Micro wind turbines

bullit_dodger

What's the peak power output (watts) that you've seen from it Sam? Have to say, little bit jealous here :-)

Love the fact that you took a chance on it, and it (at least for now) has proven to be a positive win for you. Course you'll have to temper that against the 3-4 week run of high pressure which will invariably come at some stage over the summer, but I guess when that happens your panels will be more than covering your usage. Still for now if your getting 40-50+ kWh/month from it that's a nice addition.

When are you getting the 2nd one ? LOL

samdeluxjones

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120387258#Comment_120387258

I had to turn off the turbine yesterday for 4 hours as the batteries were 100% had washing machine, dishwasher the lot running trying to burn a bit.

The max I have gotten so far while watching it is 600W. I reckon it would need force 8-9 to get it over 1kW. It was a steady 400-500W yesterday in 6-7m/s wind which I was surprised at, it seems the wind can be strong but not so steady the more steady the more it generates.

I'm actually looking at the cheaper i2000 and a site to install it but will be a year down the road, let herself come around a bit more.

bullit_dodger

Yeah, it's nice to see those large spikes showing you what it can do, but slowly slowly catches the monkey. I'd much rather a solid stable 300-400w than it to be spiking up/down. Lithium batteries don't like that. Some charge controllers will have a time delay (10-15 seconds) before they'll start to even engage with the battery.

Still though 600W is decent enough.

samdeluxjones

Last few days the sun has been out and the wind blowing and battery is fully charged before noon.

The 2 green LEDs mean the brake has been applied automatically internally even though the generator switch remains in the on position so the auto break is working perfectly when the battery reached fully charged which is a huge relief as another local fella had his master battery blown by charge controller that didn't recognise the battery's were full, made in UK.

It's very windy out now and the blades are hardly turning.

slave1

More batteries!!!

Chris_5339762

This is fascinating as we have a small 200 or 300W turbine sitting in the shed which we were thinking of using just to power a rack of small AA batteries or something like that.

All thats needed is some commercial thinking on this really - a Wind version of the Solar Eddi or something like that. To be honest a commerical solution to just plug a wind turbine into a solar array should be possible somehow.

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120397961#Comment_120397961

Unfortunately it's a little more difficult than it would appear on the surface. Most wind turbines are AC, while solar panels are DC based. Sure, you can get a bridge rectifier to do the AC->DC conversion easy enough, and plug that into an inverter but the power profiles of your typical solar panels are also different. MPPT usually needing 100-120v to come alive.

That said, there's a lot of good (relatively cheap) wind controllers out there that you can plug your turbine into, along with a battery and "dump load" and away you go :-)

samdeluxjones

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120397090#Comment_120397090

Yup, that's what it's looking like..

Mr Q

These used to pop up on ebay regular enough for solar and I had one at some stage. But they also made a wind version.

This would interest me as it does away with a dump load and I could let my current Sofar charge the batteries.

But they are rated at 65 to 120 volt DC for full power. So probably need a 96v turbine.

The solar one just plugged unto the grid and had the 2 DC cables connected, that was it.

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120399979#Comment_120399979

You can fairly easily modify them to become like the dedicated wind version. I had two of them myself. One bought for £80, the other for £50, including shipping. Those were the days 😁

samdeluxjones

She struck 40kWh today, that's 49 in total since 3rd March..

championc

@samdeluxjones Did you say that output was ultimately better at medium wind strength ? I believe I saw / read previously that 5 blades are better in lower winds than 3's

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120412611#Comment_120412611

Class. My 5kWp of panels produced a meagre 88kWh in Dec. So 50 from one turbine is a great supplement on times of the year with low solar output.

THE ALM

Good going and as said a great supplement through the dark months.

Looking at this as an option as we have the room.

bullit_dodger

Yeah love the fact that people can see usable power generated there. It's worth noting though that in terms of ROI, it's questionable. 50 units a month at a nominal €0.30/unit is €15. Naturally the summer months you'd be less likely to get that 50kwh also. Overall you'd be looking at 10 maybe 15 year for break even. Not sure what the life expectancy of those turbines is? Anything with moving parts will have bearings etc and they wear.

Personally I wouldn't let that phase me. You'd be doing your bit for environment - and it's a fun project.

samdeluxjones

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120414125#Comment_120414125

Yes I have noticed that they generate the same in steady 5-8m/s as they do in 10/13m/s which is normally more gusty.

It's 5-8m/s now and they are doing steady 450-550W. The really high winds may drive it up to 600W.

The 3 blade will take more wind to start up and spin harder in high winds.

samdeluxjones

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120414588#Comment_120414588

Exactly, that's the whole point. I was sitting here last year with shag all solar looking out the windows at the wind howling thinking isn't it a shame that that wind ain't making me a few quid and now it is.

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120415380#Comment_120415380

Those aren't that high wind speeds and 450-550w should probably cover the base loads for most too 👍️

Nelbert

5 - 8 m/s is a fairly light breeze no (I struggle to convert wind speed on weather reports to what I expect to "feel"?

Covering base load with that sort of low speed is fantastic.

con747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120424766#Comment_120424766

Here's an idea of the strength of 5-8 m/s

unkel

Except it doesn't show m/s in that table 😂

For reference 10m/s = 36km/h. So 5-8m/s = 18-29km/h

From a youth spent windsurfing I can tell pretty accurately from feel and the look of open water alone what Beaufort number the wind is. Although I need a table like to translate it to wind speed in knots / mph / km/h / m/s etc.

samdeluxjones

Yea m/s was new to me too but weather station and turbine speeds rated in it so had to go with it.

March total minus first 3 days is 56kWh. Counter is reset for April.

My solar is 6kW and the turbine is 2kW if I had another 2 turbines to bring it up to 6kW it would almost equal solar in most of Nov-Dec-Jan and most of Feb.

the_amazing_raisin

I was reading up on kite based wind turbines a few days ago

https://www.esa.int/Applications/Technology_Transfer/Harvest_electricity_from_the_wind_by_kites

It would be great to see something like this available as a small kit you could put in a field somewhere

There's a lot of promises being made, but several companies are at prototype stage and it seems to solve the problem of small scale wind turbines in that the kite flies higher and gets decent airflow

If you could get a 2kW one with reasonable capacity factor of 30-35% then that would cover your base load and enough to charge batteries

Combined with solar and seems like the ideal mix

I'd love to put something like this in my house, but I suspect a 200m high flying kite in a housing estate probably breaks some planning laws

Even if it passed, the airport a couple of kilometres away would definitely have some objections. Poor Michael O'Leary might have a heart attack at Ryanair flights being grounded because of a kite 😅

Dave_D_Rave

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120360858#Comment_120360858

Why you going to ECoWitt ? Any advatages over each model ?

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120429071#Comment_120429071

"This is wind energy 2.0"

Yeah, I believe it when I see it. That clip is 6 years old and we've heard no more about it. I don't want to be negative here, but that sounds to me like another great idea that didn't really work out (commercially)

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120429210#Comment_120429210

Yeah I'm certainly not gonna be investing anytime soon

There's was another company that's further along, but can't remember the name

I agree it's probably not gonna compete at scale with large turbines. That's why I was thinking the micro wind market would be an easier one to go after, could have a pretty simple ground mounted kit that you just chuck in a bit of open space, maybe near some ground mounted PV and you've got a nice all weather renewables generator

Okay, except cloudy and calm weather, but most other cases 😁

I suspect the main sticking point would be the controller to keep the kite flying without crashing. I'll bet that whatever companies are working on it are using some proprietary solution which would make it too expensive for small scale

unkel

And you didn't even mention the self landing when it realises the wind is down 😂

Pie in the sky? Kite in the sky?

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120429276#Comment_120429276

Well they do say any landing you can walk away from is a good one

Walking away from a crashed kite is pretty easy 😂

Ginger83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120364888#Comment_120364888

Are you grid tied or off grid with this?

idc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120429122#Comment_120429122

The bresser had been not been working properly for months - some sensors worked and others never changed for weeks if didn't notice. I just googled different weather stations and figured would try EcoWitt - is better than bresser version i had - 5 in 1 wherea EcoWitt is 7 in 1. Also ecotwitt can connect to existing temperature monitors i had in my house.