Wind Turbine experience

[DaveP]

I bought an Ista-breeze 400w wind turbine off eBay (£210) in September and mounted it on a 3.8m mast on my roof (mast plus guys etc £40).  It's able to be raised or lowered in about a minute or two.

Over winter it's saved running the engine for charging on about 10 days (I've been on the southern Oxford).  It only makes a major contribution when there's at least a fairly decent breeze and the boat is moored with clear views (away from trees or even tall hedges).  The noise when running can be heard up to 50m away.  Inside the boat the major noise component occurs when it spins out of the wind and decelerates - this was improved by fitting a garden kneeler to the tail to increase stability in turbulent flows.  But it's not massively annoying.

Overall, not worth it - payback is of the order of a decade.  But I'm going to keep it now I have it.  One advantage is that other boaters do tend not to moor as close...

[Detling]

Do you know what charging current it produced? 400 watt is probably only in hurricane force winds, but real usage data is hard to find out.

[WotEver]

1 hour ago, Detling said:

Do you know what charging current it produced? 400 watt is probably only in hurricane force winds, but real usage data is hard to find out.

I know that previous posters over the years have said almost without exception that they're not fit for purpose on a narrowboat. 

[Neil2]

That explains why the majority of turbines you see these days are laying flat on the cabin roof covered in dead leaves.

You have to wonder about this technology, my sister lives in a seriously windy location, top of a hill on the north east coast of Scotland, she thought when they moved there it would be a perfect location for a turbine so they got a green energy consultant who did some tests and told them not to waste their money.  Yet, outside of National Parks, these things seem to be everywhere you look nowadays. 

 

[mross]

7% of all our electricity is being generated by wind turbines as we speak.  http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

It helps to get your fan high up as wind speed is much lower close to the ground.

[WotEver]

Go visit the Canary Isles some time - they're covered with them in coastal areas.  

[DaveP]

1 hour ago, Detling said:

Do you know what charging current it produced? 400 watt is probably only in hurricane force winds, but real usage data is hard to find out.

In a breeze 1-3amp, stiffer wind 3-6amp, I wouldn't go boating in that 6-10amp.  Not seen more than 15amp in a gust.  In the literature it says that curent is proportional to wind speed cubed...

[Neil2]

20 minutes ago, mross said:

7% of all our electricity is being generated by wind turbines as we speak.  http://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

It helps to get your fan high up as wind speed is much lower close to the ground.

That's an interesting site, thanks for the link.

It's windy tonight yet only a measly 7.8% of total power comes from turbines.  

But I'm puzzled by the reference to "about another 30%" being produced by unmetered wind turbines.  If they are unmetered how do they know? 

 

[mross]

It's an informed estimate/ educated guess

Edited March 4, 2017 by mross

[jddevel]

Today attended a local council exhibition much of which was extolling the  advantages of wind turbines and solar panels. I live in an area designated as an area of outstanding beauty in Cornwall but that in their opinion does not amount to much. I`m amazed how one drives up the M5 towards Bristol and see them in profusion. Drive along the M4 towards London and they seem to disappear. I would also add that on a recent visit to the States I noticed how many public and industrial car parks had car ports covered in solar panels. If we`ve got to have them seemed like a good idea. My view hurry up Hydrogen power.

[peterboat]

11 minutes ago, jddevel said:

Today attended a local council exhibition much of which was extolling the  advantages of wind turbines and solar panels. I live in an area designated as an area of outstanding beauty in Cornwall but that in their opinion does not amount to much. I`m amazed how one drives up the M5 towards Bristol and see them in profusion. Drive along the M4 towards London and they seem to disappear. I would also add that on a recent visit to the States I noticed how many public and industrial car parks had car ports covered in solar panels. If we`ve got to have them seemed like a good idea. My view hurry up Hydrogen power.

It takes a lot of energy to make hydrogen...........................

[nicknorman]

17 minutes ago, peterboat said:

It takes a lot of energy to make hydrogen...........................

Yes, but it takes big-time negative energy to turn hydrogen into helium. Or can do.

Edited March 4, 2017 by nicknorman

[jddevel]

But is that possibly with todays technology.

[nicknorman]

19 minutes ago, jddevel said:

But is that possibly with todays technology.

Yes. At Cadarache. Ok not finished yet but you can't design and complete a project with today's latest technology, only tomorrow's which isn't possible. So with today's technology, cadarache should be proving the viability of fusion once it is on stream, although granted that will be a while.

[Chewbacka]

49 minutes ago, jddevel said:

But is that possibly with todays technology.

It is if you want do do it very quickly...........

 

Added - that is what a hydrogen bomb, rather than an atom bomb does.

Edited March 4, 2017 by Chewbacka

[WotEver]

8 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

It is if you want do do it very quickly...........

But that is a 'bad thing'

[ditchcrawler]

3 hours ago, Neil2 said:

That explains why the majority of turbines you see these days are laying flat on the cabin roof covered in dead leaves.

You have to wonder about this technology, my sister lives in a seriously windy location, top of a hill on the north east coast of Scotland, she thought when they moved there it would be a perfect location for a turbine so they got a green energy consultant who did some tests and told them not to waste their money.  Yet, outside of National Parks, these things seem to be everywhere you look nowadays. 

 

From what I understand. Because people dont spend their own money on them, the same a wood pellet burners, with the subsidies it pays you to leave your windows open and let the heat out if you have one.

[MtB]

2 hours ago, jddevel said:

Today attended a local council exhibition much of which was extolling the  advantages of wind turbines and solar panels. I live in an area designated as an area of outstanding beauty in Cornwall but that in their opinion does not amount to much. I`m amazed how one drives up the M5 towards Bristol and see them in profusion. Drive along the M4 towards London and they seem to disappear. 

 

I seem to manage to drive past that big fekker by Junction 11 on the M4 several times a day.

The thing that strikes me about it is how on some days it is spinning merrily when there is virtually zero wind, and on other days when there is a stiff breeze it remains virtually stationary *.

 

* It is actually never completely stationary. If you see it stationary but gaze at it for 2-3 minutes, it becomes clear it is still actually rotating, at about 3 revs an hour.

Edited March 4, 2017 by Mike the Boilerman

[ditchcrawler]

5 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

I seem to manage to drive past that big fekker by Junction 11 on the M4 several times a day.

The thing that strikes me about it is how on some days it is spinning merrily when there is virtually zero wind, and on other days when there is a stiff breeze it remains virtually stationary *.

 

* It is actually never completely stationary. If you see it stationary but gaze at it for 2-3 minutes, it becomes clear it is still actually rotating, at about 3 revs an hour.

That is because it is being driven round by electricity. They installed 2 just up the road from me, They were getting paid for the electricity before the cable was laid to them because they were capable of generating.

[MtB]

4 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

That is because it is being driven round by electricity. They installed 2 just up the road from me, They were getting paid for the electricity before the cable was laid to them because they were capable of generating.

 

Thank God for that. Someone who agrees with me. I thought it was obvious they are being spun up using power from the grid but whenever I mention this even in educated company, all I get it pitying looks.

Taking it a step further, when the weather bods get their wind forecasts wrong I reckon they fire up the wind turbines to create some wind, iin order to keep the weather forecasts accurate...

[Jerra]

On 3/3/2017 at 22:14, DaveP said:

 It only makes a major contribution when there's at least a fairly decent breeze and the boat is moored with clear views (away from trees or even tall hedges).  

If I remember correctly from my agricultural days, a permeable wind break such as a hedge or shelter belt of trees slows down the wind for 12 times its own height (it may have been 10).   So a 20 ft tree will slow down the wind for in the region of 200 to 240 ft.

[I Spartacus]

As said they are a waste of space, Betz law tells you the power the wind, and you will be very lucky if you can get 25% of that.Wind turbines are rated at 12MS wind speed so if it was rated at 400w at 6MS you would only get 50w. I am still waiting for the new PV and rainwater panels to come onto the market.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

If only there was an easy way to generate electricity from drizzle on a narrow boat.

[Neil2]

9 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

From what I understand. Because people dont spend their own money on them, the same a wood pellet burners, with the subsidies it pays you to leave your windows open and let the heat out if you have one.

As we speak about 20% of our electricity is being generated by "renewables".  That's the metered stuff, we don't know about the unmetered.  Does anyone know what is the total annual subsidy being paid out to the owners of these power generators?  A friend of mine just had a biomass boiler installed for which he says he receives a £4000 pa subsidy.  How much then for a full blown power station converted to biomass, such as Drax?

[WotEver]

The farmer who owns the building that we rent for our business doesn't discuss his finances with me but I was interested to see him install 400 PV panels three years ago, a large biomass boiler in a purpose-built building a couple of years ago, and another biomass boiler last year.