My Experience with Wind Turbines

[SparWeb]

Hi Zoomyn,
I'm charmed to meet a fellow Fieldlines fan. I don't recall you being active on Fieldlines in the past few years, but years ago you were always "one of the Dan's to me". Only denizens of FL would get that reference.

I also haven't heard from Ghurd for a very long time. If you want to try searching, his full name is Glen Hurd but I don't think you'll find him on FB or any social medial like that. We did some fun projects together (and they really worked!). I miss him.

Ghurd's controller was a simple and useful diversion controller that anyone can build with rudimentary electronics and soldering skills. I've spent some time tonight searching for a copy of his diversion controller schematic but I don't have a copy for some reason. Sad how you take for granted you can find things later, but the internet always changes and it seems to be gone.

Here's a YT video done by SolarDrew (12 years ago) with a Ghurd controller in it.

The other part of Drew's project is the auxiliary diversion load controller. Ghurd and I developed that together. It allows you to control a second diversion load (isolated through a relay) with your primary diversion controller. The sensor in the auxiliary diversion controller only steals a few mA from the dozens of amps going through the standard diversion's resistor. This device allows you to have 2 diversion loads that operate successively. I built and used one, which worked well. I still have the Aux Diversion control schematics, but for some reason I can't find a Ghurd controller among the files.

I know of a site that copied Ghurd's controller and sold kits without giving Glen any credit or money. I'm reluctant to share the link, because I don't want to give the thief the credit instead of Ghurd. So if you absolutely need the circuit, I can tell you privately, but I'll need to know a really good reason. And I won't post the link here.

 

[SparWeb]

Nice looking, interesting, but totally impractical, with horrid ROI.

Cost of materials versus payback from the electric utility, yes, virtually zero ROI from that point of view.

Ability to power my barn and other out-buildings around my property, without trenching 700 yards to bury cables? The ROI looks a lot better.

Learning about machinery, electronics, woodcarving, civil engineering the tower, mechanical engineering the blades, electrical engineering the generator? The equivalent university or special professional courses would cost me a year's salary. I've basically done 3 Master's thesis projects in the course of learning about and building the multiple WT's I've made. This ROI looks pretty good judging the education these wind turbines have provided. To me, that's priceless.

 

[OzSolar]

Oz,
Great question!
I don't have a perfect answer, nor a simple one. I messed about with a datalogger for years, and electronics isn't my strongest suit. I had one working rather well but I kept wanting to change and improve it. In January 2023, I added kWhr totals to the output, and started keeping track of that. That summer, I got more ambitious and tried to add a WiFi antenna to it. The WiFi worked for several weeks and then quit. The failure of the WiFi board seems to have damaged something because the datalogger stopped working after that.

I haven't posted details about the datalogger - probably worth a post of its own. The one I was using then was based on an Arduino Mega board. I decided to start fresh which would avoid frustration if the old board really was damaged, and I wanted a fresh start. The new datalogger sits beside me on my desk, waiting to be installed (too cold these days!)

Here's the data I collected from January to July 2023.

View attachment 274129

Thank you for sharing that! If you've combed the forum you may see that I've asked a lot of people to produce anything similar but none have. A few have gotten quite offended that I asked and have not been back since.

 

[SparWeb]

@OzSolar ,
I don't have to comb this forum to know that real measurements from the real world are scarce. Opinions are plenty. That's true whether you are cruising the internet, or in conversation, or even when speaking to "experts".

 

[OzSolar]

I got the Bergey data from a test report published by the NREL. They tested all of Mike Bergey's wind turbines - quality stuff

I've never been able to find a single 3rd party test report or live data site that supported Bergey's claims. Modeling doesn't count* Please direct me to something if you know of it.

Some background (sorry to others for sharing it again...): Years ago, for around a 2 year period, I installed around a dozen Bergey's, most were the "10kW" Excel but a few XL1's were mixed in. They all had some form of energy datalogging, on 100' or taller towers, in decent wind regimes, etc. At the end of the day energy (kWh) is really all that matters for a commercially made small wind turbine.

They all underperformed terribly against Bergey's claims, around of 10x's less than Bergey's "WindCad" prediction was the norm.

I gave Bergey every possible benefit of the doubt. I was in near constant contact with them over that time period and got nothing but a continuous run around. I begged them for suggestions on what to check or any possible ideas on what could be going on. We reviewed and re-reviewed every possible variable and never made any progress.

Finally an employee confided in me that I had done nothing wrong and what I was experiencing was common. It became clear that I had unwittingly gotten duped. It was a sickening realization, I was personally involved in the fleecing of homeowners, city and state governments and universities who spent a of lot of money on something that never had a chance of meeting thier expectations.

Eventually after being in contact with many others who'd had the same experience it became obvious that Bergey has been lying to a lot of people for a long time. Keep your eye on eBay, several times a year one will pop up and they usually say something to the effect of "failed to perform in our wind regime, needs new blades and it's not worth it to me".

Moral of the story: The people that say wind turbines, including Bergey's, make $ense have never spent thier own money on them**
**to be fair there's probably a few people but it's so few that they statistically round to zero when compared to the total number of small wind turbines that have been installed. And even then if you truly compared the total life cycle cost to a generator it would be negative. EG: you be better off by a factor of 5 or more just buying generator and the fuel to run it.

But they are still much more fun to watch than a solar panel!

*SWCC ratings appear to be based on the OEM's self reporting, not actual testing, so they mean nothing.

O

Thread 'SWCC Certified Wind Turbines - Be Careful'

Apr 17, 2022

So I went down a road today.

SWCC lets manufacturers self certify.

The FAA let Boeing self certify the 737 Max and we all know how that turned out.

If you're one of the folks that throws out the SWCC certification as something to look for please do some more research before you inadvertently result in someone wasting 1000's of dollars on a piece dynamic yard art.

After personally being involved in several dozen small turbine installations that were miserable failures my sniff detector for small wind really started going off. All of those turbines were SWCC certified...

• OzSolar
• Replies: 0
• Forum: DIY Wind Turbines and Hydroelectric

• 

 

[SparWeb]

Let me look into this. I think I kept some of the documents from my research. It's around here somewhere...

 

[SparWeb]

I've never been able to find a single 3rd party test report or live data site that supported Bergey's claims.

Your question has sent me looking back through research I did 10-20 years ago. Retracing my steps is hard and a good check on my old memory cells. Turns out I was wrong in my post from Tuesday and I've written a correction to it. I actually got the Excel-1 data from Bergey's website directly!

Many years ago, before the SWCC (Small Wind Certification Council) got going, the NREL was already testing small and medium wind turbines at a couple of locations, mostly Colorado. I have copies of their reports from 2003 when they tested Excel-S/60 model with different blades. My memory led me to believe that's the test data that I used for my comparison, but it's not. I was comparing mine to the Excel-1, not Excel-S, of course. I apologize for the error.

Here's a page from Home Power magazine which did a head-to-head review of several small wind turbines on the market in 2009. The Excel-1 is the smallest of the bunch. I disagree with their estimates. Based on my calculation of annual energy output, at 9-10 mph average wind it does not produce that much energy, unless perhaps at a PERFECT site. So even the buyer's guides can over-estimate the output.

 

[Crowz]

That proven 2.5 sure looks good power wise.

 

[SparWeb]

In spite of the foregoing information, I still believe the Bergey turbines are relatively good machines. There is a 22-ft diameter Excel-S installed by an industrial park that I drive past every day. It's been there for 15 years and it's still running, which means it's lasted longer than my previous 8-foot wind turbine did. I have no direct evidence that they're bad machines, although I understand that doesn't match your experience.

Based on what you've said above it sounds like you have had much more contact with Bergey machines than I have - and I'll have to admit that mine is primarily modeling, and you have already said you don't have a lot of faith in that.

I find your experience troubling, because I had been led to believe that Bergey was relatively good at supporting installers around North America. I can find more of your previous posts to DIYSF to learn more about the problems you've seen.

Here's some more fun stuff about testing wind turbines:

In about 2006, these guys in Ontario installed several wind turbines and solar arrays for long-term monitoring. They published some of their results, though not nearly as detailed as the NREL. Their website had data that I downloaded at the time, though it's gone from the internet now. But... the Wayback Machine to the rescue: Detronics Limited - Turbine Testing. The Wayback Machine doesn't save the PDF's and XLS files attached to a website, so I'll attach one of them here if you're interested. I've made a habit of saving material from the internet for many years, and this is proving helpful to me still. Detronics measured 907 kWhr at their site on a 100-foot tower with 9.7 mph average wind speed. Of the 3 wind turbines they tested, it had the most favorable comparison between its power rating and its actual energy output. This is somewhere between my prediction and the Home Power estimate for the Excel-1.

 

[OzSolar]

In spite of the foregoing information, I still believe the Bergey turbines are relatively good machines. There is a 22-ft diameter Excel-S installed by an industrial park that I drive past every day. It's been there for 15 years and it's still running, which means it's lasted longer than my previous 8-foot wind turbine did. I have no direct evidence that they're bad machines, although I understand that doesn't match your experience.

My comments were limited to their kWh production, not their durability although I had a fair amount of trouble keeping them running (making kWh)

Why can no one send me a screen shot of thier wind turbine's last 12 months or last 5 years of production? Not one person has ever done that and I've been asking and looking for YEARS. You've sent more than anyone has and even then is just a one or two year snapshot.

I find your experience troubling, because I had been led to believe that Bergey was relatively good at supporting installers around North America. I can find more of your previous posts to DIYSF to learn more about the problems you've seen.

It is troubling and that's why I've been constant of voice of "show me the data" for all wind turbine manufacturers. I really don't think I'm being unreasonable.

If you keep your eye on thier list of dealers you'll see than few if any have been dealers for more than a few years. I haven't checked thier list but every time I do the names in my state and those nearby are all new. Like me, I assume they quickly figure out the same thing I did and don't want thier name associated with Bergey.

In my and others experience, Bergey sits on atop a pedestal that they really shouldn't be on.

Their website had data that I downloaded at the time, though it's gone from the internet now. But... the Wayback Machine to the rescue: Detronics Limited - Turbine Testing. The Wayback Machine doesn't save the PDF's and XLS files attached to a website, so I'll attach one of them here if you're interested. I've made a habit of saving material from the internet for many years, and this is proving helpful to me still. Detronics measured 907 kWhr at their site on a 100-foot tower with 9.7 mph average wind speed. Of the 3 wind turbines they tested, it had the most favorable comparison between its power rating and its actual energy output. This is somewhere between my prediction and the Home Power estimate for the Excel-1.

Thanks!

One thing people who've not use wind don't realize is just how variable it is. EG: (just eyeballing) In below February the XL1 made almost 50% of energy during it's 7 best days. And then it spent 15 days making at less than 3 kWh/day.

Continuing to look at the daily production over a 12 month period you'll see that it spent over 50% of it's time making less than 2kWh/day. That's a lot of work to get what a 350 watt solar panel would do at most locations year around for 20 years or longer. (you know all that already)

99% of the Bergey XL1 didn't make more than a few years until serious problems started showing up. If there's any alive today I'd be quite surprised. To be fair it was made in China and Bergey fought terribly to get that manufacturer to build them what they promised they would. Still it wouldn't change the kWh, only the lifetime.

 

[SparWeb]

Why can no one send me a screen shot of thier wind turbine's last 12 months or last 5 years of production?

Even I would have trouble fulfilling that request. Data from a wind turbine, if it's to be useful in performance measurement, needs to be granular enough to detect fluctuations in wind speed. I find that 1-second intervals are barely short enough, and when my datalogger was able to collect 3 samples per second things worked better. From that rate, it becomes a question of economics to decide what you can record. For basic performance measurement you need at each instant:
- Wind speed
- Wind direction
- Turbine AC Voltage
- Battery DC Voltage
- Turbine AC Current
- Battery DC Current
- RPM
These need to be measured in a way that can be calibrated for known conditions such as impedance in the generator, voltage drop in the buried cables, drop at the rectifier or control circuit input, and conversion of 3-phase to single-phase or DC. Some of these values change with temperature, especially the current sensors. Weather data such as atmospheric pressure and temperature can be collected at a slower rate, i.e. once per 1 minute or 10, but take note that battery temperature may also come into play, so you will be adding to the total data.

All in all, it is an exercise in careful instrumentation to get all of this information in a meaningful form.
Now say for example you are collecting this with a data logger. Your data will be saved in 8-bit data registers making each sample hold over 64 bits per second. At 3 samples per second, every minute gets 12kb, or 691kb per hour. A day's worth of data is 16Mb. If you didn't structure your data logger's onboard program carefully (you used double-precision floating point variables etc.) it might blow up to 32 or 64Mb per day.

The SD card in your datalogger fills up pretty fast this way.

I started building in a SD card slot into my previous datalogger but gave up because downloading to a laptop was much easier. I took my laptop out for a data run and let them go for several hours or a whole day in some cases. When finished, I had files that could not easily be parsed by EXCEL because they were so big.

 

[SparWeb]

If you keep your eye on thier list of dealers you'll see than few if any have been dealers for more than a few years. I haven't checked thier list but every time I do the names in my state and those nearby are all new.

It's more likely that these businesses have struggled in other ways, not just with WT installations. Most of the Solar PV installers in my province don't touch wind at all, so getting them allied with a particular WT manufacturer is already a no-go. Talking about one WT manufacturer or another is useless because they've already stopped listening.

This sounds pretty negative. I get it. Wind energy is hard. You might think that all RE installation companies believe that ALL wind turbines are crap. I couldn't argue with you. There is a lot of junk out there. I don't know what all those folks think, but I do know that most of them have rigidly-spelled out recipes for installing solar panels on roofs, and stick to that business model strictly. I've phoned plenty in the past year and there were only a few exceptions that would give any consideration to the battery-backup system I wanted. I didn't even mention my wind turbine to some, when early in the conversation I figured out they could only assemble Lego.

 

[OzSolar]

Even I would have trouble fulfilling that request. Data from a wind turbine, if it's to be useful in performance measurement, needs to be granular enough to detect fluctuations in wind speed. I find that 1-second intervals are barely short enough, and when my datalogger was able to collect 3 samples per second things worked better. From that rate, it becomes a question of economics to decide what you can record. For basic performance measurement you need at each instant:
- Wind speed
- Wind direction
- Turbine AC Voltage
- Battery DC Voltage
- Turbine AC Current
- Battery DC Current
- RPM

Why you didn't mention production (kWh)? To be fair, that's really all that matters to most people that are looking for/at a wind turbine.

If you buy something to make kWh then in IHMO, you should be able to see how many kWh's it's making. See below examples that most people with solar can get to with just few clicks.

Why don't the turbine manufacturers provide you with a basic dash board like the solar inverter and charge controller manufactures do for free? Is it because it would prove what they already know?

A fellow ex Bergey dealer once told me something very wise.... "the only wind turbines that work are the ones with no datalogging". Made a lot of sense.

 

[SparWeb]

Why you didn't mention production (kWh)?

Because it's derived from the other data. You can't accurately calculate kWhr if you don't have reliable raw data. You want a REAL kWhr measurement? Collect all that other stuff, and then I can give it to you. I really don't want to add more data channels to my DIY data loggers because it's more work, but to determine performance, that's the only way. Truthfully, you can skip the wind speed and atmospheric conditions, but at the cost of accurately aligning site wind conditions with long-term turbine performance. That makes comparison of WT performance at different sites impossible. Just because the national weather service says the average wind speed somewhere is 12 mph, doesn't mean the WT actually sees that wind speed at the site and on the tower it's actually mounted on.

Another way to answer the question: With solar, you can measure V and A and f, all of which are feasible in the combiner box or the inverter input. With Wind, you need instruments at several places in the system.

Why don't the turbine manufacturers provide you with a basic dash board

That's another good question. I think it's because measuring accurate data is hard, and dependent on site-specific conditions. If a wind turbine is installed with data logging, then the installer of the wind turbine has to do a lot more work to configure and calibrate the instruments, and probably return visit every year to make sure they're still working correctly. This gets expensive. Most DIY people won't bother (cottage living, RV'ers, etc.).

When you put up an old Air-X turbine, you know something's happening because it's screaming away. Don't ruin the nice impression by showing people actual measurements. It spoils the suspension of disbelief.