NEEPS

Ratchet · Mini-Neepster Joined: 23 Jul 2007 Posts: 42

Dear All,

I'm going to sound like a bit of a party pooper but Wind power is just aboot the last thing that should be installed, it's the bling/icing after all the boring stuff has been done. Insualtion insulation insualtion, draft proofing etc, wood burning stove, then Solar power for water heating (if apropriite it's more cost effective) then if you've money left Wind. Unless of course you have a suitable source of water power which is much more reliable than wind. Solar pv may be worth investigating as it's becoming more efficient and effective with advances in technology.

Grants do distort things, being farmers we ken that stotts used to attract a subby from the dept. and guess what they were almost exactly that amount more expensive to buy than heifers.

Proven is a good make & Scottish, a 6kv one should be more than adequate (unless the problems with the blade springs have been sorted I'd avoid the 15/16kv one). A friend of mine has one (Proven 6kv) as has her next door neighbour. The initial outlay was a lot but it's going to pay for itself in 5 years, with the sale of ROCs and energy, maintenance has been minimal. Her map grid square was border line for adequate ave. windspeed, but a grid square is a large area and she happens to be on top of the hill in that square. It does come down to your specific location. If unsure get yourself an anenometer on top of a tall pole and take measurements over a period of time. On oor farm we're in no doubt as to the amount of wind even though we haven't measured it. It's just bloomin windy a lot of the time. Even so due to cost effectiveness we're going down the energy conservation route first.

Grid ties can be got around. Although I would suggest that you do it properly ie legally and safely. At the mo if we have power cut we can ( and I'm not saying we do) disconnect at the main switch (we wouldn't want to fry a linesman or our system) and then plug in a generator via a 3 pin plug, enough for lights, water pump and if nothing else is on a kettle for pot noodles/cuppa. It doesn't take a genious to realise that the pins on that plug would be live. So I don't recommend it unless you're happy with all the risks. We would however probably concoct something similar if we had a wind turbine. Oor friendly neighbour/friend/electrician is of a similar inclination as us so we'd work something out.

Yours

R

cmiddleton · Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 7:26 pm Post subject:

Agree with Ratchet, I have looked into wind turbine before and had survey done. However, if you do the maths it is just never cost effective or green, when compared to switching your current electricity supplier to one that supplies actual green energy (as opposed to the 'green' tarriffs, which are often a mix).
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Ratchet · Mini-Neepster Joined: 23 Jul 2007 Posts: 42

Dear All

The web address below will help you find out the wind speed in your grid square.

http://www.berr.gov.uk/energy/sou...windspeed-database/page27326.html

My wind speed at 10m agl (in m/s) is 6.8. This is an average for the 1km grid square where our farm is. As we're very exposed I'd say that oor actual ave. would be slightly higher.

http://www.cat.org.uk/ CAT (Centre for Alternative Energy) has a range of publcations and advice on wind pwer.

Yours

Rx

Martin · Neepster Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 675

There's a big problem with understanding what these "windspeed for a gridsquare" measurements actually boil down to in practice.
Firstly, the "NOABL" database is well-known to be pretty inaccurate, then the estimates (and they are very rough estimates) are usually for a "grid square - THEN there's the biggie - the "10m" figure means the estimated annual average windspeed for that gridsquare, 10m up from the ground and assuming the surroundings are flat grass or concrete for around half a mile in all directions (which is seldom encountered in practice) - ANY obstructions can and will make a terrific difference to the usability of any wind - it will tend to lessen it's windspeed, but more importantly, induces turbulence, which is the death knell for turbine performance.
Having said all that, and knowing that 99% of clients who fancy a wind turbine are not in the right position - if properly sited, they can be an excellent and very viable source of power, but you have to be VERY careful to do all the sums first, and not get carried away with over-enthusiastic prophecies (particularly from the vendors of roof-mounted chocolate teapots)

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Ratchet · Mini-Neepster Joined: 23 Jul 2007 Posts: 42

Agreed. We're renovating oor derelict farmhouse and will be going down the INSULATION, solar water heating, wood stove(s), thermal store, under-floor heating, and energy efficient lighting/appliances, route first. Hopefully oor electric bill will be peanuts so that changing from the Hydro to a really green tarriff won't be too painfull. I've investigated the properly green tarriffs (2 of them I think) and they are more expensive. That's oor plan domestically. Then in terms of the business, possibly a wind turbine or a big bale boiler. Something we have to consider is we need to dry grain, lots of it, and that uses vast amounts of oil (extortionate/criminal in terms of carbon and £'s). With finite financial resources we've got to choose which option is going to save us the most money or alternatively cost us the least if we decide to try and move away from oil.

My pal with the Proven wind turbine, if she had just looked at the figures on the wind speed database, wouldn't have entertained a turbine, as her grid square was very borderline for adequate wind speed at 10m. Now she didn't go to the extent of monitoring actual wind speeds, but looking at her position on top of a hill, taking into account the placement of mature trees & modern farmbuildings and 3 generations of knowledge, a suitable site was found not to far away from the house. She is very happy with the performance of her turbine as is her accountant. I can't post the exact figures a) because I can't properly remember them and b) I haven't got her permission.

We're in a similar position, I'm 99.9% certain that we have sites on oor farm that are suitable. It's routine for us to have to put round bales against shed doors if there is even a moderate breeze. Grandpa R planted shelter belts when there were grants available, (PLANT A TREE IN '73, PLANT SOME MORE IN '74, KEEP 'EM ALIVE IN '75). These really do provide much needed shelter for stock, but they are coming to the end of their usefulness (as shelter, but not as a fuel supply). We are going to clear fell some of these belts and replant with native species, but we'll keep in mind that we might install a turbine in the future; we don't want to compromise any of oor potential sites. We might even consider commercial turbines but that's a lot of bother and we've good neighbours we don't want to upset.

windyman · Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 4:59 pm Post subject:

I've found this information a bit late - we decided to install a wind turbine just over 12 months ago - but none of the maths added up - we first investigated the "Swift" roof mounted model - its starting price was £3,500 but by the time they added a site survey and connecting the extra meter so you could feed back into the grid it came to over £10,000 - there was no way we could see us generating enough savings off our electricity bill to make that worthwhile.

But we are in a very windy position high on a hill, so decided to try out the Windsave turbine - as an experiment to see how much wind there was and how much power we could generate as much as anything. The cost was much better - around £1400 after the saving introduced by the grant. And its low power output means it fits into the scheme where any extra power you generate feeds back into the grid and winds the meter backwards, so if you do have any excess power you effectively sell it back to the electric company at FULL RETAIL PRICE!

As I say, we've been running for just over 12 months, at around 2.15 units of electricity per day on average, which at current electric prices means it will take us 12 years to pay back the installation costs.

I did like the look of http://www.skyrota.com at the All Energy exhibition the other month - their 6kw model comes in at £24,000 fully installed - and I think the vertical axis should work better in turbulence.

And, on Climate Change, one of the major advantages of wind power (and solar and wave) is that they take energy out of the climate system and so help reduce some of the effects of Global Warming/Climate Change.

It would be good to know how others are getting on with their wind turbine installations (if any) and also the costs and payback times (and recommended manufacturers/suppliers) for solar thermal power - and tricks on insulating granite houses... I'll keep looking round the forum to see what I can find, but if you want to help me out and post some pointers they will always be welcome...

"WindyMan"

Martin · Neepster Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 675

"where any extra power you generate feeds back into the grid and winds the meter backwards, so if you do have any excess power you effectively sell it back to the electric company at FULL RETAIL PRICE!" - if this is actually happening (which I sincerely doubt, only very old meters "work backwards") I also hate to tell you, but it's illegal! (To export electricity you need a pukka separate "export" meter).
As the design life of a Windsave turbine is ten years, even with your entirely uncharacteristic "gains", it will never actually do more than repay it's original cost at best. I have a feeling you're using the figure shown on the "box" that comes with the turbine - this shows how much electricity has come out of the turbine. Usually Windsaves work on the "use it or lose it" system - if you have a load attached to your circuit that equals or exceeds what is being generated, you will use it yourself - otherwise it toddles off into the grid, and you don't get paid for it............
As for the "Skyrota", I'm also highly sceptical....... if you have a genuinely high windspeed position, you'd be far better off with a well-tried Proven or similar.
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windyman · Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 5:19 pm Post subject:

Martin - thanks for your comments.

I have seen our mechanical meter go backwards - and when away for a long weekend the tens digit actually rolled back one digit too!

And, it's perfectly legal. "Engineering Recommendation G83/1: (2003) - Recommendation for the connection of small scale embedded generators" allows microgeneration installations to feed up to 16 amps per phase in parallel with public low voltage distribution networks.

They don't shout about it - because, as you rightly say, there is no guarantee that modern meters will run backwards.

But the ruling is there to encourage the installation of microgeneration systems - which it obviously does as it means we are getting over 14p per unit compared with the wholesale price of about 4.5p per unit. And, it helps the generating company as it saves them having to generate our overspill and helps them meet their targets of reducing consumption...

You are also right, that I'm not currently encouraging people to rush into installing a Windsave unless they live on a very windy location. We live in quite a windy location otherwise we would never have thought of it and as you gather it is currently only just about proving to be economic.

I'm still interested in the Skyrota - it's a much simpler design than a conventional turbine - it only has to rotate about a vertical axis rather than the conventional rotation about a vertical and power from a horizontal axis - so there are fewer moving parts and probably more reliability. It should also cope better with turbulence.

What I would really like to see is a proper comparison trial of the various small turbine designs, side by side in equally good positions on the same windy site - does any Neepster have a suitable site for this - I'm sure if you announced what you were doing the various manufacturers would be keen to show off their wares and do a deal on the turbines (the best solution would be for the manufacturers to give you the turbines free and you just paid the wholesale price for the electricity generated - that would put their money where their mouth is...)

"Windyman"

Sassinak · Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 6:22 pm Post subject:

I got an offer in my emails the other day from a company that had advertised that they wanted windy sites to set up a series of 3 turbines.
When you cut through the waffle lol They install 3 turbines on your land and in exchange, they pay you a flat rate annual rent (Didn't say how much) OR you could have a discount on a turbine to provide your own electricity (I think it was 20% discount.) This didn't exactly strike me as the bargain of the century haha
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Smooth Hound · Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2009 7:25 pm Post subject:

forgive me for not reading the whole thread, but i just thought id ask , have you thought about solar power, its come on along way over the last couple of years