Affordable DIY Wind Turbines- Produce your own affordable electricity

xonencentral

Hi,

Answered a couple of threads on the above subject and got a private email to start a thread and to answer questions on the subject so I will. My friend has just installed 2 micro wind turbines to run his house Lights, garden lights, TV, dvd, stereo's central heating, garden shed, garage, security lights, etc and he has completed 6 month's of research on suppliers, the technology, costs, government agencies, etc and I will relay this information and advice as he received through this forum if anybody is interested.

There are loads of pitfalls and things which people should be aware of, so ask away and I'll see what value I can bring to the discussion.

P.S. He is thrilled with the outcome he had but it took alot of work and there is no information or guidance available on this subject anywhere which needs to change and his first follow-on ESB bill was only €41 all in.

KdjaCL

Any pics of equipment needed ?

or links to it ?


kdjac

or where to get them cheaply and reliably?

zod

How much did it cost ? more info please

Webmonkey

Would be very interested in this for a Wireless Project. Please send more info

xonencentral

This can be quite comprehensive so I try and start the conversation:

My friend settled on an Irish Product which has been modelled on the commercial wind turbines but has been packed into a DIY self install system which was basically also the cheapest as it turned out, the company is Surface Power Technologies and their site is www.surfacepower.com

He has installed 2 x 500 watt microturbines and they cost him €1,400 plus VAT a piece, are fully automatic microprocessor, quiet, CE marked, and look the business.

They are off-grid systems, this is important in Ireland.

There are 2 long established dealers in ireland and a couple of manufacturers in the UK which he researched in great detail, (if you ask me a difficult question, I might be delayed in rerfering to hime, just a note). The prices for one of these systems from the Irish dealers was approx 8-12 K, yes, thousands of euros, plus VAT, plus installations and if no installation, no warranty. You also have to take them down in a storm.
The UK systems were similar in price, 7K plus VAT, etc.

Does this help so far ?

xonencentral

Meant to mention as well, that the clincher was that Surface Power were the only supplier who didn't insist on a professional recommended installer to fit the product, one quote was 18 THOUSAND EUROS plus accomodation.

"The lunatics running the asylum, no wonder there are no micro turbines"

Surface Power nearly insisted on a DIY approach "cost saving" and provided a full 2 year warranty to boot with a purchase price as low as a decent lawnmower.

Webmonkey

Very Interesting. Might get myself one of these but must raise a bit of cash first. Pity i'll only be running a few wireless acess points off it, all that energy wasted

xonencentral

Built in electromagnetic braking system "same as big windfarm systems", system safe up to 130 mph. Perfect for Ireland which was important as you have to take down wind turbines in Ireland if they don't have a braking system.

A turbine can also have a furling system which means it diverts out of the wind when it gets to quick, thats about as usefull in Ireland as an umbrella with holes in it. It generally means it dosent work over 60 mph which is not that windy.

www.surfacepower.com is the website

xonencentral

They also do finance in Ireland, not sure how much but I remember it was less than 50 euros a month.

Webmonkey

ahhhh finance, excellent but will probably require a full time job to be considered :S

stiofanD

This looks like a fascinating and affordable way of saving money, but I'm confused as to whether the generator can power more than one appliance. The website seems to indicate that the system terminates in a 3-pin socket, which is powered by the generator. I'd imagine it'd be a lot more useful if the generator could feed into all the sockets in a house.

xonencentral

Had a word with my mate, he says that the fact that it ends in a socket is health and safety issue to satisfy the DIY market. If it didn't end in a socket, you would have to get an electrician or specialist in to install the system. He himself has connected his 2 controllers into the lights and sockets supplying the Tv's, fridge, room lights, outside lights, etc.

He dosen't use ESB at all on those systems.

xonencentral

Got my surfacepower turbine last weekend, started installing Friday evening, had it completely installed by Saturday afternoon, and guess what, Storms on Saturday night and it didn't even budge, just chugged away producing electricity. Great instructions and its chugging away.

Its been so sunny and calm for the last few days but my turbine is running at about 75-80% effieciency even while we having beers beside it. I have installed it also 15 ft from my bedroom window (it was the most suitable out of the way location)and its completely silent even when belting away at full speed. I had to buy the mounting kit locally, it uses a standard 7-8 metre scafolding pole, aerial ties and clips, galvanised anchor bolts from the local Co-op store and the whole bill was only 66 euros complete.

I even plugged my drill into the control system to drill the holes. this was easy. I'll update when I get some info on what I am permanently powering with it (its still my new toy for a while yet or until the wife gives me grief) but I have already tested it with extension leads on my large TV, portable TV, several softtone CFL's (100w equivilants), phone chargers all at the same time and it powered the lot. Electrician said integration through timed contactors into my fuse board was straight forward.

The feeling of producing your own free electricity is such a rush. I can't wait to install a crap load of gardens lights as well.

So far, it has exceeded my expectations but I'll update its benefit as i get my next electricity bill. Its the best 1695 euros (plus battery and mounting) that I've ever spent and especially after the quotes for wind systems I got already (Proven 600 - 10,418 plus installation).

Important Note: A planning officer told me that any wind turbine with a blade span over 2 metres would be problematic for planning approval in domestic locations. He said my 1.4m blade span was a no-brainer.

*(&^@$ the ESB, ya boy ya, bring on the powercuts.

Webmonkey

Sweet, will get myself one of these in the future. I can't believe it can power that many applicances same time. Thats outstanding

Bill2

Any idea if this system could power a GSHP and assocoated equipment... this could mean free heating..!!

xonencentral

I would be interested to learn more about that potential, I haven't the first idea about GSHP's but I know it has something to do with refrigerant and pressure changes given temp and its a pumped circuit, but I have heard that it's cost savings are easily consumed by it's overuse, i.e. people only get more heat rather than lower bills (in practice)!

My Surface Power system has 2 x 230 Ah battery's totalling 460 ah at full charge. (that's equivilant to 5.5 KW's for 1 hour or 1.1 Kw's for 5 hours)

What power would a GHSP use, is it on all the time ?, I can do the maths on the wind energy side if some body can tell me how a GSHP works (in simple english please). how often does it switch on, how much power does it draw when it switches on, etc, etc.

shanea

Simple answer is no.

Even a 6 Kw output heat pump one of the smallest o the market, would be pulling up to 2 Kw at High temp. and would require up to 58 amps just to start the unit.

Most houses average at a 12Kw output requiring up to 100amp kick start.

underfloor heating systems could be running for up to 12 Hours.

xonencentral

What is the benefit of using GSHP if the elctricity cost is so high? Is it that you don't need heating oil?

Bill2

OK.. could wind generated power be used to heat water in a tank and heat radiators, thus cutting down the need for conventional heating to be used as much..

CJhaughey

I see that the UK/NI Vat rate is only 5% for these.
a saving of 16% over the Republic's full 21% rate of tax.
Any possibility of a grant in NI for these?

Capt'n Midnight

Bill2 wrote:

OK.. could wind generated power be used to heat water in a tank and heat radiators, thus cutting down the need for conventional heating to be used as much..

Not really - you need lots of power.
Water has the highest specific heat capacity of any common substance. 4200 J/Kg
1000watts would take 42 seconds to raise the temperature of a litre by 10 degrees. Hours to get enough for a bath. (kettles are usually 2-2.5KW)

It would probably be cheaper to invest in insulation for the house to keep in the heat generated by humans and electical appliances etc. - conservatory / greenhouse effect and black paint would be even better.

Nordic

Having posted on revious forums about heat pumps and wind turbines, since we distribute heat pumps I decided to get the best deals I could for our customers when buying with a heat pump:
2kW turbine incl 8m tower, 2kW inverter, stay cables, elec cabling, controller etc, excl batteries: Eur2,700 + VAT.

xonencentral

You can buy a 300 Watt 12 Volt emersion tank element in the states for about $30, don't forget to add duty and VAT onto the total. Still cheap.
Try the RV and Motorhome stores.

Interested to know where you can get a 2KW wind turbine solution for EUR2,700 plus VAT.

Update from SEI, In the near future we should be able to grid-tie with our ESB supply once a standard comes in here which is the equivilant standard of the UK's G8, but be warned, you must submit your turbines manufacturers CE approvals with the application form before you'll be allowed connect it. Only CE certified turbines can be sold in the EU legally.

Nordic

The manufacturer is selling them themselves in the UK at GBP2,500 + VAT (Eur3,700 + VAT). Buy from them! Not offering anymore. Thank Gandalf and Keeks for you now having to pay full price.

Grid tie:
In reality the number of houses that will have a home turbine and be producing more than they are actually using with normal winds, are few and far between.

Having monitored my own "windy site" for a number of weeks now, my average wind speed is showing as 3.2m/s and we had some stormy weather during that time too. As I look at it now it's currently fluctuating between 1.5m/s & 4.8m/s. Grid tie is pretty much irrelevant for most consumers, since even a 2kW turbine with a wind speed of 5m/s is only producing 700W. There's no magic wand - if you only have a 500W turbine you'll only be producing 1/4 accordingly - 125W or so. This 2kW turbine has an 8m tower and a 3m diamter turbine. There's no comparison between a surfacepower unit and one of these, so don't get too bogged down in thinking you'll sell to the ESB. All your turbine will do is reduce the amount you buy from them.
You're far better off taking your lighting circuits and maybe one or two light use power circuits (like an office) and supplying them through their own changeover switch and choose either ESB or wind. If the wind is low for a while, switch to ESB and let the low wind trickle charge your batteries for later.

xonencentral

I think its important to remember that whilst your are banking your wind power all day, you don't draw from it all day.

My Surfacepower unit has allowed me to draw full power (500 Watts) every evening until we go to bed since I installed it. I come home every day and the battery bank is fully charged, even on sunny calm afternoon's my turbine is silently chugging away.

So for me, I have a 500 Watt supply which is great because I have a small, silent and un-noticable wind turbine in my garden.

My local planning officer told me that they wouldn't approve a blade span over 2 metres or if the turbine was visible from the front of the property.
I satisfy both of these, thankfully.
This is really unexplored territory in Ireland. I just hope it isn't a rocky road.

The advantage I would have with grid-tieing is I could connect straight into my fuseboard and not worry about having enough power from my inverter to run high power items or switch overs, etc.

Info from Surface Power lately is that I can upgrade my current system with a grid-tie adapter and still have backup and storage. This would be the best solution for a domestic environment for me. It's an add-on available to UK/NI customers at the moment as its only legal over there.

The future is with lower energy technologies for heating, hot water, etc. we have a long way to go yet.

Just got my copy of The Local Planet, you might have heard Duncan advertising it, really puts the story together on the future of oil and renewable energy products, very up to date on technologies in development and the only one thats around today that gets a long-term mention is wind power.

With regards Capt Midnights comments on heating water, he is right, I think there are few if any low energy solutions to heating water but a viable way of heating water with wind would be to try and get a situation where you are primarally maintaining your temperature which wouldn't use a lot of power. It might take a while to get it up to temperature but once your there, you just need to keep boosting it and never let it drop.

Capt'n Midnight

xonencentral wrote:

You can buy a 300 Watt 12 Volt emersion tank element in the states for about $30, don't forget to add duty and VAT onto the total. Still cheap.

Normal imersions like in your hot water tank have about 10 times the heating power that that would have eg: 2.7KW - http://www.plumbworld.co.uk/95-0000

To heat water using wind power you would use ever trick in the book geothermal / heat pump / solar to get the water as warm as possible first before using electricity to boost it from tepid to hot.

Nordic

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Normal imersions like in your hot water tank have about 10 times the heating power that that would have eg: 2.7KW - http://www.plumbworld.co.uk/95-0000

To heat water using wind power you would use ever trick in the book geothermal / heat pump / solar to get the water as warm as possible first before using electricity to boost it from tepid to hot.

Absolutely Agree. Capt.
Use wind for low wattage items like lights unless you have a monster turbine and windy site. I just came across a print of the surface power brochure - "turbine in a box" Don't expect the same performance as a bigger turbine - it just won't happen. Maths is maths and facts are facts - and no matter how many times it's said you can't make something out of nothing.

xonencentral

Don't expect the same performance as a bigger turbine - it just won't happen.
"Isn't that just an obvious statement?" Something bigger will produce more than something smaller?"

There is nothing like the practical example:

I have my surfacepower system running my lights, tv's, chargers, central heating, etc for the last 2 weeks of my ESB bill just received and my Bill has dropped from an average of EUR138 last bill to EUR 107 this bill.

Can't wait to see my next bill when I will have had the turbine running for the full 2 months of my next bill.

The proof is in the pudding......

*The truth is more important than the facts. Frank Lloyd Wright

*Facts and truth really don't have much to do with each other. William Faulkner

Nordic

xonencentral wrote:

Don't expect the same performance as a bigger turbine - it just won't happen.
"Isn't that just an obvious statement?" Something bigger will produce more than something smaller?"

There is nothing like the practical example:

I have my surfacepower system running my lights, tv's, chargers, central heating, etc for the last 2 weeks of my ESB bill just received and my Bill has dropped from an average of EUR138 last bill to EUR 107 this bill.

Can't wait to see my next bill when I will have had the turbine running for the full 2 months of my next bill.

The proof is in the pudding......

*The truth is more important than the facts. Frank Lloyd Wright

*Facts and truth really don't have much to do with each other. William Faulkner

xonencentral
Here's the truth, the facts and the maths.

Everyone can read and understand this and make their own mind up whether it's the truth, whether it's the facts and whether it's the maths.

500w = 0.5kW x 24h = 12kWh of electricity is all your surfacepower unit could produce in 24hrs AT FULL CAPACITY (That's 12.5m/s wind speed sustained, without dropping below 12.5m/s). If you had a sustained 12.5m/s wind for a full "2 weeks" it would produce a total of 12kWh x 14 = 168kWh x 12.2c/kWh (ESB rate) = Eur20.49 worth saving of electricity. And that's allow you full rate on ESB against it - not allow a night rate meter!

Given that yours appears to have dropped your bill by Eur31 that's 150% of the absolute maximum capacity of your turbine, either you've become more concious of your use of electricity or ....something is making you promote the surfacepower unit beyond it's capability now!!???!!!

As I said maths are maths and facts are facts, and you certainly didn't have a sustained 12.5m/s over the two weeks. My anenometer has logged one peak gust at 12.2m/s over the last 3 weeks, average 3.5m/s, and I have a clear view for 25miles from my hilltop site.

xonencentral

Hi Nordic,

Again, your assumptions need adjusting.

By taking the money I took out of my wallet to pay my bill and dividing it by the number of units I received is a long way from the base rate of a unit which you are using. (If only life was so simple)

An ESB bill includes a PSO % Levy, standing charges and the dreaded VAT.

Doing simple (money I paid) divided by (units consumed) = around 18c per unit on that particular bill.

That is the REAL cost of a unit of electricity in my house.

wind man

Guys,

I can't stay on the sidelines any longer. I even had to register to make this input. I am a Senior Power Engineer with a known Irish company.

My employer might not be too apprieciative of my putting this information here but here goes anyhow.

Read the following:

I was tasked with a project late last year by my employer; its purpose was to evaluate the commercial dangers of people generating their own micro wind energy in a domestic environment, (such as is taking other countries by storm at the moment). [They are worried about their income falling due to people generating their own electricity]. A midland county household was selected. (I think it was a midland county to try to get the results lower) The project involved installing a new 500 Watt off-grid micro-turbine solution a week before the new billing period without giving the family any training on any aspect of it except the manuals. We would then review the change in their electricty usage and the bill at the end of the new period. My employer could then publish the results to highlight how there wasn't any real benefit to producing your own electricity, (or so they thought) Read the results and draw your own conclusions, I have scanned the bill to show you the results.

Primary conclusions drawn from the study:
a) The family had become very aware of the electrical products in their house and had started to become more effiecient (lowering waste) in their use of electricity.
b) They were successfully exploiting the power created in the turbine system.
c) They could (without any reference) guesstimate the power usage of most products in their house.
d) They were very proud of the fact they were helping the environment, saving money, etc.
e) They had started composting and recycling as well.
f) None of their neighbours had any negative responses in their submissions.

and finally, the one no one expected to be as significant as it was, including me:
g) The final electricity bill had dropped by EUR 80 in its first billing period.

Bill is attached, draw your own conclusions. Suffice to say, I don't think any of this will get published.

P.S. The science of wind energy production is a very complicated science, forget weather charts, theoretical calculations, etc. Averages are very mis-leading in this game. Ireland and Scotland are the 2 windiest countries in the EU and up to 4 times higher than some countries where home-brew energy is rampant at the moment.

CJhaughey

Amazing stuff Wind man! You have no doubt stoked the mental fires of paranoid conspiracy theorists everywhere;)
On a more serious note, I wonder if the Govt/Esb will try and discourage this kind of micropower generation?
I know that I intend on fitting two of these turbines as soon as I am able to get my house built.
One thing, I read an article recently in the Guardian newspaper whch claimed that meters could run backwards, and went on to say that: So simple have the devices become that some can simply by joined to the mains electricity supply using a standard 13amp plug - and to the annoyance of the electricity supply industry, if you produce more power than you can use when out at work or asleep, it turns your meter backwards as it supplies the neighbourhood.

Although this is strictly illegal, because if you are to export electricity to the grid you are supposed to meter it, and get paid less for it than the electricity you buy from the normal supplier, the conference was told there are about 10m meters in Britain that run backwards automatically when excess electricity is fed into a house main's supply.

I wonder if this is possible here?

wind man

Thankfully, off-grid home brew energy production is in the power of everybody to create, planning is the only issue and your neighbours so no real problems with hydro or solar but you need to be 100% sure your wind turbine is small enough in blade diameter to get planning and is silent in operation. They can be as noisy as an airplane engine so they must have an electronic braking system in a domestic situation, always go and see one in operation somewhere to hear the noise before you buy, if you buy the wrong one, one complaint and you have to take it down for noise pollution reasons. (councils control that as well)

I'm afraid the meter issue is one of those "Urban Myths". I'm wondering if there is a lot of old meters in the UK and that's what they are refering to.

Standard Electricity meters in the UK/Ireland (for a long time) have a "reverse locking" mechanism which means they can only travel in one direction and that's the direction which charges the customer money. If you use one of these (now legalised in UK by Govt) grid-tieing turbine solutions (lots available), you will get no benefit unless you are using power so it actually encourages you to use electricity and hence easy to see why the utilities and Govt approved it.

In the USA, meters are bi-directional although this is very much subject to different states but I know it is happening over there, again this is a legacy meter issue, tech term is net-metering. Don't hold your breath, USA has a privatised utility industry since day one, we do not and you won't see it in here in my lifetime, I'm sure. Special 2 way single meter technology is now available but don't expect to see any of our utilities advertising that fact.

I think rather we'll have an Irish solution to an Irish problem which of course will be another famous "idiotic compromise" of some sort, which only serves vested interests. Being on the inside and seeing the frustrations and blocking moves on change, my suggestion is for people to take their energy supply into their own hands because it will be a long time before utilities will agree to the changes which are required in Ireland, if ever. In Demark, the ordinary people produce 70% of the countries wind production and it is this fact which is giving the utilities heart-attacks at the moment.

I'd love to go further in my comments but I'm cutting it close to the line given my employment.

lomb

I DOUBT any of it is economically viable. even if u saved 300 euro a year on it, the write down for equipment like that is 5 years and 5% interest.+maintainence/sink fund.
of course there are side effects but lets not kid ourselves, no one is going to save the environment when the human population is spiralling out of control.
so these sideeffects are false ones essentially.

wind man

I think the educational piece from governments is quite poor to the people on the ground, we (as joe public) always find out things to late.

The changes which will be fundemental and are driving all the green energy change aren't even environmental.

Oil at ground level will run out in 10 years, and they will have to go deeper to get it, Oil will rise considerably in price (so will replacements like green energy)

Transport will be probably running on hydrogen/electric but the big worry is for things like plastic, shampoo's, tyres, and thousands of other items which we use oil derivitives to make. The US economy could crash and this is the reason some experts are saying the US went into Iraq.

Oil has a benefit factor of 30. If we use one barrel of oil to harvest oil, we get 30 barrels back.

Evidence in California shows that problem situations such as power cuts are going to become more common worldwide as power companies went bust last year because of oil prices increases and the regulator had fixed their income. (In some parts of the US, petrol prices are now 3 times what they were 2 years ago.) Imagine that here, its on the way.

I think if you look at the whole complex issue including the econmists predicting a standard barrel of oil going to $250 as it will run out over the next 10 years, the people who sit back on green energy until oil becomes a big problem will be the ones whose wallet is lightened the most in the long run.

ESB decided last week to put another oil cost increase onto everyones bills later this year. This is a worldwide issue and my advice to people who want to move to green energy is to start small, learn and grow it every year. This is the cheapest way to get into it.

70% of the ESB cost base is fuel, so you can work out quite easily which way your home electricity bills are going.

air

Just a word of warning to anyone that is considering a home wind installation.
If you are wiring up your house with 220v ac from your inverter, ensure that it is on a completely circuit from those powered by your incoming ESB supply.
The reason being is that if you power up your inverter & have it connected to the grid you could:
1. Blow your inverter if it doesnt correctly synch with the incoming power.
2. Kill an ESB linesman who thinks he has isolated the supply to your house only to be backfed from your house.

air

Oh and xonencentral do you mind me asking what the make / model / size / source / price of your battery bank was/is?
Also how deeply do you discharge it & how many cycles is it rated for?

CJhaughey

air wrote:

2. Kill an ESB linesman who thinks he has isolated the supply to your house only to be backfed from your house.

How can this happen if the system is off grid?
I am not sure but wouldn't the system have to be feeding Juice back into the grid for this to happen?

air

Of course, but I was referring to dual supply situations such as xonencentral's which are not off grid.

xonencentral

I'm kinda confused, my system is an off-grid system so it can't connect to the ESB. I have dual circuits but they can't cross connect, simple 2 way auto-contactor (EUR 68), seperate trip box beside my original (EUR 19), hey presto, no rocket science. [So far, my contactor has never switched back to ESB]

I got my battery from Surface Power, new carbon fibre technology, they only started doing them when I got mine, its 220 ah and will discharge to completely flat and recharge with no loss of performance. Its also guaranteed for 5 years. I check my voltage all the time but I'm away all day and only using it when I come home, I'm not even putting it under any pressure. Serious battery though, weighs 50 KG's, looks the business. They did me a deal with the turbine EUR 350 but I'm not sure what the normal price is. I priced a Saft battery and it was 2 Grand ?

P.S. I think if somebody was dumb enough to connect an off-grid inverter to the ESB, they would have more problems in life than a blown inverter.

Surface Power gave me unlimited email support to the techies which I used every time I wasn't sure about something, they even talk english, simple easy to understand and they were a great help to me. Most of it is in the manual but I was too exicted to read the manual. I'm not thick but I'm not an electrician, only had to get my electrician out to terminate, took him 30 mins and he was gone.

I've put a sticker on my ESB meter box, which reads,
Mister Meter Man, I know its not your fault your employers have been screwing me since time began, but I'm going green and I ain't coming back.

air

Apologies, I got the impression that you were just powering a section of your home from the battery bank.

xonencentral wrote:

I've put a sticker on my ESB meter box, which reads,
Mister Meter Man, I know its not your fault your employers have been screwing me since time began, but I'm going green and I ain't coming back.

LOL @ this bit!

On the battery thing, I'm pretty knowledgeable on battery technology of various chemistries & although your battery sounds promising, the primary factors that effect battery life are depth of discharge and rate of discharge.
It is usually preferable to oversize your battery bank such that you rarely discharge the bank too deeply (even in the case of proper deep cycle batteries, which I assume yours is).
Just something to keep in mind.
Lead acid batteries if sized and maintained correctly in a well designed installation often last far longer than 20 years.

I'm curious as to what exactly you are running off the system.
With a 220AH 12V battery you could theoretically run a 2.6kw load for an hour before the battery would be exhausted if the day was calm.
2.6kw is just a bit more than a kettle.
EDIT: I see on the first page that you have two of the batts in parallel, meaning you could power the above load for twice as long.
You mention central heating as part of your load, I assume you just mean the timers etc for an oil / gas heating system?

yop

Did anyone ever invest in the WindSave unit? Any opinions if you did?

xonencentral

Hi, I haven't connected my second battery yet, need to secure the install before I put the 2 of them outside, i'm building a little block store.

I might have jumped the gun with 2 battery's as the one is doing the job so far, although the 2 will give me longer life as it will halve the depth of discharge. Its a new deep cycle technology battery. Its max voltage is 12.8 volts according to the manual and I measured it last night going to bed and it was at 12.6 volts (around 95%), so no real pressure last night, nice breeze yesterday evening. (10.4 is fully discharged)

Basically, I run all my low wattage stuff, computer, tv's (2), CFl's lights inside (14, not all on at once), Garden lights, (6W CFL) (12), outside shed and sockets (drill, grinder, lights, etc), satelite, DVD, central heating pump/timer (important for power cuts) and I have 3 outside waterproof sockets so I can use my laptop, electric lawnmower, hedge trimmer outside when I need them.

My day starts like most i'm sure with everybody leaving the house at 9am, everybody back at 6pm and then we use power until we go to bed. We now have 3 x 150 Watt security lights on PIR sensor so once we go to bed so phone chargers, radio/clocks are the only use. I need approx 125 watts from my wind turbine over a 24 hour period on average to deliver this which I am obviously getting fairly easily and it has been beautiful weather (can't wait for winter).

Top tip: In our house, we used to buy battery's for the kids bicycle lights, sky remote, tv remote, dvd remote, plasma remote, portable remote, 5 clocks, 3 walkmans, shower radio, large flashlight, YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE HOW MUCH WE SPENT ON BATTERY'S, WOW. We now have charger packs from Argos plugged in to our green power all the time and everyone just swaps battery's as they need them. This has saved us a fortune.

It's really about back/up and storage, thats the key, it dosen't matter whether there is wind or not. I don't run many heavy items in the house, in fact the only one I can think of is the kettle a few times in the evening on ESB, cooker/fridge on ESB and heating is OIL and I got rid of the electric showers. I have ordered a solar panal as I got a built in controller with my wind turbine and I might put a heavier inverter onto the system to do the short kettle stuff as well at that stage.

I haven't had this much fun in years and she can't give out as I'm saving money but she will probably spend it on clothes anyway but as long as I'm happy with my new toy, I don't care.

air

Sounds great, making some prudent energy saving decisions makes a renewable energy project much more viable.
I'm just short a sheet of aluminium before I start construction on a home made solar panel myself. I bought bare cells off ebay & have some detail on how to construct the panel (cells are ultra fragile).
Hopefully I should end up with a 68W panel and charge controller for about 100euro all in.
It'll take a few hours to construct but it's all a hobby to me.

You'll definitely be better off with the second battery in parallel, it will give you greater peak capacity for short term high draw loads (like a kettle for example).
I would imagine that you will probably get more than twice the life out of your parallel combination than a single battery.

What make & model is the inverter you are running? I presume its a full sine wave inverter with integrated charge controller etc?

xonencentral

The inverter is a combined inverter/solar/wind controller, charge controller with automatic microprocessor control, battery monitoring, protection, lighting protection, etc, etc, etc all in one box.

Its a Surface Power Unit, came with my surfacepower wind turbine.

basically it means "me" (as a dumbass) just plugs everything into it according to the manual, (not really rocket science) and it does the rest all automatically. Thats seems to be the case so far so can't complain.

Interested to hear more on your solar panel project, I'm just starting a rain harvesting project as well to run off my wind turbine (fill my tanks at night, etc), will post info when i get stuck into it. My water charges are going up as well.

air

I bought cells from this supplier http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3240&item=5975592007

They cost me $67 including shipping for enough for a 68W panel.
There's links on the page on how to construct the panel.
They arrived in very good condition with only some minor chipping around the edges.
I bought a suitable charge controller for about 30 euro off ebay also.

Capt'n Midnight

That not bad $1 / watt - and solar is silent - great for off line use and they should complement wind nicely.

http://www.irelandstory.com/maps/island_sunshine.gif map of sunshine hours

ESB costs about 10-18c per 1000watt hours depending on how you factor in standing charge etc. You also have to factor in up to 60% losses from charge/discharge of batteries when it's dark or if you are out of the house during daylight hours in winter. Minimising electricity use would be cheaper than buying more panels but every little helps.

air

That map is useful and is bang on with my assumption of circa 4hrs per day average.
To be honest if the panel is a success & I could manage to find a large volume source for the cells at that price I'd probably just keep making them at my ease untill I had about 1.5 to 2kw worth of them.
I would reckon that marrying a 1kw or so wind turbine to the same battery bank would produce plenty of power for an energy efficient home in this country.

Payback wouldnt bee too bad on a home made solar system made from these cells (circa 4yrs on the cells themselves) and I've seen test data on 20+ year old photovoltaics which showed their performance had increased slightly with age.

xonencentral

Air,

I agree with your philosophy, its what I am doing, going to add a bit every year, a panel here and there, a battery here and there, and then the improvement in energy usage, lower appliance wattages, etc. Some day I'll be self-sufficient and I won't have noticed any cost in doing so.

air

If you want to go totally off grid the coolest thing I've seen lately is a guy in the UK that is running a single cylinder stationary diesel engine on waste vegetable oil.
He drives a generator with the engine to produce electricity and recovers the heat produced by the engine (engines waste something like 60% of your fuel energy as heat) with a heat exchanger for heating hot water and / or his house.
What you get is basically a home CHP plant:
http://www.green-trust.org/wiki/index.php?title=Green-Trust_Heat_%26_Power_System