# wind power



## bryon huff (Sep 30, 2005)

want to add to my soler panals windy all the time want a small wind generator anybody know of any good ones and no homemade I dont want to burn down my cabin thanks


----------



## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

Bet Jimme will set you right up on this one.

BooBoo


----------



## bryon huff (Sep 30, 2005)

I see northern tool has one fir $699 that the size i want know of any cheaper


----------



## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

bryon huff said:


> I see northern tool has one fir $699 that the size i want know of any cheaper


The one in Northern tool is actually a Southwest AirX (403). There's quite a few places on the web it can be had for $550 to $600. I see them on Ebay every once in a while for $300 to $450. 

I can't talk about the quality of it as I don't have any experience with them. I know Jim-mi doesn't much care for them. Suprised he hasn't Chimed in yet.


----------



## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

Jim-mi must be gone,another gripe with the air 403 was you needed a SERIOUS wind to put out any usable power.

Im leery to post because we have a wind Pro here,but know you want some feedback.Really would prefer our expert to tell you the story,but at least you have a little to chew on while we wait.Werent they noisy too,cant remember for sure.

BooBoo


----------



## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

Yup, I've been off setting a 120' monopole tower for a Bergey Excel (10 k )
Trying to catch up here before off to the energy fairs.

To bryon h. ... What class wind area are you in ... ?

Unless you have constant 25-30 mph winds forget that toy.
And if you perchance do have that much wind then be ready to buy some ear muffs for the roar you will have to endure.

Your best bet right now would be to come to the MREA Energy Fair---June 23-24-25 
www.the-mrea.org
There you can wander around all the exhibiters see the other (better) equipment and go to the workshops and LEARN a whole bunch about wind systems.


----------



## bryon huff (Sep 30, 2005)

yes lots wind on mt anni and the wind blows up in the morning down the mt at night there a guy down tha hell from me and i cant hear his I have stoped my atv to look at it I jest want somthing to add to soler but if you think there a wast of money I dont know and I i live in eastern wa.


----------



## sisterpine (May 9, 2004)

We live in an area where 25+ mph winds are pretty common, southwest montana on top of a mountain. we have an airX403 mounted at 30 feet and have been very pleased with it. It makes electricity in noticable amounts probably 5 days a week and DOES NOT ROAR! It actually makes a very pleasant sound, kind of like a loft "whoosh" when the winds hit about 30 + mph. Maybe you need a big one but we are planning on getting another little one since it works so well for us along with our 6 kyocera 120 watt panels. up to you of course, just wanted to share the other side of the issue.


----------



## mightybooboo (Feb 10, 2004)

sisterpine said:


> We live in an area where 25+ mph winds are pretty common, southwest montana on top of a mountain. we have an airX403 mounted at 30 feet and have been very pleased with it. It makes electricity in noticable amounts probably 5 days a week and DOES NOT ROAR! It actually makes a very pleasant sound, kind of like a loft "whoosh" when the winds hit about 30 + mph. Maybe you need a big one but we are planning on getting another little one since it works so well for us along with our 6 kyocera 120 watt panels. up to you of course, just wanted to share the other side of the issue.


What do you like better,the panels or the wind generator?

BooBoo


----------



## bryon huff (Sep 30, 2005)

thanks I think iwill get the newer air x went down to the guy down the hill from me and the wind was blowing hard and it spining and not that bad sounding and i dont need that much more power i have soler to thanks


----------



## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

Good reply sisterpine,
But how many of us live on a mountain top..........
So in a sense you are fortunate to have a very good wind rescource. A lot of folks who *want* windpower have a very poor location for wind.
And a 30' stick to boot..........lucky you.


----------



## sisterpine (May 9, 2004)

indeed! while there are many draw backs to living at altitude on the continental divide we do at least have wind!

i do not think i like either better. need wind to make power with the airx and need sun to make power with the panels....some days we have one or the other, some days (today) we have both and some days we have neither! I will always vote for a mixed system though. Want two more panels and one more Airx and then a bigger inverter and my system will finally be done!


----------



## Rick (May 10, 2002)

Jim-mi said:


> Good reply sisterpine,
> But how many of us live on a mountain top..........
> So in a sense you are fortunate to have a very good wind rescource. A lot of folks who *want* windpower have a very poor location for wind.
> And a 30' stick to boot..........lucky you.


Is there a web site that has listings of wind averages by geographic location?

We plan on renting an ananometer from real goods to get the best answer. Our elevation is around 900 feet, and generally I think the winds average 5 to 15 MPH. Many times there are frequent gusts around 25 MPH.

Rick


Rick


----------



## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Rick said:


> Is there a web site that has listings of wind averages by geographic location?
> 
> We plan on renting an ananometer from real goods to get the best answer. Our elevation is around 900 feet, and generally I think the winds average 5 to 15 MPH. Many times there are frequent gusts around 25 MPH.
> 
> Rick


Hi Rick,
Here is (I think) is a good way to get an idea how good the winds are in your area:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Wind/WindResource.htm

www.Otherpower.com sells an kit to make an anemometer -- that might be an alternative to renting one? How much does Real Goods get for the rental?

Here is another alternative:
http://www.aagelectronica.com/aag/index.html?target=p_1.html&lang=en-us
I made one of their early kits, and it worked well for about 2 years, then pooped out.

Gary


----------



## JAK (Oct 15, 2005)

For my masters degree I have been doing a wind resource assessment. I have collected wind data on a radio tower at 35m, 75m, and 112m for going on 3 years now and comparing it to airport data at 10m. The difference between airport data at 30 feet and tower data at 300 feet is literally night and day. The wind isn't just stronger at 300 feet, it is much much more continuous. Working with nature has been very humbling also. Very complex. I have been trying to find the relationship between the airport data and the tower data so I could predict 50 years of tower data and it has been very difficult. No two days are ever exactly the same. Nature has way too many variables. Most science labs aren't all that wind though. 

I would have to say there is no substitute for actually going out and doing it, so I would try to understand whatever Jim-mi has to offer, and perhaps try to pick up some of what he has forgotten also. I think he has said before that you want to get as tall a tower as you possibly can afford. It might be practical for this to be about half the cost of a good wind energy system. I would say if you are blessed with a nice bald windy hill then an extra tall tower would be even more likely to pay for itself than on an inferior site. 

Of course tower costs go up exponentially with height, and there is probably some practical relationship with the size of the generator to make it worthwhile going higher. I think practical wind power might be a go big or stay home situation. Perhaps at least 1 kw on a 60 foot tower in a bald windy location. Perhaps at least 3kw and at least 80 feet above treetops in hilly area with trees. Might be worthwhile switching from trees to growing blueberries on that hilltop also. I think 10kw at 100-120 feet could be very economical but only if you have something to do with 10kw when you get it all at once. It is really too much for practical battery storage. Perhaps in the future you could convert the excess to hydrogen and use it for your car and your tractor. The initial 1-3kw for domestic electical use would then be very steady and reliable.


----------



## JAK (Oct 15, 2005)

Jim-mi,
What is the best tower strategy for dealing with potential for ice storms?


----------



## rambler (Jan 20, 2004)

JAK said:


> Jim-mi,
> What is the best tower strategy for dealing with potential for ice storms?


Saw a few small-scale wind towers laying on their side here after 3-4 winters. They looked like radio/ cell towers, the angled metal tubes zig-zagged together.

The commercial towers are all big solid tube, far less for ice to stick to. I'll bet that is spendy, but most solid.


I really like your other message on taller is better, totally agree. Wind power is all about efficiency, not cheap or 'good enough' wind; but getting the most from the generator you have. And starting with a good one. On a tall, tall pole.

--->Paul


----------



## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

It would be fun to see some of your data JAK.
"night and day difference"------you got that right.
It can be said that the power of the wind goes up by the cube with height.
So you can see why the big commercial turbines blade tips will be up in the 400' range.
And some of the air port wind data came/comes from a unit on a 15' pole out on the runway area. Totally useless data for a wind turbine. Only good for wind sheer data at the surface.

What ever you put up--Ma Nature-- is going to ice up.

I remember (with a chuckle) the TV news talking heads flinching every time chunks of ice hit the roof of their studio----falling from the 1000+' tower.

When the tower starts sheading ice....STAY away........lol


----------



## bryon huff (Sep 30, 2005)

I live a 3800ft so i have about 300 days of sun and a lot of wind I have4 6 volt battarys and 200 watts soler 2000 sine wave i have about $ 2500 in to it


----------



## Rick (May 10, 2002)

Gary

Thanks for the URLs.

Ironically, I'll have to wait til next time I can squeeze a couple of minutes online to check them out. (Laptop battery is low, and I have 30 minutes of "light" to grab a shower.

Rick


----------



## JAK (Oct 15, 2005)

bryon huff said:


> I live a 3800ft so i have about 300 days of sun and a lot of wind I have4 6 volt battarys and 200 watts soler 2000 sine wave i have about $ 2500 in to it


Raises a very good point about Simple Living. Smaller is often better, even with Wind Power.

I think for folks that are wise enough to live simple on a smaller system rather than live as slaves to a larger system there is a need for smaller 500w wind systems. Even at 200w, where solar might begin to beat wind on price, you might be some place where there is lots of wind but little sun. In general 500w wind systems seem to be built for higher wind speeds. In a way this seems like a marketing scam, but there are legitimate reasons for this also. For one, 100w generators probably cost just as much as 500w generators, so you might as well slap a 500w generator on your rotor and reap the whirlwind when it's blowing the dog off the chain. The other reason I think is folks like sailboaters that have lots of wind, need 500w, but don't have the space for larger rotors. Anyhow, I think there is a growing market for 500w systems, as with 3kw and 5kw systems, and products should keep getting better, and perhaps cheaper. I am not sure if they will get much cheaper with increasing demand because like everything else they also require energy to manufacture and distribute.

I think $2/watt is reasonably fair for small wind power. The tower will add another $2/watt, or even $3/watt. I think upscaling the tower will pay for itself in reliability as well as power, and even more so on a good site than a poor one. The practical downside must be that bigger towers are a bigger pain in the ass, especially if you are dealing with trees and ice and stuff.

Because of economies of scale vs economies of volume and the target market, 500w systems are probably the same price per watt as 3kw and 5kw systems, but they probably don't produce as much power as a percentage of the rating (capacity factor) unless they have as much or more wind at a lower height, which is apples and oranges. A capacity factor of 0.30 to 0.40 is reasonably fair for large wind farms on 60-100m towers. A capacity factor of 0.20 to 0.30 is reasonably fair for a small 3-5kw home system on 60-100 foot towers. A capacity factor of 0.10 to 0.20 is reasonably fair for a small 500w generator on a 30-45 foot tower. That's just the nature of the beasts. Still, if you have lots of wind, and need 500w, not 3000w, the 500w system is better, and can be just as cheap if you have more wind near the surface than most people have up high. It does happen.


----------



## JAK (Oct 15, 2005)

I am now thinking of my own situation where I would like to build something small and simple and off-grid some day. It is on the shore St. John River, near the Bay of Fundy, and faces South. There are lots of trees and hills in the area. Topography varies from 0m to 150m above sea level, fairly rugged, but much smaller scale than out west. In general there is about 8m/s at 100m above ground on top of a 100m hill. In a reasonable flat open area this is reduced to 4.5 m/s at 10m above ground. At 100m the wind is more steady, and stronger at night. At 10m the wind is less steady, stronger by day, and often calm at night. In my specific location I would only get the Southwest wind, and only during the day. The land rises behind me, with tall trees, and continues to do so well beyond my property, perhaps to an elevation of 60-100m with a mile or two, with trees perhaps 40-60 feet in height. My best bet for wind power would either right on the shore, where there is a rocky outcropping, or on a small bluff about 300 feet back from the shore line at the edge of my property line. It is only one acre, with no road. It used to belong to a squatter. The trees on my property mostly cedar and about 30-40 feet in height. Very rocky. I suppose cedar and I both love the place because nobody else does. To get reasonably wind I would likely need to get up 60 feet above the tree line on the bluff, or perhaps only 40 feet above the trees on the shore where the trees taper off. So at least a 60-100 foot tower. With a 120 foot tower on the bluff I think I would get the North Wind also.

So what if I only need 500w ???

I think the answer is if I only want it for Summer I may as well just go solar. If I want it for year round, I can still get reasonable solar here with the bounce of the frozen river, but still perhaps only half as much. Also, I am likely to need twice as much electricity in winter, even if I am frugal, because there are more clothes to wash and only 8 hours of daylight in Winter vs 16 hours in Summer. So a wind generator has some appeal in Winter, but the wind is mostly from the Northwest and North-North East in Winter. Because it is cold it does tend to mix with the surface better than the warm Southwind, but I would still need to get well above the trees. On that rocky bluff, with some selective cutting, I might only need 25 feet to get above the trees, then perhaps another 50 feet to get into some good wind when you consider the surrounding topography and forest cover. The river helps even in a North Wind as it provides something for the wind to head for. 75 feet is a pretty tall tower for a 500w generator, especially when you consider that we get ice storms here. If I paid $1000 for a 500w wind generator, how much might I pay for a tower. In my situation perhaps as much as $1500, bringing my total cost to $2500 or $5/watt. What sort of tower might I build for $1500 if we get icing? How do I put it up amongst the trees? Might I use the bluff to my advantage if I went with a tilt-up tilt-down design? The bluff is about 15 feet of vertical rock, below the tree line. I could clear a path to the South and use the bluff for leverage. It would mean making that part of the tower that much taller, or the top of the tower that much shorter, but I think it would have its advantages for tilt-up tilt-down for maintaintance and ice-storms. So now I am up to 90 feet of so, call it 100. For a tower that tall if it is strong enough for 500w and to hold itself up, it doesn't take much to make it strong enough for 3kw. For a 1kw generator, and tilt-up is about $2500 to go with a $2500 generator. If I stuck with 500w I might save on the generator, but not on the tower. Also, because of trees and ice I might want an even more expensive tower design that I could raise and lower myself and always in the same direction. It would still have guy wires, but the tower itself would be more rigid, probably of heavier pipe in longer sections. I would build it myself from local suppliers of pipe, but the cost would probably still end up higher. Perhaps I would have to compromise on height and settle for 80 feet, which might be only 65 feet above the bluff and 50 feet above immediate trees, and 40 feet above most surrounding trees, but windy enough and cold enough for a 500w turbine or larger. Still, I would probably end up going to at least a 1500w generator and 90 foot tower for $7500, aiming for a 0.20 capacity factor given the site. This would average 300w. Over ten years this would be about $0.25 to $0.30 not counting balance of plant and installation and operating and maintenance, but I thing it is still reasonable for a small system. There will be times that it will produce power I don't need, and in the future I could generate hydrogen with it, but in the mean time I could use the excess to heat hot water. Might happen 2 or 3 times a month that I get an extra 50 kwh over 2-3 days. This would heat up 150 gallons of hot water. In winter such periods might be longer, but there is more need for hot water in winter also. 

The marginal cost of upgrading from 500w to 1500w is probably worth it if you need to build a taller tower anyway. The nice thing about wind power is that it theoretically possible to engineer and build and maintain it yourself, which keeps it interesting, like an expensive hobby. Model trains can cost just as much and they don't produce any power. Hey, there's another use for that extra power.


----------



## JAK (Oct 15, 2005)

I often wonder if a Savonius rotor might make more sense for a 500w system, at least for the do-it-yourselfer. The main disadvantages are that they are bulkier and harder to raise up off the ground, but for a smaller system some of that might go away. Within reason, you can make the rotor larger to deal with less wind. I say within reason because if you have half the windspeed you would need it to be 8 times the projected area to produce the same amount of power. It then turns slower also, so there is even more gearing involved. Still, if you invest in a larger simpler rotor rather than a taller, ganglier tower it might be a reasonable trade-off for a 500w system. There could be some additional synergies if you also have a need for a small water tower, which the savonius rotor could then sit on top of. 

For the do-it-yourselfer there could be some interesting solutions in terms of gearing, or belt drives, or multiple pole generators. Perhaps you could use the savonious only as a water pump and then use the water to drive a fixed speed generator, either a water turbine or a water wheel depending on the head. Even if you didn't have much storage capacity, for a smaller system averaging 100w you wouldn't need much storage capacity. If your water tank was 100 feet above your river or pond you would need to pump 5 gpm to average 100w. 24 hours of capacity would be 7200 imperial gallon, or a water tank 12 feet in diameter and 12 feet high. Clearly not for the faint of heart. Instead you could make it just 4 feet in diameter and 4 feet high to store about one hours capacity, on average. The generator would then run intermittently as needed to serve loads or charge the storage batteries and always at a constant 500 watts output. The water wouldn't be drinking water, though it could be partially used for irrigation or aquaculture or scenic garden features, as long as the wind is blowing. Of course a larger pond would be ideal if the landscape permitted such a feature.

Anyhow, a small tank could go on a small water tower, and the savonious rotor could sit directly on top of the water tower, perhaps higher. Perhaps a hydrogen storage tank could also sit in the same place, above the water, and below the rotor. Perhaps a compressed air storage tank could fit into the works also if you have a need for compressed air. If you did you could run you small generator off of compressed air and hydrogen when the wind wasn't blowing, though it would be better use to use it to run your tractor or your small daily commuter.

Another interesting place for a savonious rotor would be on the top of a round barn with a shallow conical roof. Perhaps a two or three storey barn/house with the barn animals below and the people living above and all the various storage tanks and what not in the center core directly beneath the savonious. If you had a water well that would be directly below. You could operate some machinery and appliances directly off a central shaft which is always kept turning either by the wind or a generator or a water wheel or perhaps even a shetland pony or two now and then when the wind isn't blowing and they are willing.

I think the smallest such structure might be a small yurt, with a small savonious rotor on top, perhaps 3 feet in diameter, though for a smaller building, especially a yurt. I understand folks that live in round houses sometimes have trouble keeping their bearings straight. 

Here is some more fuel for the imagination:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Yurt_in_Tos_Bulak.jpg
http://www.southcom.com.au/~vk7dy/Dsc00244.jpg
http://www.dalejtravis.com/barn/massachu/htm/ma00601.htm
http://www.dalejtravis.com/barn/pennsylv/htm/pa05602.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Scotland_Glenelg_broch.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fe/Stonehenge_Distance.jpg


----------

