Affordable DIY Wind Turbines- Produce your own affordable electricity

jobrok1

Gurgle wrote:

Whats the deal with Surface Power anyway?

According to the blurb on the Sustainable Ireland website (Not to be confused with SEI)here:



But they don't appear either on the SEI's registered products/manufacturers list or the installers list for solar panels.

And their website is dead as a doornail atm.

Do they actually manufacture their own stuff?
Do they trade under another name?

When I enquired about their Solar Water Heaters and asked about the grant,
they told me that they did not register with SEI as they didn't agree with how the Greener Homes Grant was being given out.
They are of the mind that most other installers and suppliers are simply hicking up their prices to cash in on the grant! That the customer isn't getting the full benefit of the grant. Or something to that effect.

But it probably won't be long before SP fall in line too, when they realise how many potential customers thay could have.
The average Joe Soap is more inclined to go with someone who is registered for the grant, thinking they'll get some money back.

2 stroke

"Do they actually manufacture their own stuff?"

As far as I could figure out the only thing they actualy manufacture is verbal manure, I almost gave this crowd 5 grand.

WOWFACTOR

Mothman wrote:

Here is a post I made in the Alternative Heating - Grants thread on 6th April. Things haven't changed!



It annoys (understatement) the misrepresentations made by Surfacepower on their website and in their brochure. That aside this product IMO sets a new benchmark in payback period and I think is an option for far more people in this country compared to other wind generators.

CJhaughey asked for facts, here are plenty of facts to chew on.

Here are 30 year annual wind speed at the synoptic stations. This is at 10m height except for Malin Head which is at 18m. Data available on Met eireann site http://www.met.ie/climate/30yearaverages.asp





As can be seen minimum mean speed at coastal site is Valentia with 5.6m/s, However some inland sites exceed this but not by much.

I have made up a table on a spreadsheet of how much electricity would be produced by the 560w Surfacepower unit. These won't be exact to nearest KW, but the bottom line, the payback should be reasonably accurate. The Surfacepower unit is made up of a 460w wing generator and 100w PV unit. If anything I've overstated the amount of wind power produce because the figures were calculated with a 500w generator in mind. I've no idea how much units the solar part with produce, but I've made a guesstimate of 150kw/annum. Even if it is 200kw, it'll make little difference to bottom line.

I've made other assumptions, these are a price of €2,000 installed. This is perhaps understating as the cost of batteries, installation and material for installation has to be included. Depends on how much work one does themselves. The current price of electricity at 12.2cent + VAT. The PSO levy stays the same regardless of usage. The price of electricity WILL go up so payback time will fall.





So if you are in a windy inland site, you may have annual speed of 11mph. Payback at current electricity prices is about 15 years, at a price of 16 cent/unit, 13 years and 20 cent/unit 10 years.

if you are at a site like the vast majority of us, then 9-10mph is more like it. Payabck is well in excess of 15 years and possibly 20+.

None of this takes account of maintenance cost, possible battery replacement. No mention of service life, but often this is about 30 years with wind generators.

I'm not involved in wind industry, but I really wanted a wind gennie but I've been recording the wind as part of my weather station since 1999 and my mean windspeed for that period is under 8mph. http://www.iol.ie/~wicklowweather/Monthlywind.htm

I do have solar panels for water heating though, again a potentionally long payback period depending on what fuel you are replacing.

Note that all wind speed figures are for 10m above ground. If you are siting gennie lower than that then wind speed will will be lower.

So my advice would be if you are in coastal areas, or well exposed inland areas, then this unit has got to be worth considering, otherwise I think doubtful from a payback point of view. I've ignored other reasons other than payback and the fact that by getting a unit, one becomes more concious of energy use and so consumption reduces as well.

Please point out any glaring inaccurracies (apart from spelling ) and I'll amend it.

Hi Mothman

You're absoutely spot on. I'm highly impressed with the detail and curious to know where your interest has developed from? If you're ever looking for work, send me an e-mail.

Keep up the good work.

Regards

WOWFACTOR
www.wowenergy.ie

Mothman

WOWFACTOR wrote:

Hi Mothman

You're absoutely spot on. I'm highly impressed with the detail and curious to know where your interest has developed from? If you're ever looking for work, send me an e-mail.

Keep up the good work.

Regards

WOWFACTOR
www.wowenergy.ie

Good heavens, you're dragging up the past. This post was done nearly 2 years ago.

My interest probably got developed travelling through Africa. After experiences there, one appreciates what is around them far more with regard to all elements, though especially water. Also it's very easy to see how some aspects of westernisation is awful. I won't say more as it is so off topic.

Except to answer the work question..............you couldn't afford me

GG66

When I enquired about their Solar Water Heaters and asked about the grant,
they told me that they did not register with SEI as they didn't agree with how the Greener Homes Grant was being given out.
They are of the mind that most other installers and suppliers are simply hicking up their prices to cash in on the grant! That the customer isn't getting the full benefit of the grant. Or something to that effect.

Sounds like a lot of rubbish. Why would any business not register if it meant giving their customers some money back? I know nothing about this but IMHO it's hardly a matter of principal.

Nice :rolleyes: use by WowFactor of a 2 year old post to bash a competitor. It would be interesting to see some constructive input instead

Gurgle

GG66 wrote:

Sounds like a lot of rubbish. Why would any business not register if it meant giving their customers some money back? I know nothing about this but IMHO it's hardly a matter of principal.

No, its a matter of quality.
Its the products that are registered, not the supplier.

You can't just register with the SEI - The panels have to be tested and certified under european standards (EN-12975), which is a rigorous testing procedure for durability and thermal performance. They heat them, freeze them, apply internal & external thermal shocks, drop ball-bearings on them, simulate high winds and then run water through them for a couple of weeks.

The test costs about €10k to get done, hardly a major investment to a manufacturer or supplier.

Its no stretch of logic to guess that anyone who isn't registered with the SEI doesn't have the certification because their panels failed the tests.

gizbon

I have the Surfacepower system 6 panels and 2 turbines ,the turbines are due to up on Tuesday with a crane but i am going to hold off and the reason being that i am having the same issue that jobrok1 was having with the buzzing sound from my lights,TV,laptop power pack when i cut over to the green system
when i got it all setup and tried to test i got a smell from my smoke alarms and on contacting Surfacepower was told me that they don't work on the green system,would be no harm to have this type of information on there website.
I thought i was something to do with the way my sparks had done the wiring but i have connected directly into the inverters both 600Watt and 2000watt that i was supplied with and still get the buzzing so cant be wiring in the green board
i did contact Surfacepower and they said to check the earthing for the batteries and the inverter but they are OK
jobrok1 if you are out there did you get this issue sorted
i also had a look at the reply riccol1966 put up and this seems to suggest that its the type of inverter ??
any help or pointers to help me would be great

jobrok1

Hi! Gizbon,

I'm still waiting for my electrician to come back to finish off the changover of circuits to the green board. Typical tradesman! All promises but will keep putting you on the long finger till it suits him. :rolleyes:
But when he was in the last time, about a month ago, he did change over all the lighting circuits which are running off the inverter OK!. Some lights have a slight buzzing sound alright, but most seem to be noise free.
Hopefully he'll come back and finish the job this week or I'll be looking elsewhere.
My plan is to have two change-over switches. One for the lighting circuits and another for the socket circuits. When the batteries start to run down I can just switch over the sockets to the mains and leave the lights on the green system. This should work OK for recharging as the lights will not be used during the day and they don't draw a heavy load anyway. An if needs be I can change over both the lights and sockets.

I'll post here again when I have the system set up completely.
But to be honest! I'm still expecting to have the buzzing with most appliances.
If I do I'll be contacting Surface Power about taking the inverter back.



I finally got the turbine itself up last week.
I've been waiting for weeks for a buddy with a skylift to come along but again, he kept putting it off.
So I had a bit of help from an unexpected source. ESB Networks were setting up a new connection to a new build in the site next door, so I went over and chanced my arm. I asked the lift operator if he would help me out and he said "No problem". He came straight over after finishing next door and had it up in no time. He even left me his number in case I had any trouble with it.

gizbon

thanks for that,i am having more then a little buzzing and after what has happened with the smoke alarms and after reading the link that riccol1966 posted i am not taking any chances
SP called me the start of last week re my issues and have not heard anything back so i will be calling today
How have you setup the option to switch between sockets and lights on your supply
Have you any pictures of your setup would luv to see PM for my email address
Will let you know the outcome of my call later


Thanks

jobrok1

gizbon wrote:

SP called me the start of last week re my issues and have not heard anything back so i will be calling today
Thanks

Same here! I rang them nearly 2 weeks ago and left a message. Someone rang me back last Tuesday and said they would look into it and get back to me before the day is out, but still haven't heard from them.

gizbon wrote:

How have you setup the option to switch between sockets and lights on your supply
Thanks

An ESB supply is fed to the 2 changeover switches. Likewise with the inverter. One change-over switch then connected to a switchfuse, RCD, and breakers for the sockets. And the other change-over switch is connected to the switchfuse and breakers for the lights.

gizbon wrote:

Have you any pictures of your setup would luv to see
Thanks

My sparky never showed up yesterday. Don't know when I'll be getting it finished. But I'll let you know when! And maybe post a few photos.




One other thing that has me a little worried. All I have running off the SP system at the moment is the lights and my waste water treatment tank pumps. Not a heavy load by any means. Probably 500W at most if all were on together. And at a minimum the continuous load is only about 40-50W.
Anyway! After a week or so, the low voltage alarm goes off on the inverter and I have to disconnect the pumps to allow the batteries to recharge.
A week doesn't really seem like a long time for the batteries to drain. Especially when the turbine and solar panels are charging them at the same time. I know the weather isn't very windy at the moment, but the turbine is spinning away goodoh! and the sun is beating down something savage.

I'm kinda thinking of asking SP to take back the inverter and maybe replace them with a couple more batteries to increase the capacity if the system.
And I'll just go and find a pure sine inverter somewhere else myself.

I'm going to ring them again today too. See what excuse they come up with today.

2 stroke

Xonencentral where are you? or is your system not capable of powering your laptop anymore?

jobrok1

2 stroke wrote:

Xonencentral where are you? or is your system not capable of powering your laptop anymore?

2 stroke

I hear SP are working on a new system.
<snipped>

gizbon

i got my sparks to call SP and they had a chat, he has been away working so he is coming in today just to make sure all is ok my end and then i will be sending the inverters back to SP "so they can test them" all this going around in circles is costing me money and bloody postage
I still think the issue is the type of inverter
True sine wave inverters are the cheaper types of inverters from my understanding and reading on the web you need pure for your house so the power is compatible with everything
I am not going to put up with a buzzing after spending 10,000 and the rest
If changing the inverters solves the problem i will go nuts after all the time wasted with earths and checking them having to move smoke alarms and replace 1 because of the burning smell and months of the system sitting there doing nothing(i hope i have not damaged any other appliance)
jbrok1 i think your issue might be that you cant charge the system quick enough to replace the power u pull adding batteries will allow you to draw for longer but will take longer to charge ?? would this make sense
jbrok1 would like to talk PM me ASAP

2 stroke

keeks, If you have to edit my post please delete it. It was intended to show my disapointment with SP, now it reads like an ad. Do you have an involvment with SP or did you object to my use of the word bul****?

gizbon

2 stroke did you buy a SP system ?

2 stroke

2 stroke did you buy a SP system ?

I almost did. Luckly enough I decided to take a day off work to meet the guy behind the project. 1 day wasted but €5000 still in my pocket.

Dopey

2 stroke wrote:

I almost did. Luckly enough I decided to take a day off work to meet the guy behind the project. 1 day wasted but €5000 still in my pocket.

2 stroke, can you give your reasons for not going with sp? Did you choose an alternative?

2 stroke

I didn't like the guy or trust him. I also did not like being lied to. But make your own decision.
The products themselves seem very good but if I do buy I will buy from another source.
Has anybody had positive dealings with SP? and where is xone?

jobrok1

gizbon wrote:

I am not going to put up with a buzzing after spending 10,000 and the rest
If changing the inverters solves the problem i will go nuts after all the time wasted

I hear you!

I was just talking to SP there a few minutes ago. I went through my whole system with them in detail. So I have a few more things to try before I give up on them completely.

1. It looks as if I have my earth-rods too close together. Apparently earth-rods need to be at least 8metres apart to prevent interference from each other. My batteries earth-rod and house earth-rod are only about 1metre apart which may be causing the problem. When too close together a resistance builds up between them that can cause an interference such as the buzzing we’re hearing

2. Also! The earth cables from the green circuits need to be separate from the ESB circuits. And will need to have their own earth-rod too. This is going to be more difficult to sort out as all the earths are mixed as they come back to the distribution board.

gizbon wrote:

jbrok1 i think your issue might be that you cant charge the system quick enough to replace the power u pull adding batteries will allow you to draw for longer but will take longer to charge ?? would this make sense

My batteries seem to be discharging rather quickly, even with only some small loads connected. He said it sounds like there is faulty connection somewhere. That one of the circuits or appliances is not compatible. Like you Gizbon, he mentioned possible problems with fire alarms, fluorescent lights, and bathroom lights with shaver sockets. He asked if the cooling fan in the inverter comes on every 10 seconds or so! It does! He said that that is an indication that there is fault somewhere. Most likely that a neutral and earth have been pooled and that the current is being drained from that.


I’m going to try and sort this stuff out as soon as possible so hopefully I can finally get some proper results from this system. It’s been 4 months now. Something better change soon! Cause I’m really starting to loose my patience!

DIY my arse! Give us absolutely all the information instead of sweet-talking to make a sale. I’d have a lot more respect for the company then.

air

I'm going to go out on a limb here and speak out of turn.
This is purely speculation on my part but here is what I reckon your problems are caused by:
1. Buzzing - The inverter is a cheap modified sine wave type and not compatible with existing applicances.
2. Batteries Discharging Rather Quickly - Your wind turbine and solar panels are not producing as much power as you are consuming.
3. Earthing - It is allowable to have independent earth systems in an installation (The BS regs refer to this as a TT earthing system) but there is nothing wrong with having a common ground and it is the preferred setup generallly.
I'd almost guarantee that the earthing is not related to the buzzing unless the existing earthing systems are terrible.

If you put a DC energy meter before your battery bank and and AC one after your inverter you would be able to work out the efficiency of your battery / inverter system and work out how much energy you are actually harvesting.

I did most of this for my friend recently and he's delighted to be getting real data on the production of his Hugh Piggott 2.4m turbine at last.

riccol1966

Agree, and will stand by my earlier assertions that you need to run pure sine inverters, not modified sine inverters. The original msw (modified sine wave) inverter melted my coffee machine, and would have done the same to my plasma TV if left plugged in for more than a split second. There is no point in setting up ring mains to run on non clean power. Guaranteed you will forget, or more likely some one else will forget and plug in something expensive, then bang! it's toast. In my opinion those msw inverters are only suitable for lighting circuits- I would equate them to the cheap industrial generators you can buy which are ok for power tools but of limited use elsewhere.

The issues with earthing also depend on your own house configuration. For example, my house has a terminating earth rod where all faults will be directed to, so I don't necessarily need a new rod for the renewable fuse box. Older houses may or may not have this, depending on when they were built or rewired. Also, with reference to earthing systems, if your earth is supplied by the nearest substation then you must have a separate earth rod from the new CU.

Whilst I am suspicious of the originator of this thread (i.e is he legit, no comeback for a long time, does he have a vested interest in the company etc etc), I can say that overall, my own experience with SP has been positive. Apart from the manuals which are not nearly in-depth enough, they did change things when I asked, and took items back that were faulty or appeared to be, and let me exchange for other components. That's not to say I am sourcing everything from them; once you learn about these systems and build up your knowledge you can go it alone and buy the equipment yourself from whereever you wish. I would say that buying batteries and solar panels from them appears to be, price wise, in line with prices elsewhere. With turbines I would be more cautious.

I now have 3 ring circuits swapped over, and will be publishing more info on this shortly, for anyone who is interested.

Richard.

jobrok1

To be honest I agree with most of what AIR and RICCOL1966 are saying.
I do agree that the MSW inverter is a load of ****e? I'm looking into purchasing a PSW inverter. Just need to figure out what size is best to get.
The manual they provide isn't 100% detailed.
My house is only a year old so I'm presuming that the main earth-rod should be suitable on it's own.

I'll check the DC and AC energy readings like AIR suggests and see what results I get. Might tell me a bit more.

I don't agree with the bit about using more than I'm generating. Well! Not in the way that AIR is saying anyway.
All I'm running off the green system at the moment is lights and a 50W airation pump for the Bio-treatment tank. And the lights are only used for a couple of hours in the evenings. That's it! If I disconnect everything the batteries are charged completely after a day or 2. Connect them up again and the low voltage alarm kicks in after about a week. The load that I'm drawing doesn't match up with the draw on the batteries. So it must be going somewhere.

I'm still going to give SP the benefit of the doubt, but if the changes suggested by them do not work I'm going to insist on them taking back the 2kW inverter and replacing it with either batteries or another solar panel.

riccol1966

You don't say how many watts the lights are drawing, or how many batteries or total amps you have to play with. You need to calculate the actual energy draw per day, and from that you can start then identify how long the battery store will deliver this until it beeps out. I monitor mine each day, using a remote battery display in the house. If mine goes below 11.7 volts for a consistent time then I tend to swap back over, as that is suggesting it has depleted to below 50%. Continuous depletions below this will reduce the life of the batteries. Whatever amount of batteries you have, imagine cutting them in half - that's the available power you should be planning to draw. so if you have 3x270amop batteries then you should use no more than 400amps max.

R.

air

What is the total amount of solar you have installed?
What is the diameter of the wind turbine?
Apologies if you've already stated this.
That 50W aeration pump adds up to 1.2Kwh per day which is not an insignifact load for a renewable energy system (assuming it's running 24/7).

jobrok1

First of all!

Thanks a lot for taking an interest in my situation. It's much appreciated.

To answer your questions ;

The most that is drawn from tha lights per night is only 50W -100W max per night. All tha lights are CFL bulbs except for the outside lights which are only switched on for about 10minutes while I put the dogs into the kennel before bed.

I have the same system as you Riccol1966. 460W turbine with 3x100W solar panels and 3x270A/hr batteries.
The 50W for the aeration pump does add up when you calculate it out. But surely during the day the solar panels and turbine would produce enough to keep this going and keep the batteries at a steady state. And the wind is pretty good where I'm living so the turbine is rarely not producing power.
But like you say! Every Watt does add up. So maybe I just need to leave the pump off the green system altogether.
I was hoping to run the central heating and Solar Water Heater pumps off the green system too but maybe that's not such a good idea now...???
Maybe I can do it down the line when I increase the size of the system. A larger battery bank and more panels or another turbine.

air

Hi, No problem, learning more about different systems benefits everyone.
Looking at the solar component of your system.
The best you can hope for at this time of year is about 5hrs sunshine a day, so lets take that figure.
If you were generating peak power of 300W from your panels for 5 hrs that should produce 1.5KWh (0.3KW x 5hrs).
However given that it's not yet midsummer and the lower relative intensity of sunshine here, I'd imagine that they're making at best 1KWh per day at the moment.
However, this is energy input into your bank. When you take away the charging losses (about 15% at a guess), inverter losses (optomistically about 5%), this reduces your available energy for usage at the AC end to about 0.8KWh per day.

I'd be able to give you an estimate on your production on the wind side if I had the diameter, your location, the mounting height and some info on the site (proximity to obstacles etc).

On the usage side of things:
Aeration Pump - 1.2KWh per day as stated
Lights - You say 50-100W load so we'll say 75W.
Assuming you have them on for 4hrs a day at the moment, that would be another 0.3KWh.

So thats a total of 1.5KWh of usage with 0.8KWh of production from solar + the wind input.

Your battery bank probably has about 3KWh of usable capacity, so if it's hitting low voltage in a week that would tend to indicate that you have an energy deficit of about 0.4KWh per day.

Given that your usage is approx 1.5KWh per day, this would point to energy production of 1.1KWh per day which sounds very possible to me with the limited knowledge I have of your setup.

On the advice front, as a generic recommendation, I'd say go for the biggest turbine on the tallest turbine with the largest battery bank that you can afford.

jobrok1

air wrote:

I'd be able to give you an estimate on your production on the wind side if I had the diameter, your location, the mounting height and some info on the site (proximity to obstacles etc).

The SP turbine is 12v, 460W, 1.4m diameter turbine. It's mounted on a 9.5meter(about 31ft) lighting pole. Our site in on the edge of Fermoy town on the Dublin side, so nice and open. Our house is about at least 60 meters away from any other houses(all bungalows). Our house is a 1.5 story about 8 meters in height, The turbine is about 8meters from the side and to the back of the house. The town is to the south of our site. to the north is all open flat farmland for miles. So the only obstruction worth mentioning is our own house.

air wrote:

On the advice front, as a generic recommendation, I'd say go for the biggest turbine on the tallest turbine with the largest battery bank that you can afford.

Would have loved to! But living on the outskirts of a large town I went for a smaller system more suited to urban areas.
I do intend on increasing the system with time. The brackets for the solar panels on the roof have over 50% spare left on them. And there is room for on the oposite side of the site for another turbine. But not as ideal as where the current one is positioned.

gizbon

so all this crap i am getting about earth rods is a load of rubbish then ,like i thought
Sp asked me to send the inverters back to them to test, more money down the drain
they must know by now that its the inverters that are the problem so why are they dragging it out and not just admit it and give me the same only in PSW

air

My friend has a 2.4m Hugh Pigott turbine and I think its making about 3KWh a day at present, however I've only just installed the energy meter so should have better info in a few weeks once things average out a bit.
A 2.4m turbine has about 3 times the swept area of a 1.4m one which would mean you should be getting about a third of that.
However his turbine is higher, further from any obstructions and much closer to the sea < 15km from the open atlantic.
I'd guess that that turbine would average about 0.7KWh per day on your site.
However I'll have a better idea once I get a true average from my friends site as I say.
A 2.4m turbine doesnt look that big really when it's spinning away.

deirdrebar

2 stroke wrote:

Xonencentral where are you? or is your system not capable of powering your laptop anymore?

Xonecentral may have left SP.He/she might now be working as a laborer for a company in the west of Ireland who carve & engrave cemetary headstones - monumental sculptors.If true,ironic.

Im sure theres someone watching this thread who will correct me if Im wrong.

Miser........maybe-maybe not

gizbon

well i sent my inverters back to SP and they tested them and guess what they are fine just like i thought they would be
The problem is the type of inverter that they gave me in the first place
they are now going to come and look at my setup ?
I will be asking them to swap the inverters they supplied for there PSW version
see they are now ship PSW inverters with there packages...i wonder why

gizbon

see Mr Frank Trill of SP has moved on
http://www.efgen.com/about.htm

miser

[QUOTE=

Miser........maybe-maybe not[/QUOTE]

Dierdrabar,
no idea what your talking about, but dont worry still here keeping an eye open, much too busy selling turbines to participate lately.

gizbon

I had SP in today and we tested with both types of inverters and there was no buzzing with the PSW inverter so that is the solution to my problems,i will be talking to the boss man when he gets from holidays and i think there will need to be a swap of inverters

Ronan Raver77

Fantastic thread now i only have to get a mortgage for a house in the Dublin area..then try WP and SP to slash my bills.......Thanks to all the contributers..

gizbon

Well Sp swapped my inverters after months of bull**** and Yes the buzzing has gone so Air and riccol1966 where right it was the inverters
I now seem to have a different issue where the pure sine inverter for no reason just stops working after working fine for hours,the real odd bit is nothing gets turned on to cause it to fail it happens while say watching TV
Sent them a mail and got no answer so have followed up with an other mail

jobrok1 have u got sorted

has anybody else had issue with kit supplied by SP or still having issue ,would like to hear so i know its just not me

riccol1966

glad to hear the buzzing is gone, those MSW inverters are just not worth it. Couple of questions for you on the PSW issue:
a) What make of PSW do you have?
b) What is the nominal output and max output of the inverter?
c) What was the battery voltage showing at the time of shutdown?

Inverters will shut down if the battery voltage that they sense reduces below a level at which they can convert to 230VAC. It does not require a surge in current to make this happen, just a gradual decrease over time until the battery voltage hits the critical point.

Richard.
www.richardcollins.net

gizbon

a) What make of PSW do you have?

I dont know SP have stripped everything of it and put there stickers on it

Output power(continuous Watts) is 1500
Output Power (Peak Watts) 3000
Low battery Voltage alarm(volts) 10.7
Low Battery Voltage shutdown(Volts) 10

all have running at the moment is LCD 210 watt i think,skydecoder 30 watts i think ,clock radio x 2 ,2 phones ,dvd ,desktop pc and low watt lights and dsl box ,not all on at same time

i tried my other tv a philips 150 watt and it kills the inverter 9 out of 10 times with little or no other load

it can happen at any time,it has happened in the middle of the afternoon with full batteries and 6 100 watt panels belting away

Happened last night and left the batteries for about a hour just to get a quick reading and they where about 65%

riccol1966

TV's themselves should not cause the inverter to shut down, as they all operate on varying wattage from appx 100-200watts. 100watts if looking at a dark screen to 200watts when all pixels/electrons are at their brightest.

But even if if the batteries are showing 65% (12.1-12.2V) an hour later, it is the voltage at the time the load is being drawn which is important, i.e. if a load causes the battery voltage dip below 10V, even for a split second, then it may stop the inverter. Usually you would hear some audible warning or at least a light on the inverter to indicate why it has failed?

It sounds like you need keep an eye on the actual voltage of the battery while the inverter is drawing power; a remote battery monitor, which could be as simple as a pair of 1mm wires hooked up to a voltmeter or a proper remote battery monitoring kit could be used, unless you are happy to continually check the voltage manually.

gizbon

The batteries have never gone below 12 and i am sure of that because i have been poping out to see what the reading is when there is a draw and then the reading an hour later just for my own info

So there must be another reason,will have to wait and see what SP have to say,i have requested that there installation expert talk to my sparks but got no reply from them on that

thanks for the info

by the way your sites very good i got good info from it
www.richardcollins.net

stevethesatguy

I will be selling this turbine from January 2008, www.skystreamenergy.com It connects directly to your fusebox, no batterys, no inverters, no big cabling, 240v ac output, I am based in mayo, contact me from skystream website if you need info


steve

riccol1966

stevethesatguy, so no payment from the ESB for any excess generated by this turbine then?

paddyc

folks is it possible to buy a domestic wind turbine ... thats easy to assemble and with the help of an electrician install it into the grid... AND also that they will pay you for the excess... am sorry I havent searched the forum yet for the answer as i am only online for 5 mins


thanks

paddy

air

paddyc wrote: »

folks is it possible to buy a domestic wind turbine ... thats easy to assemble and with the help of an electrician install it into the grid... AND also that they will pay you for the excess... am sorry I havent searched the forum yet for the answer as i am only online for 5 mins


thanks

paddy

No

AlanD

I live in a typical 4 bed semi-detached house. We have quite a bit of wind here all year round, so I'm wondering if a micro wind turbine would work attached to a semi-d, assuming the wind turned out to be workable (i.e. after an assessment)?

What do you think?

air

Well of course it will work to some degree, the effectiveness all depends on your site.
The more exposed the site is the better & you'll want to place the turbine as far away as possible from your house and / or any other structures.

riccol1966

if you attach anything above 200W to your semi detached house it is likely that you will have all kinds of noise trasnmitted from the turbine though the brackets and onwards through the walls of both your and your neighbours house, who will be none too pleased on a windy night.

You need to attach to a garage/outhouse or do a standalone (which could be very close to, but not touching the house).

air

Aside from the obvious disadvantages which Ricco mentions, a turbine on a house is likely to die a young death due to the fact that it will be yawing around the place all the time from the turbulence from the house (& producing little else other than noise). You want your turbine well up in the air in clean airflow.

AlanD

very good points....glad I asked the question now.

Turbulence and noise transfer is something I hadn't thought about. Pity really. To make the turbine high enough to be unaffected by house turbulence it would need to be pretty high and then it would become unsightly.

Seems like an excellent option for a house though, just not this one