise with HAWT's and the rotary speed that could lead to lawn darts in an urban area. I can't be sure but apparently 5 blades spin slower and thus are less noisy than 3 blades ones

 

[Hogheavenfarm]

One reason why I went with an 11 blade system, however it does take the force of the wind head on and there is quite a bit of push on the tower and fasteners. I also had several toothed hubs made (cut on a waterjet), so I can use the blades in any combination of 11,7,5, or 3. The 11 works well in the summer, starts turning at a little over 6mph. At 12 mph it puts out 65 volts and any more and it starts to sound like a lawnmower and goes over 105 volts. Winter it gets the 3 blade option as the gusts are very strong and it takes higher speeds to get that set turning. I am using manufactured carbon fiber blades. The diameter is about 2 meters.

 

[brandnewb]

I just heard that the US has the first net positive fusion reaction tests done. I am canceling my wind turbine project.

I am sooo excited.

 

[OzSolar]

I just joined the forum today and I must say I am a bit surprised at the general negativity towards small wind turbines. I've had an Istabreeze i1500 for 6 months now ( 2.2m diameter on a 5.5m mast) and I'm really pleased with it. We have 6kw of solar which is doing next to nothing right now. But, in the last few weeks as it's gotten windier the turbine is typically making about 1 to 2kwh a day, some days nearer 4kwh which keeps my batteries up so that's great. I'm in the north east of Scotland in a moderately windy place, but much better in the winter months.

Welcome to the forum and thank you for that report!

That IstaBreeze has been mentioned several times here and I'm somewhat encouraged by what I'm hearing about it. I've even found some hit and miss reviews of it on YouTube. Still my hard earned experience says that it will never produce as much energy as touted by the manufacturer and if you are paying someone else to keep it alive with the occasional new set of slip rings and new blades every 3 to 6 years, etc you'll quickly tire of it. (continued below)

But..... wind generation does need a MUCH higher level of effort and knowledge with plenty of scope for making mistakes leading to poor outcomes. Probably why it gets a bad rap on a solar forum. You very seldom hear of failed solar projects. It just works. Of course, ROI is not relevant if you're wholly off grid. IN that case, I would say hybrid solar/wind is a great way to go.

Well said. If you are willing and able to put the work in to install one and keep it alive which is no small task plus have very modest expectations for its kWh production then you are possibly a candidate for small wind. The reason that so many us steer others away from small wind is they appear to have unrealistic expectations of turbines with absolutely no track record.

I suggest that you buy a complete spare identical to yours ASAP.

I will look forward to future reports on your turbine!

 

[curiouscarbon]

I just heard that the US has the first net positive fusion reaction tests done.

I am sooo excited.

yes!

soo exciting!! ?

 

[Bluedog225]

Excited? This means all our work on solar has been wasted! ?

 

[OzSolar]

yes!

soo exciting!! ?

I read a few of those news reports and to my tiny mind it sounds like they are claiming that they can break at least one of the laws of thermodynamics. You can't create energy, only encourage it to change forms and each time you do so it's not 100% efficient which lead into us messing around with entropy and a place to put all that heat.

 

[Bluedog225]

There’s a non-zero chance they will create a self-sustaining atmospheric ignition.

 

[curiouscarbon]

the sun seems to have an easy time sustaining net positive fusion ?

 

[Samsonite801]

Most of the wind turbine posts I am seeing don't end well. Is anyone successfully using wind? I live completely off grid. I just purchased a 48v large solar system. I live in Colorado and get a lot of sun. We are building our house down in the woods but about a football field away is a tall open hill. The views are amazing and everyone thinks we are crazy for not putting our house there. Our only answer is , the wind. I put a decorative windmill up there and the wind shredded it. I think this could be a great place to harvest wind at night. Also, our only non sunny days it is cloudy and snowy which always means wind. Its far enough from the house I don't think we would hear it. How big would I have to go turbine wise to be worth it as many of the posts say go pretty big. Would love to hear if anyone is doing this.

Have you seen this video yet?

I've watched quite a few videos and read a lot of books and PDFs on wind (as it's someday coming down the pipe for me), but wind is complicated, and there are lots of different ideas on how is best to convert wind to power.

Not sure if this (in the video) will wind up being any kind of holy-grail thing in the end, but it is the latest startup I've seen. In this case it is a VAWT (Vertical Axis Wind Turbine).. Generally it is considered that VAWTs are not as efficient as HAWTs, but who am I to say? I have no real hands on experience yet, just a bunch of textbook wannabe knowledge so far.

I do know that if I had a HAWT, I would want variable pitch blades for sure. As far as this VAWT style unit below in the video, it has a similar thing, it can be variable (open and close airflow to control itself, and variable magnet clearance generator tech) to protect it from overspeed, and control generator loading.

 

[brandnewb]

One reason why I went with an 11 blade system, however it does take the force of the wind head on and there is quite a bit of push on the tower and fasteners. I also had several toothed hubs made (cut on a waterjet), so I can use the blades in any combination of 11,7,5, or 3. The 11 works well in the summer, starts turning at a little over 6mph. At 12 mph it puts out 65 volts and any more and it starts to sound like a lawnmower and goes over 105 volts. Winter it gets the 3 blade option as the gusts are very strong and it takes higher speeds to get that set turning. I am using manufactured carbon fiber blades. The diameter is about 2 meters.

would you mind sharing loads more details? pictures also go a long way.
and these numbers you state. are those open circuit measurements?
sooo many questions.

 

[Hedges]

I just heard that the US has the first net positive fusion reaction tests done. I am canceling my wind turbine project.

By the same people who declared a balanced budget in the U.S.?

"Scientists at the world’s largest nuclear-fusion facility have for the first time achieved the phenomenon known as ignition — creating a nuclear reaction that generates more energy than it consumes."

Depends on where you measure the energy it consumes ...

Nuclear-fusion lab achieves ‘ignition’: what does it mean?

Researchers at the US National Ignition Facility created a reaction that made more energy than they put in.

www.nature.com

"The facility used its set of 192 lasers to deliver 2.05 megajoules of energy onto a pea-sized gold cylinder containing a frozen pellet of the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium."

"However, while the fusion reactions may have produced more than 3 megajoules of energy — more than was delivered to the target — NIF’s 192 lasers consumed 322 megajoules of energy in the process."

Still a respectable accomplishment. So long as the researchers aren't "Pons" and "Fleischmann"

Laugh, do you?! I may know more than I am letting on ...

"The laboratory’s analysis suggests that the reaction released some 3.15 megajoules of energy — roughly 54% more than the energy that went into the reaction, and more than double the previous record of 1.3 megajoules."

Gotta respect this publication. They are careful with their words. "suggests that the reaction released", "may have produced"

There's Dollars riding on them-thar neutron yields! (follow the money)

How about the tokamak?
59 MJ output, that being 0.33 times the energy input.

The World's Largest Tokamak Just Crushed the Record for Nuclear Fusion Energy

"With nuclear fusion, the goal is to reach an advantageous power ratio of Q=1, where Q is the amount of energy generated divided by the amount of energy the reactor requires to operate."

I think the Tokomak is 1/3 of the way to break-even, while NIF is 1/100th of the way.
So maybe Nature was playing a little fast and loose with their language, after all.

 

[brandnewb]

Laugh, do you?! I may know more than I am letting on ...

When you speak in ernest brother. I know of no one that dares to laugh!

 

[curiouscarbon]

stellerator interests me more...

pellet batches are demonstrators, not for continuous operation.. ?

 

[brandnewb]

Have you seen this video yet?

I've watched quite a few videos and read a lot of books and PDFs on wind (as it's someday coming down the pipe for me), but wind is complicated, and there are lots of different ideas on how is best to convert wind to power.

Not sure if this (in the video) will wind up being any kind of holy-grail thing in the end, but it is the latest startup I've seen. In this case it is a VAWT (Vertical Axis Wind Turbine).. Generally it is considered that VAWTs are not as efficient as HAWTs, but who am I to say? I have no real hands on experience yet, just a bunch of textbook wannabe knowledge so far.

I do know that if I had a HAWT, I would want variable pitch blades for sure. As far as this VAWT style unit below in the video, it has a similar thing, it can be variable (open and close airflow to control itself, and variable magnet clearance generator tech) to protect it from overspeed, and control generator loading.

The problem with this is that why in the hell would they need to ask for funding?

Also I have not seen yet any claims at what it can output at what wind speed. But that could be because I have not looked hard enough.

If the damned thing works then just give a few to influential people (me me me I want one, pleaaaaase) and then the thing will start selling it self.

 

[Hedges]

Like to hear a bunch of mindless parrots squawking?

Search for "In practice, US scientists fire pellets that contain a hydrogen fuel into an array of nearly 200 lasers" (in quotes)
It's funny (sad, really), how many publications repeat a bunch of BS, with no knowledge, research, or fact-checking.
The "articles" go on to say this takes place at a rate of 50 times per second.

 

[Samsonite801]

The problem with this is that why in the hell would they need to ask for funding?

Also I have not seen yet any claims at what it can output at what wind speed. But that could be because I have not looked hard enough.

If the damned thing works then just give a few to influential people (me me me I want one, pleaaaaase) and then the thing will start selling it self.

Yeah well if you watch the video, they're still a long ways out for sure. It was even brought up in there about how Elon Musk has indicated before, it's one thing to build a working prototype and quite another to actually get it into mass production. They still need to build a weatherproofed version of it as well (probably in its current form would never survive our dusty condition we have at my place).

Their ultimate goal is to perfect the prototype, and then make a contract with a manufacturer to actually produce them. I don't even know why I posted on it here (since it's so early in development), but it was top of my mind because I just saw it the other day.

My biggest beef with wind is that it is still a mechanical converter of energy, so it wears out. If I bought a good wind turbine, I wouldn't use it everyday, I would want to save its life for emergencies, solar panels are still cheaper, and is better to just buy more panels, and overpanel to the point where you get reasonable performance even on dim days. Wind would just be for ultimate backup. But then with that, it is also too convenient to just use the internal-combustion engine generator for ultimate backup instead.

But someday, I'll probably get some extra money to dabble a little in wind power, but most of the lower-end stuff out there is junk, like toy pinwheels..

Best ones I saw are variable pitch prop (centrifugal), like Sonkyo Windspot Energy, but I think they might've went out of business or got bought out by someone (lots of Chinese clones of those on Alibaba).

sonkyo windspot energy wind turbine - Google Search

Here's one going on eBay right now for 8 grand (been on there forever):

new windspot wind generator turbine sonkyo energy 3.5kw 220 volt | eBay

Windspot -more info can be found online by copy and paste of my title. does not include the inverter, for it depends on the way you want to run the turbine as per your needs. the tail and blades are included -- there is also the dump load resistor and w4g-20k is used to transmit power to the...

www.ebay.com

Or if I just went with the cheaper static-pitch blade style, I would just consider the Instrabreeze i2000 ones (like cheap enough to just buy a bunch and when they break, just buy another, and eventually building up a spare parts collection, since you bought all the same model unit)...

2000W 48V Windsafe Wind Turbine

IstaBreeze® wind generators provide energy savings.

istabreeze.us