artie
Sawdust manufacturer.
Has anyone played around with anything like this?
https://www.banggood.com/2000W-DC-1...=192565181&sc_uid=kMCYZcaRV0&cur_warehouse=CZ
https://www.banggood.com/2000W-DC-1...=192565181&sc_uid=kMCYZcaRV0&cur_warehouse=CZ
Wind turbine
- Thread starter artie
- Start date
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SammyQ
Established Member
Not directly Artie, but an ecofreak.mate has. He found that it.- and ones like it - were no good at all in towns, or indeed any collectionnof buildings, however few. They need an "open wind fetch" apparently.
Sam.
Sam.
Have you a big enough garden in which to have a windfarm, you are going to need a few to power your house and even then you need the wind.
Energy output from a wind turbine is proportional to the CUBE of the windspeed I was once told by someone who worked in the industry
i.e. halve the wind and the output drops to 1/8
There's a reason that they are built around the edge of Scotland and offshore....
i.e. halve the wind and the output drops to 1/8
There's a reason that they are built around the edge of Scotland and offshore....
AJB Temple
Finely figured
I looked into wind turbines years ago with a US friend of mine with a view to a commercial venture. Apart from the obvious snag of needing wind, and a storage system in case the wind blows when you don't need power, the really big issue we found was that small ones are exceedingly inefficient even when the wind is blowing hard enough. This meant that to be useful a BIG blade / vane / propellor is needed. We are talking metres diameter.
Where we live now, we do have a wind tunnel down one side of the garden, funnelled down beside a small river. However, right now the wind is not blowing. It did not blow yesterday or indeed hardly at all for the past week.
These drawbacks mean they are generally unsuitable for domestic use in inland UK. In my limited experience.
Where we live now, we do have a wind tunnel down one side of the garden, funnelled down beside a small river. However, right now the wind is not blowing. It did not blow yesterday or indeed hardly at all for the past week.
These drawbacks mean they are generally unsuitable for domestic use in inland UK. In my limited experience.
AJB Temple
Finely figured
PS, a version of that was installed by Dick Strawbridge on his Chateau programme. It was to supply power to a camping set up as I recall.
Felix
Established Member
I've had a look at generating some 'free' electricity from a wind turbine. There are, in this country, rules (yawn)......The turbine has to be a minimum of 5m from any property boundary, I think the blades at their lowest point need to be at least 5m above the ground. Then there's the noise issue (if you have neighbours nearby). If you live in a built-up area you will be using 'dirty' wind which is very turbulent (even if you think it's coming at you from a fixed direction) and is not helpful for power generation (clean air that has travelled over open ground for a number of metres is the best kind - there's loads of info out there about this). Then there's the battery banks to store the power and then the inverter packs to get 230V out of the 12/24/48V battery system that you use. Free energy is not that 'free' when first starting out. Free only comes later after you have generated enough electricity whereby the value of that generated electricity exceeds the money you spent putting the kit in.......and that could be years, and years, and years <lol>
In addition, as AJB Temple said - the cheaper turbines are very inefficient and it would appear not worth the money - you might have to spend a few quid to get a turbine that provides a decent amount of power.
I think the key thing here is make sure you do plenty of research
Cheers
Dean
In addition, as AJB Temple said - the cheaper turbines are very inefficient and it would appear not worth the money - you might have to spend a few quid to get a turbine that provides a decent amount of power.
I think the key thing here is make sure you do plenty of research
Cheers
Dean
artie
Sawdust manufacturer.
I have no illusions about running the house for free.
I live in an open area with plenty of wind and have a paddock at the side of the house. That's what the estate agent called it anyway.
Was just toying with the idea of putting something like that up for fun and maybe run a yard light off it.
But it wouldn't be fun if they are useless.
I live in an open area with plenty of wind and have a paddock at the side of the house. That's what the estate agent called it anyway.
Was just toying with the idea of putting something like that up for fun and maybe run a yard light off it.
But it wouldn't be fun if they are useless.
If the one you linked to really was capable of 2000W, even at 24 volts, that would be 80 Amps current and the connections should be thick like the meter tails into your house fusebox.
I don't believe it's capable of anywhere near the claimed output even in a gale.
Caveat emptor !
I don't believe it's capable of anywhere near the claimed output even in a gale.
Caveat emptor !
Cabinetman
Established Member
This is often parked 100 yards in front of my workshop door when it’s in Dock, and also its sistership, they have helicopter decks and a really nifty bit of kit – a gantry that stays level no matter what the boat is doing, as in, up and down side to side, the end of the gantry stays in one position , just as well as there is a guy on the end of it trying to climb onto a wind turbine somewhere off the coast of Lincolnshire. There is no money in wind turbines lol
Last edited:
Cabinetman
Established Member
double removed.
Droogs
Not the Sharpest Moderator in the box
@Cabinetman , not sure why but feel that rather pretty boat should have a big trailer on it
Cabinetman
Established Member
Yes it’s strange isn’t it I always think it looks like a children’s toy, perhaps it’s the colours I don’t know.
It’s disconcerting when I open my door and wallop there it is in your face ha ha
It’s disconcerting when I open my door and wallop there it is in your face ha ha
artie
Sawdust manufacturer.
I'm not promoting it, I know nothing about it apart from what that page says.
price.
257,12€
Rated 500w Thank you all for your input.
Terry - Somerset
Established Member
Would I be right to assume the main difference between a PV and wind turbine installation is the method to extract energy with other components very similar - eg: storage batteries, inverters, cabling etc.
If so, the question is then to do with the cost of the panels vs tower and turbine compared with energy generated. Local climatology would be key, although an urban location would adversely affect wind power.
If so, the question is then to do with the cost of the panels vs tower and turbine compared with energy generated. Local climatology would be key, although an urban location would adversely affect wind power.
Sheffield Tony
Ghost of the disenchanted
It's on Banggood. Did you expect it to actually work or something ?
I used to work for a solar energy firm as chief engineer, and had to make efficiency and cost comparisons with wind power.
Globally and nationally there is no question but that we need both, and indeed all non-CO2 generation technologies. It's not either/or.
Comments on wind speed and urban effects are right. Indeed, not only does wind power increase with the cube of the wind speed, the wind speed itself increases approximately as the cube of the height above the ground. So there is a huge advantage to making them really big and siting them in "open" areas. The domestic ones may be convenient for certain purposes but are not very serious as generators overall. More for show. Also they have more liabilities, in that a turbine blade is more likely to come adrift and do some damage than is a solar panel.
Solar energy is more costly in the UK climate at the point of generation, but significant in that it downscales better. A domestic installation is fine for efficiency; there is some economy of scale with the investors but not huge. (I do have them on my roof). However, a big point is that the network delivery is already there in the National Grid. In a remote site (offshore, or far from a centre of population) the cost of the copper and installation of the power cables can be comparable to that of the generator itself. Also, one can predict average solar irradiation anywhere in the world from NASA data, to a precision of about 1 km. I used to use it for prediction of potential national markets. Solar does make a significant contribution to a carbon-free economy even in the UK. One can do the same for wind power in open areas but not in urban areas as people have already stated.
Terry - yes you are right, though the cabling is very location-dependent. An enormous storage resource which will become more important is electric vehicles, which in general do not need all of their non-driving time to recharge. In the meantime they can store energy and feed it back to the grid at peak hours. The BEV base is already about equivalent to a big power station in the UK, though just starting to be used in that way.
The energy used in manufacture is also relevant. Big wind turbines are quite efficient and pay back the energy used to build them in around a year. Silicon solar panels take longer, probably about three years now (it was five years when I was doing these sums about ten years ago but has improved. Concentrated PV using advanced compound semiconductor cells and lens/mirror concentrators is actually more efficient in regions of strong sunlight, using less land area and only needing a year to payback manufacture. This is the area I was involved in. But all the companies engaged in CPV failed when the Chinese drastically cut the price of silicon solar cells and got virtually the whole PV market other than space applications, on cost of installation. (I am not making a political point here; I have no idea of their internal economics and cost of production).
Globally and nationally there is no question but that we need both, and indeed all non-CO2 generation technologies. It's not either/or.
Comments on wind speed and urban effects are right. Indeed, not only does wind power increase with the cube of the wind speed, the wind speed itself increases approximately as the cube of the height above the ground. So there is a huge advantage to making them really big and siting them in "open" areas. The domestic ones may be convenient for certain purposes but are not very serious as generators overall. More for show. Also they have more liabilities, in that a turbine blade is more likely to come adrift and do some damage than is a solar panel.
Solar energy is more costly in the UK climate at the point of generation, but significant in that it downscales better. A domestic installation is fine for efficiency; there is some economy of scale with the investors but not huge. (I do have them on my roof). However, a big point is that the network delivery is already there in the National Grid. In a remote site (offshore, or far from a centre of population) the cost of the copper and installation of the power cables can be comparable to that of the generator itself. Also, one can predict average solar irradiation anywhere in the world from NASA data, to a precision of about 1 km. I used to use it for prediction of potential national markets. Solar does make a significant contribution to a carbon-free economy even in the UK. One can do the same for wind power in open areas but not in urban areas as people have already stated.
Terry - yes you are right, though the cabling is very location-dependent. An enormous storage resource which will become more important is electric vehicles, which in general do not need all of their non-driving time to recharge. In the meantime they can store energy and feed it back to the grid at peak hours. The BEV base is already about equivalent to a big power station in the UK, though just starting to be used in that way.
The energy used in manufacture is also relevant. Big wind turbines are quite efficient and pay back the energy used to build them in around a year. Silicon solar panels take longer, probably about three years now (it was five years when I was doing these sums about ten years ago but has improved. Concentrated PV using advanced compound semiconductor cells and lens/mirror concentrators is actually more efficient in regions of strong sunlight, using less land area and only needing a year to payback manufacture. This is the area I was involved in. But all the companies engaged in CPV failed when the Chinese drastically cut the price of silicon solar cells and got virtually the whole PV market other than space applications, on cost of installation. (I am not making a political point here; I have no idea of their internal economics and cost of production).
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