Any good experiences with wind?

[Karmagl]

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.

 

[Mattb4]

... I put a decorative windmill up there and the wind shredded it. ...

I think this answers the question. Most reported problems with wind generation are maintenance related followed by lack of production. Small wind turbines are mostly toys that fall apart quickly. If you are in a heavy wind location it takes a heavy duty setup. Heavy duty wind turbines and associated equipment are in the big dollar range. Even than most end up under performing and are expensive to maintain.

 

[OzSolar]

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.

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!

 

[RCinFLA]

Wind generation can be very tough to control, and things can end very badly when things go wrong.

Most common result of inexperience with wind generation is disappointment is the amount of power generated, or destruction of battery. There can be a very wide voltage output range from alternator in normal operation.

If you don't consistently have greater than 30-40 mph wind it is usually not worthwhile.

Biggest mistake is not having redundancy to control wind turbine maximum speed. Just relying on an electrical load dump without an alternative mechanical backup method is dangerous. If rectifier diodes burn out, you lose overspeed control. Most cheap Chinese wind turbines only rely on electrical load dump speed control.

 

[Northernchateau]

Before you invest in wind power invest in a good weather station and monitor the wind at your place for several months.
I run an Ambient Weather unit which I am more then happy with.
My station upload to their server and as do several others in my area.
Use the link below and see if anyone had a weather station set-up in your area and you should be able to look at some wind speed history.

Ambient Weather Network

Your Personal Weather Data Dashboard. Stream live data from your weather station to the internet.

ambientweather.net

 

[svetz]

The Truth About Small Wind Turbines – Solacity Inc.

Installing a small wind turbine? Get the information you need for an informed decision: The good and the bad, just the literal truth to help you choose.

www.solacity.com

Top of a hill in Colorado does sound like a good location. There are detailed wind maps for some areas that you can look up, you may not need a 30 meter tower for reasonable power. Stay away from the cheap junk, it won't last. Find referrals that talk about noise levels.

 

[OzSolar]

Wind generation can be very tough to control, and things can end very badly when things go wrong.

The cubic power law is a brutal fact for anything that lives outside. 2x's the wind speed equals 8x's more energy to deal with.

If you don't consistently have greater than 30-40 mph wind it is usually not worthwhile.

Ironically that would be a bad site because the turbine would be engaging it's self protection system so often it would be shutting down as soon as it restarted from the last shutdown resulting in very little net energy delivered. And if you have those sorts of wind speeds your turbine will have a pretty short time span between some expensive repairs.

I've spent a bit of time around a fair share of turbines including/especially the Bergey's. Watching them deal with wind speeds above ~25 mph for more than a few seconds for hours on end is nerve racking. The Bergey sounds like a helicopter is crash landing from over a 1/4 mile away when it's furling.

 

[Norbert77]

I was just going to ask about this because we live in a farm setting, surrounded by the giant windmills. Average wind speed is 18mph. 19 in january and Only slows in the summer.

Are blade designs making a difference?

 

[Bluedog225]

Giant windmills work. Small windmills cost more than they produce. Solar is cheap.

 

[Ptom]

IF I was still off grid, there is no way, in my Idaho mountain location, I'd do without a wind turbine, no matter how much solar I had. The shortest and cloudiest days/months of the year also have the most wind. there is nothing like have the batteries floating in the middle of the night, while doing laundry and generally sucking the power down as fast as you can!
I am known in my area as the "windmill guy" as I've had various ones up for around 40 years, with no problems, other then routine slip ring replacements on a Winpower 200 watter, built in the '30's.! The big Jacobs was sweet, nothing got it excited, it shrugged off storm winds, as does my current A.R.E. They both had/have 12' dia. 3 bladed props, and they turn slow. I have a windsock nearby, and it's amazing how often the sock is hanging limp, and the mill is turning. It takes a good puff to get it unstalled from a deadstop, but once moving it doesn't want to stop, thus it's very efficient in light winds. You have 18 mph avergae?! That's high as hell, higher then my area. I have no idead what turbine manufacturers are still out there, cheap solar killed them.

 

[brandnewb]

Well, I have 2 cents to add. If one has no more effective space for solar and is looking to brace for doomsday. Then wind, how little there is is a good experience.

It always boils down to the size of the turbine. Aim for something around 20 to 25m or larger swept area and then we can have some useful power during dark times. Even when the wind is not storm like

 

[OffGridInTheCity]

I follow a serious guy that just custom built himself a 2kw wind turbine. He specializes in water generation but he builds a lot of things.
The latest vid is long but he goes from beginning to end and thru a DIY build. There's also earlier vids. Thru these he touches on a lot of practical issues.

I can definitely see 'wind' as a part of a power generation strategy if you have wind but it's not where I would start in the sense that panels are so much more straight-forward / less maintenance. I observe that mechanical production of electricity takes significant horsepower as any generator can tell you. 5 or 10 or 20 horsepower is A LOT of mechanical energy.

Myself - I don't have significant wind (or any water) so it's not an option - sigh.... (it would be fun)

 

[brandnewb]

wow!! this looks interesting.

Can you please direct me to the part in where the alternator is being assembled? I tried quick scanning through the video but I found mostly footage of cool machining and what have we. I am hoping to find an alternator that can actually deliver 2KW in that video.

 

[OffGridInTheCity]

wow!! this looks interesting.

Can you please direct me to the part in where the alternator is being assembled? I tried quick scanning through the video but I found mostly footage of cool machining and what have we. I am hoping to find an alternator that can actually deliver 2KW in that video.

It's a set of wound coils with fixed magnets rotating on each side of the coils to produce 3 phase (for rectification into DC) - kind of spread out thru the 1st 1/3 of the vid.
At 5:50 you can see him describing the needed placement of the magnets / coils to produce 3 phase.
At 15:49 you can see him gluing a set of magnets for one side.
At 55:26 you can see him describing the electronics / how things work. He uses a Midnite Classic as the charge controller.

 

[brandnewb]

well, the wires look thick enough. cool start.!

 

[brandnewb]

ohh btw gang. completely off topic but I wanted to hijack this answer if I could. I promise not to do this too often.

Is a single 1mm diam wire in a coil better than 2 x 0.5mm wires in a coil?

This relates to heat dissipation ability.

 

[brandnewb]

yes I believe this. It's probably not going to work in my specific scenario in where we need low RPM high output but that does not negate the soundness of this design!. I like it!

 

[brandnewb]

Myself - I don't have significant wind (or any water) so it's not an option - sigh.... (it would be fun)

how much wind you have? even though not significant. I guess it is more about your plot arrangement. I am happy to exchange ideas if I have any based on your situation.

 

[brandnewb]

I follow a serious guy

Ohh I almost forgot, Although I am not asking you to follow me. I just wanted to say here is another serious guy trying to liberate the world.

I will admit though that I lack some of the knowledge he has and also lack some of the machining tools.

But anyway, Once I get something to fruiting it is open source and let the world enjoy.

Or in other words, let the evil coprs squirm as they loose power over us.

 

[Ptom]

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!