Wind and Hydro Generators

[grenfell]

To be honest it probably needs someone smarter than me to fully understand how price works into the equation. As far as I understand we need an EROEI of a minimum of 5:1 to allow enough surplus energy for our economies to function. That said something like tar sands is down to 3:1 in that for every three tons of oil extracted they are burning one to get it out which seems an awful return . That must have a similar effect on profits if you're burning a substantial amount of your own product. That would make it unviable if prices were to fall so the reverse must be true. Low EROEI is only viable with high prices but we're still left with an energy shortage. I suppose it could be argued that constructing low return generation is only compounding the problem.
Slightly off topic but during the war Germany had a synthetic fuel programme. I've read that required between 5 and 6 tons of coal to produce a single ton of liquid fuel. Only sustainable in a wartime economy.

[steptoe]

Now back to the wind turbines have you priced mush up jen ie from a company as i say the guy round the corner has a bigish one mounted on the end of the house but i also thought you had to have planning for it i might be wrong , i guess out in the sticks you could get away with it more

Stand alone ones don't normally need permission. Mounting ON the house might not be OK.The prices that I did see were FAR too much per kWh and I could never seeing one cost in.

Cheers for that info , i am hooked on solar right now and getting that covered , it is not always about the return for them oney in my case , as i just want to have power and if i have to lay out a bit to make sure i can still keep running come power cuts so be it , i will cut back on other stuff bare in mind we never holiday do not smoke do not drink and so on so prepping is our treat if i am honest , the wifes is bags and shoes lol yup she still likes a treat but for me it is all about keeping the house warm and lite for her maj lol .
I am going to do solar this winter to get the lights and then next year i will look at wind because if i can power even the ham set or just basic light chargers and so on then it will be a bonus , as i say it is not about the price to me as much as trying to make sure i have bases covered , we do have a budget but again i work with in that as much as poss .

Thanks for a great idea as i say wind will be next year

[Rusty74]

for those of us with a water source nearby have a look at the water lily turbine, www.waterlilyturbine.com my brother mentioned this to me a few months back

[XRS001]

A thought spurred by a recent post on hand cranked Generators...

Does any member here have a wind powered electricity generator. If not, can we discuss the pros and cons, because they may just be a viable alternative to solar for some of us.

I'd thought that the biggest drawback to Wind Generators was cost, but surprisingly there are some inexpensive ones. I was drawn to this 500W Wind Generator on amazon for just £175 or this one for £155. The claimed 500W is nonsense, but even at 150W, it would be on a par with a small solar installation and remember they'd run at night and in winter. The remaining drawback is just how much of a windy location would it need? Well, some of us live in remote places, which might be suitable?
I do recall B&Q went through a phase of trying to sell these sorts of things for thousands. Withdrawn in 2006 because they were not meeting the expectations of urban customers who were typically getting less than 10% of anticipated energy. https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... /windpower

If small domestic turbines are much worse value than domestic solar, then why would the same not be true for massive installations. I.e why is the country littered with big windmills but fewer big solar farms? Is it that Wind power works ok at larger scale. or is it because of subsidies?

Has anyone tried one? What about a portable one?
Is anyone game to take one for the team? Yorkshire Andy? JerseySpud? Highland or Island dwellers?

I put Hydro in the title for all you water mill dwellers

There is a massive difference between grid scale turbines and wind turbines which trickle charge. I'm not going into the engineering details. There are also a growing number of Solar farms in the UK. Turbines are more easily situated in areas of great lift, along coasts or off shore.

I used to live off grid. I have used, repaired and tested a number of small wind turbines and have a few things to say about them. If you are buying something cheap one of the areas savings are made is the bolts. Bolts securing the blades to the hub should be stamped 8.8 on the head. This is the torque shear strength of the bolt. Replace the hub bolts if they do not meet this standard. I would replace all the bolts on the unit to meat this standard, especially if there is a likely hood of stress.

Wind turbines are noisy and should not be fitted to buildings.

Wind & water turbines are 24hour efficient use of abundant energy. Also you can get regulator units which can divert excess charge to an immersion heater at 12, 24, 48 vdc or 220Vac.

Marine water turbines for yachts are very good.

Pelton wheel turbines are super compact and efficient and some are quite low cost..

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/394046787447 ... media=COPY

Solar is currently available at a cost of 1£ /Wp wholesale on the pallet, its sometimes worth doing a bulk buy as a group. Dulas in Wales are a reputable wholesaler of quality panels, pure sinewave inverters and PV battery regulators.

Solar thermal is often missed. This will save you £££ in gas bills you can do diy installs, but ensure you get a certified plumber if you want an unvented tank installed- they need planning consent too. Rotter direct flow parabolic reflector panels are the best, but not cheap. Be careful on roofs if you do a DIY install.

[XRS001]

Just looking at the misleading datasets on the turbine.

The start speed is misleading - this is when the turbine starts turning, not the speed at which it actually generates power.

The rated speed is 42ft/s or in more usable terms 12m/s or force 10+ on the Beaufort Scale.

https://www.rmets.org/metmatters/beaufort-wind-scale

In other words anything with a cut in speed of 10m/s or over requires storm conditions and a very strong pole- 3inch water pipe with anchored guy lines.

[XRS001]

Grid connected solar.

Grid connected solar will not give you power when tge Grid goes down unless you have an off grid option installed.

If your install includes a battery, it may still not give you power when the Grid goes down unless you have an off grid option aspart if the install.

A grid synchronous inverter supplies power to the local grid & is designed to shut down if there is a power failure this is for the safety of the linesman in case the failure is due to cable damage.

To be able to use your setup off grid you need a separate pure sinewave inverter & extensive battery storage of 1-2k amphora with an mppt solar charge regulator and a programmable changeover switch. The solar priority being set to charge the battery followed by powering the grid.

[jennyjj01]

Grid connected solar.

Grid connected solar will not give you power when tge Grid goes down unless you have an off grid option installed.

If your install includes a battery, it may still not give you power when the Grid goes down unless you have an off grid option aspart if the install.

A grid synchronous inverter supplies power to the local grid & is designed to shut down if there is a power failure this is for the safety of the linesman in case the failure is due to cable damage.

To be able to use your setup off grid you need a separate pure sinewave inverter & extensive battery storage of 1-2k amphora with an mppt solar charge regulator and a programmable changeover switch. The solar priority being set to charge the battery followed by powering the grid.

Quite so. Many people have been sold solar, not realising what they are getting. Grid tied is about saving money on your power bill, with only some installations selling power back to the grid for a pittance. Back in the day that was lucrative and the grid was 'your reservoir battery' and it was worth selling power to the grid. Not so on new deals! Now, grid tied just supplements your usable electricity during daylight. Pretty much, use it or lose it.

Off grid with batteries is pretty rare because of the huge expense of essential batteries, where you simply can't use grid electricity.

Only hybrid systems give the resilience of off grid with the ability still to use grid electricity as needed. And if you want hybrid in the UK, you will be very hard pressed to not get sold a super expensive Tesla solution at £stupid! Very few non-Tesla products meet the exacting standards of the distribution companies. And Tesla will only sell you Tesla components as part of a full, licensed Tesla installation.

[XRS001]

If you want to go hybrid you need a battery room and ideally true deep cycle cells & training on how to manage them without blowing yourself up.

I have used ex Navy submarine cells in the past for an off grid install. 3k Ah, 6Kw wind turbine & 2kwp solar. Set up in a farm in Scotland the entire battery set up was 8 tonnes!!

BTW checkout the Rwanda drone pharmacy delivery service- not something I was involved in.

[jennyjj01]

I have used ex Navy submarine cells in the past for an off grid install. 3k Ah, 6Kw wind turbine & 2kwp solar. Set up in a farm in Scotland the entire battery set up was 8 tonnes!!

That's a lot of batteries !!!
And with that much weight, I'm guessing it was > 24V ?

Did you invert it back to mains and if so, what sort of inverter(s)

[XRS001]

I have used ex Navy submarine cells in the past for an off grid install. 3k Ah, 6Kw wind turbine & 2kwp solar. Set up in a farm in Scotland the entire battery set up was 8 tonnes!!

That's a lot of batteries !!!
And with that much weight, I'm guessing it was > 24V ?

Did you invert it back to mains and if so, what sort of inverter(s)

24VDC to 220 VAC pure sinewave through a Studer-inotec inverter this install was done over 16 years ago. I might be able to find all the original data on the design. The battery shed floor was reinforced concrete painted with acid resistant paint. The batteries were fitted with auto fill valves from the USA & the HAWT was regulated to dump excess charge to an immersion heater for hot water.

HAWT= Hoorizontal axis wind turbine