Thinking about wind?

[OzSolar]

If you can't find a spec sheet like this for the wind turbine you're looking at then please take a serious pause before you spend any money.

The most important consideration for any wind turbine is swept area. Bottom line is that a wind turbine with a ~60" diameter cannot make more power or energy than a turbine with a 98" diameter.

 

[sunshine_eggo]

Even then... sanity check it here:

Wind Turbine Calculator [HAWT and VAWT]

The wind turbine calculator finds the power output, efficiency, RPM, torque, and revenue of a wind turbine (either HAVT or VAWT).

www.omnicalculator.com

The arrow indicates the maximum amount of power available in a swept area of moving air.

Assuming 30% efficient, 12mph will produce 120W:



Shows about 150W - so likely more than 30% efficient, but 120W vs. 150W is a non-concern relative to the absurdity of some:

TESUP_Magnum5_Wind_Turbine_User_Manual.pdf

drive.google.com

(5.4m/s is about 12mph)

So Tesup's claim is that a SMALLER turbine can harvest 1000W of power at 12mph... more than 2X the power available in the air itself.

Tesup must mean "lying douchebag" in a foreign language.

 

[JacoSpeedyRoos]

Even then... sanity check it here:

Wind Turbine Calculator [HAWT and VAWT]

The wind turbine calculator finds the power output, efficiency, RPM, torque, and revenue of a wind turbine (either HAVT or VAWT).

www.omnicalculator.com

View attachment 132578

The arrow indicates the maximum amount of power available in a swept area of moving air.

Assuming 30% efficient, 12mph will produce 120W:

View attachment 132579

Shows about 150W - so likely more than 30% efficient, but 120W vs. 150W is a non-concern relative to the absurdity of some:

TESUP_Magnum5_Wind_Turbine_User_Manual.pdf

drive.google.com

View attachment 132580

(5.4m/s is about 12mph)

So Tesup's claim is that a SMALLER turbine can harvest 1000W of power at 12mph... more than 2X the power available in the air itself.

Tesup must mean "lying douchebag" in a foreign language.

I did not even know this calculator existed! Up to now I've been using logical conclusions to try identify the bullshitters from the real deals and I still havent found a wind turbine that looks legit. I think this calculator will make my life a lot easier now

 

[sunshine_eggo]

I did not even know this calculator existed! Up to now I've been using logical conclusions to try identify the bullshitters from the real deals and I still havent found a wind turbine that looks legit. I think this calculator will make my life a lot easier now

I have a love/hate relationship with wind. Based on averages, my area is "meh." However, peak winds can be pretty high, and wind is often favorable when PV is not, so I feel compelled to find some kind of wind solution.

The wind in our area is also pretty turbulent - I see one turbine just off the highway a few miles from our place getting buffeted around quite a bit, so I feel compelled to go VAWT even knowing they're less efficient. I'm okay with that trade off because the winds I want to harvest are in the 20-30mph range, so a small VAWT would pretty easily pull in ~100-200W - which would cover my "background" loads.

 

[OzSolar]

so I feel compelled to go VAWT even knowing they're less efficient.

That's a plot twist I didn't coming.

 

[sunshine_eggo]

That's a plot twist I didn't see.

If you didn't mean to do that...

 

[JacoSpeedyRoos]

My foundation will be solar, once the system is up and running, then I will get a HAWT to supplement charge a bit. I know its not very efficient, but I need to diversify my power sources as my house will be completely off grid. Once the HAWT is fully operational, then I can monitor it and check how turbulent the wind is and decided if a VAWT is worth the effort. I think its more a case of curiosity at this point in time

 

[Crowz]

I wouldn't mind trying to setup a wind turbine here to play with I just can't figure out what to do with it to justify buying one. My older house is a 24 volt dc setup but its located between 3 mountain ranges so there isn't even a breeze there.

The new house has good wind speeds.

New house power setup is pv and the voltages are 200+ volts so that's not going to work. It requires 120 volts to even turn on.

I don't have batteries yet on the main house inverter so nothing to charge.

The batteries I do have are running my 12v stuff and they never get under 60% soc.

Any ideas how to use one with the above stuff?

 

[JacoSpeedyRoos]

I wouldn't mind trying to setup a wind turbine here to play with I just can't figure out what to do with it to justify buying one. My older house is a 24 volt dc setup but its located between 3 mountain ranges so there isn't even a breeze there.

The new house has good wind speeds.

New house power setup is pv and the voltages are 200+ volts so that's not going to work. It requires 120 volts to even turn on.

I don't have batteries yet on the main house inverter so nothing to charge.

The batteries I do have are running my 12v stuff and they never get under 60% soc.

Any ideas how to use one with the above stuff?

I wouldnt use wind without batteries to be honest, but Im not an expert. At least with batteries you can create a common DC voltage between solar and wind and then run an inverter to take it back to AC voltage.

 

[OzSolar]

The challenge that I quickly realized and continue to not know how to overcome with small wind is that the cost of the wind turbine itself is not the barrier. Everything else is where it gets quickly get expensive. The cost of the tower, the wire between the turbine and your power center and the crane required to get your tower in the air can dwarf the cost of the turbine. Tilt up towers are a dangerous joke so don't even start down that road.

This is the place where someone will pipe in about how they got a tower for free and thier brother in law has a crane has but unless you can find yourself in that same situation you're likely looking at $5k or more for not much of a tower and the civil work is on top of all of that. One can buy a lot of solar panels and gas for your generator for that kind of money.

Most sites that people live in REQUIRE a tower of 75' or greater to get above any obstacles within ~300' (100m). Be sure to price a tower capable of holding a 100lb or heavier turbine with a swept area of at least 80 ft 2 before you buy a turbine.

I'd love to put a turbine up here at my place but every time I think about it those nasty economics smack me in the face and since I'm grid tied with batteries it could only be treated as a very expensive hobby. Once I'm retired I might do it.

 

[JacoSpeedyRoos]

The challenge that I quickly realized and continue to not know how to overcome with small wind is that the cost of the wind turbine itself is not the barrier. Everything else is where it gets quickly get expensive. The cost of the tower, the wire between the turbine and your power center and the crane required to get your tower in the air can dwarf the cost of the turbine.

This is the place where someone might pipe in about how they got a tower for free and thier brother in law has crane has but unless you can find yourself in that same situation you're likely looking at $5k or more for not much of a tower. You can buy a lot of solar panels or gas for your generator for that.

Most sites that people actually live in REQUIRE a tower of 75' or greater to get above any obstacles within ~300' (100m). Please price a tower capable of holding a 100lb or heavier turbine with a swept area of at least 80ft2 before your buy the turbine.

I'd love to put a turbine up here at my place but every time I think about it those nasty economics smack me in the face and since I'm grid with batteries it could only be treated as a very expensive hobby. Once I'm retired I might do it.

I think this mostly depends on your location. I am building a house in a semi valley that is also an open field and based on the historical data, the wind will generally come from one side of the valley. So my biggest factor is not height, but location. If you live in an area where the obstackles are this high, why not build the turbine on one of these obstacles?

 

[Zwy]

The challenge that I quickly realized and continue to not know how to overcome with small wind is that the cost of the wind turbine itself is not the barrier. Everything else is where it gets quickly get expensive. The cost of the tower, the wire between the turbine and your power center and the crane required to get your tower in the air can dwarf the cost of the turbine.

My brother made his Jacobs 17.5Kw with 60 foot tower tilt down using a large winch. Takes 2 hours to get it down. It has to come down once a year for maintenance, storm damage more often. He can't climb after being injured falling off a roof that left him temporarily paralyzed.

This is the place where someone might pipe in about how they got a tower for free and thier brother in law has crane has but unless you can find yourself in that same situation you're likely looking at $5k or more for not much of a tower. You can buy a lot of solar panels or gas for your generator for that.

Most sites that people actually live in REQUIRE a tower of 75' or greater to get above any obstacles within ~300' (100m). Please price a tower capable of holding a 100lb or heavier turbine with a swept area of at least 80ft2 before your buy the turbine.

I'd love to put a turbine up here at my place but every time I think about it those nasty economics smack me in the face and since I'm grid with batteries it could only be treated as a very expensive hobby. Once I'm retired I might do it.

My brother had to rebuild his plus ended up modifying the unit to bigger shafts and bearings.

 

[OzSolar]

My brother made his Jacobs 17.5Kw with 60 foot tower tilt down using a large winch. Takes 2 hours to get it down. It has to come down once a year for maintenance, storm damage more often. He can't climb after being injured falling off a roof that left him temporarily paralyzed.

My brother had to rebuild his plus ended up modifying the unit to bigger shafts and bearings.

My hat is off to your brother for overcoming his setbacks. Funny thing about tilt towers - So I've been sort of in or around the small wind industry for many years. There's a saying... "there are those that have had a tilt tower crash and those that haven't... yet."

Regardless...

The point that I will continue to try to make with small wind is that there is fraction of a percent of people who are prepared for what they are up against with small wind. Jacob's is long gone so starting with one of them means a very tired used machine that hasn't worked for decades and will NEVER get of approval to be directly connected to the grid.

Comprare that to solar: After a few hours on YouTube and an Amazon account pretty much anyone with no tools or experience can successfully set up an AIO with a solar array and battery and get many years of service out of it.

 

[Zwy]

My hat is off to your brother for overcoming his setbacks. Funny thing about tilt towers - So I've been sort of in or around the small wind industry for many years. There's a saying... "there are those that have had a tilt tower crash and those that haven't... yet."

Regardless...

The point that I will continue to try to make with small wind is that there is fraction of a percent of people who are prepared for what they are up against with small wind. Jacob's is long gone so starting with one of them means a very tired used machine that hasn't worked for decades and will NEVER get of approval to be directly connected to the grid.

Comprare that to solar: After a few hours on YouTube and an Amazon account pretty much anyone with no tools or experience can successfully set up an AIO with a solar array and battery and get many years of service out of it.

I agree 100%. It's why I have solar.

His problem is when he first installed it, he was paid $0.10/Kwh for excess. Rural coop merged and thru out those contracts, my guess is they had large enough windfarms and solar to meet renewable standards. He was then put on net metering with a bank limit. He really can't use up excess, the unit is too large. He builds up the bank, then locks down his generator and pulls his bank down.

He only has to pull it down once a year for maintenance since he rebuilt and modified the generator. So reliability is covered.

I doubt it will "fall over". Very well built, it took 9 yards of concrete per each of the 3 legs. That is some serious ballast. All bolt together construction at the base, it has to be unbolted on one leg to tip it down on the other 2 legs that are hinged. I think the units you are referring to that crash are the cable stay type. Those are subject to cable fraying over time, I'm sure no one inspects the cables for wear. Cable wear will occur due to the swaying of the cables and tower.

It was nothing I was interested in. My other brother bought a Jacobs too, he then found out the county won't permit it. I could have probably bought it cheap. No thanks.

 

[OzSolar]

I doubt it will "fall over".

I'm sure it won't fall over. Once it's vertical the forces are minimal, in fact if you dig into the engineering you'll see that a wind turbine needs barely any foundation or guys as the weight of the tower satisfies almost all of the overturning moment by itself.

But I didn't say fall over, I said crash. Granted I wasn't clear that I meant during the tilting procedure. The forces on the winch and rigging during tilting are incredible, the weakest link will be revealed without warning and with catastrophic results.

One more time...there are those those that have had a tilt tower get away from them (during tilting) and those that haven't yet.

edit to fix typos

 

[kanelr]

So our tower is 60'. We had two 4"x20' posts with square bolt flanges at the ends and one 3' one, all fabricated for us from the steel tube posts you hold up basement beams with. The we poured a 2x2x4' foundation with three 1"x 12 long L bolts embedded in the concrete. then we fabricated a kind of tower mount pivot about 2' high bolted onto the 1" foundation bolts. then we assembled the posts sections on the ground and bolted them onto the "folded down" pivot. (the turbines were not attached.)/ Once lifted the tower has 3 sets of top and mid point guy cables tied off to 6 helical anchors. like they used for phone poles
Then we tried to raise the tower.
Then we tried to raise the tower.
Then we tried to raise the tower.
my favorite part was; when holding the winch control for our GEO tracker bumper winch, which was rigged like a derrick to raise the tower, I turned my head back to see why the tower wasn't lifting and saw that my poor car was just hanging in the air by the winch cable. We added a bobcat into the mix and up it went.
That was 20 years ago. Surrounded by trees now and shut down for service due to storm damage,
Big mistake trying to twin a pair on a single tower, they had some turmoil issues, however at a firm wind they rivaled our panels for usefulness (they are SW Air 403 unts). Time for a tree haircut and new single turbine.

 

[Zwy]

My brother has a big deadman for the winch, about 15 feet deep and 3 feet in diameter. I should go there when he lowers it and take some video and photos.

 

[SenileOldGit]

I'm so glad I came on this forum and asked about wind turbines a few months ago - several people told me just why a wind turbine is never going to produce anything like the same power as the equivalent value spent on solar panels, and will also need maintenance and be a nightmare to install. I have 20 x 600W solar panels, 12kW, and once I'd installed the ground mounts with my girlfriend's help, and installed the solar panels, that's it - nothing else to do. No maintenance, no worries about towers and guy ropes, no worries about moving parts and weathering, and even in the absolute worst weather, I get a minimum of 500W from my panels, that's only happened once or twice when it was pouring with rain and the sky was almost black. Normally I easily get 3-4kW on a cloudy day for most of the day, and if the sun is out then I can max out my two 5kW inverters all day long, if I had the load to take that much power.
So for me, wind is a waste of time. I also want to find out the actual cost of commercial wind turbine produced electricity, vs commercial solar panel produced electricity, but due to the hidden subsidies and (I believe) the fact that commercial wind turbines are way more expensive per kWh than solar panels, I can't find any figures.

 

[OzSolar]

the actual cost of commercial wind turbine produced electricity, vs commercial solar panel produced electricity, but due to the hidden subsidies and (I believe) the fact that commercial wind turbines are way more expensive per kWh than solar panels, I can't find any figures.

Glad you made the right choice. Small is cool but that's about all it is.

Great questions. So wind scales up to utility scale better than solar does.

For wind 2x's the rotor diameter = 4X's the power. 2X's larger solar array is just 2X's more power.

But that's just part of what's going on with utility scale turbines. It's the taller towers that put the turbines in much higher wind speeds that really change the game. 2X's the wind speed = 8X's power

I'm sure there's a great graphic out there but the best I can do is share the below comparison with you.

A typical 2.75 MW utility scale wind vs. an Air 403 vs. Bergey 10.

I think you'll see the point pretty quickly and I'm cheating towards small wind. Utility scale turbines actually make more energy and cost less than I'm showing. Small scale wind cost more and produces less than I'm showing.

 

[pollenface]

I turned my head back to see why the tower wasn't lifting and saw that my poor car was just hanging in the air by the winch cable