| Archive for NEEPS North East Eco-friendly People's Site |
| wildgarlic |
Cheap and silent wind turbines?Spotted this on a blog -Click Here |
| Sassinak |
Looking at the pictures in the article, it seems to have 2 of martin's pet hobby horses lol
For use in an urban environment. I agree with Martin (and many others) that turbulance in built-up areas could make a turbine difficult to run. Fastened to the roof of a building. You are still going to get the low thrumming vibration passing through the whole structure. But I do like the look of them and maybe they will revolutionise the whole thing. How is Martin by the way? |
| Lord_Azrael |
Sorry did you say cheap? The price tag of that system is $250,000 !!!
What we REALLY need is really cheap, affordable systems that can power our houses. Hopefully with all these designs coming out, it may be a future possibility. I'd struggle to somehow spend a few hundred pounds on a system, but the prices they charge at present are horrendous if you actually want to get off grid - which, with potential rises of another 40% this year, is what we really ned to think about. |
| Sassinak |
Yeah but that is for 250kW !! That is enough for a small village not a house,surely lol We have been looking at 6kW for our house.
You could make a nice income from the electricity buy back for your investment of what? £125,000 |
| Martin |
It's not just me! - Paul Gipe, who writes a great many of the standard text-books about wind has a guide on "how to spot turbines that won't work"
http://www.wind-works.org/articles/FantasyWindTurbines.html -if you rootle about on his site under "small wind" you'll find a great many links totally debunking roof-mounted chocolate teapots too! 
As an aside - the larger you get with turbines, the more the sums "make sense" - a small community that decided to buy something like a 250kw turbine (of conventional design) would be looking at swift payback (we did the sums for a local factory down here in the windless south, and we were looking at 7 years - it could be as little as 3-4 years in a good windspeed area) 
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| Martin |
ps, thanks for the interest - all things considered, I'm doing fine - still convalescing, but I saw the surgeon a couple of days ago who said "You're doing well, carry on doing what you're doing"
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| kimmie |
whey hey!! thats great news Martin! does that mean we will see you on here more often now? |
| Martin |
well, if you'd like me to pop in, I'd be very happy to do so, but I do feel a bit of a fraud - I'm within about 10 miles of the English Channel and couldn't get much further south!
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| Sassinak |
We've had a chap just join from Australia lol
The channel is relatively close by in comparison. So pleased to hear that you are doing ok 
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| kimmie |
 I used to live down on the south coast too and your not fraud! you are very welcome to stay!
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| Martin |
thankyou!
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| scotsman |
Moving onHi from west oz,Moving on from the last reply whilst watching foxtel tonight i have seen an array somewhat similar to the previous design. However it had some differences internal to the blades was a helical scoop the discription was " a DNA spiral" it was designed to do no more than 350rpm in any wind therefore not producing the previously mentioned noise transmited through the structure and into the building. The building was in mchigan i believe and was designed with rounded top edges to allow for more efficient use of the air travelling over the structure. The system was shown both in a prone and upright configuration and was powering the hole building I believe it was 10KW of power I could be wrong on that. The programe was Eco-tech (spellibg could be wrong) well worth a look. I am looking at having my next abode (and I use that word knowingly) self powering by solar and wind in the near future. I will look on internet for link and put it on later. Doug 
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| Martin |
yawns loudly - seen it, all the above comments apply - there is no such thing as a silent mount, and the wind over buildings is far too turbulent to be of any use in generating electricity
(unless they've managed to rewrite the rules of physics.....)
http://www.wind-works.org/articles/FantasyWindTurbines.html |
| scotsman |
programe is eco-tech will look tmrw for website
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| scotsman |
okayWell it is on again at 730am Western Australian time on foxtel so I had better get up early, but I had first better go to bed as its 0035 this morning already. Not much wonder I'm tired cya in the evening my time with more info perhaps.Good  night.
Doug |
| Martin |
http://www.helixwind.com/en/product.php 
what is funny is that they quote two of Paul Gipe's "giveaways that it's a fraud" - (that it's "silent", and that it's "safe for animals") - there are also no performance figures to be found anywhere - that'll be an American Chocolate Teapot then!
I note that it also doesn't even "get out of bed" until the wind is doing 8mph......from our experience, thanks to wind turbulence over a roof, it'll be lucky to ever get a sustained wind in excess of that speed 8) it's a con!
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| scotsman |
I'm upGoodmorning all I have just watched it all again and have more information on the system running in Chicago (I did get it wrong). the system is designed and built by Aerotecture Int'l the website is www.aerotecture.com and does go a long way in explaining the principles involved. The project link shows the project in question Mercy Lakefront SRO there is also a project description. Hoping this helps and as they say never say never.I supose I would be difficult to say there is no vibration free mounting but there again didn't someone say that we would not be able to travel any more than 40 mph? I think they got that wrong eh. |
| Martin |
they too use exactly the same "giveaway that they're a con" claims -
(that they are silent, and safe for animals) - at least they have the honesty to admit that they're not going to work on most "small homes".........
If you think about "silent" mounts, they are incredibly difficult to achieve in practice - they depend for their effectiveness on interposing some sort of bungy between metal surfaces, as soon as the wind blows, it will be "up against the stops", the bungy will be fully compressed, and will effectively become "solid", and transmit noise (the noise is not the "swishing" of ther blades, but bearing noise, which can be horrendous, even from tiny and well built turbines)....... :? The turbines are nothing particularly new, they are "VAWTs"- "vertical axis wind turbines" - the one advantage they have is that they can accept wind from any angle without having to "yaw" into the wind like a conventional turbine, BUT are not any good in low winds as they take quite a blow to get them up and going. As Paul Gipe says in the linked article, there is nothing new in turbine design, there are no easy fixes! As to building mounting turbines, it does not work (both because of noise, and virtually nil performance due to building induced turbulence). Here's a clip from "Newsnight" which shows the truth about them,, during which the interviewer gets the Managing Director of Windsave to admit that you'd be lucky to get £10 worth of electricity per year out of one of them.........
http://epogee.co.uk/e107_plugins/.../ytm.php?view=WVo0WvuX7K0&p=1 |
| scotsman |
It must be poetic justice i have nearly finished 3 times and then a blackout....... :smt067 ...power companies! (PC'S)
Here we go again. Having looked at the blog it fairly obvious that that system would do no good at all! Over here we like you have large wind farms good things I say for instance Albany south of us on the coast get 75% of their power from the wind farm some 15000 homes not bad, but as you say noisy and owned by companies who want to make money out of us now that is BAD!!! The Federal Govt has a rebate scheme for both solar power and hot water and here in West Oz we get a rebate from the State Govt as well so we are in front......... 
www.environment.gov.au/rebates My daughter and her partner have 14acres and are about to build on it and have found out it will cost heaps to out scheme power on to the site. However due to the rebate scheme we are looking at putting on a stand alone solar system which will be enough on its own to power everything. With us being so lucky with sunshine here except in the winter months, such as today Baby weather (wet and windy) it makes sense to put a wind powered back up system as well. We will be also running a closed cell Aquaponics system and with the stock carrying capacity we will become more self sufficient in the not to ditant future.......... 
Anyone wanting to look at Aquaponics we have a good site here in Oz which will give you a good idea on how it works and how fast it produces at least here. The system we will be building willl run on 12 volts and will be 100% solar powered.......... 
www.aguaponicshq.com I have had enough of power companies telling me what I am going to have to pay so the can go and play with the trains as far as I am concerned. There are a growing number of people going solar here in Oz and some are making it pay they sell the excess back to the grid and because of there own reductions in power usage are getting more back from the PC's and over the year get more back than then pay...... 
Doug |