Does anyone have any real experience of a wind turbine at home. Do you get any real savings on your electricity. The B&Q one looks rather expensive as it is not sold for DIY fit. Are you selling electricity back to the supplier (mine is Powergen) or does it just top and reduce your own domestic use. Is there a realistic domestic non-means tested grant towards the installation. Is there a DIY alternative that is available.
Any comments appreciated
Graham Brooker
from what I have read there's a minimum 10-yr payback period for these things; the 'green' credentials are what motivates people to buy them. personally I'm waiting until the price comes down a lot - possibly with govt subsidy if they are serious about encouraging energy from sustainable / free sources.
Total waste of time and effort.
This may be of use to you.
We were looking at wind power last year and considered the B+Q machine, although at the time it was only sold by its manufacturer
one interesting comment on that page
Making the arch makes me think that if people are serious about switching to renewable energy, almost all electrical products will have to be redesigned from scratch.
This reminded me of a friend who's tv went on the blink he figured out it was the main transformer which lowered the 240vac to 12vdc so he just used his cb radio power supply to power the tv. Now I know that not all electronic devices are run from 12vdc after the transformers but the ones that do could easily add an extra power connecter to allow it to be run from a 12vdc supply, this I think would make the greener options more viable.
And putting a car alternator/generator with a propellor on a pole at almost no cost, *should* be cost effective, and within the scope of any DIYer.
Actually I thought the B&Q one wasn't a bad price as it comes with installation for £1500. Although I agree you can get turbines for £500 but then you've got these blessed Part P regs which would probably stop you wiring it into the lighting ring (Coff coff, it's always been there guv, honest). And then we get onto the quality of B&Q electricians who didn't do an exemplary job on my neighbours house. I had to go round at least 5 times to get their electricity working.
This could work with some regulating you could even use something like this to charge a heavy duty battery which would in turn run things like stereo, pc and a number of other electronic devices. you would of course need some kind of charging from the mains in the event that you didnt get enough wind to keep the battery topped up. Taking it a step further a wind powered alternater running a motor for a ground loop heating system, free heating and hot water, the fuel industry would hate it LOL. If anyone on this newsgroup works out a system I would expect a free setup ;0).
The other thing to bear in mind is the noise these things make. It's suposed to be comparable to a dishwasher. This isn't particularly loud, you could talk over it & with your windows shut you wouldn't hear it but in the summer that could be quite annoying for you and your neighbours.
Even if the financial case was better I would think twice about having one stuck on my house. If I lived in a more rural setting and could site it further away from the house I'd be less concerned with the noise.
Imagine if the whole street had them.
Mike
I was discussing this with a friend the other day and he informed me that you would have to have planning permission to use one of these things. Whether it's true or not I don't know, if it is, then it's not worth the bother
True, at the moment planning permission is required:
How long would it take to recoup £200?
About 2.2 years using realistic if not generous assumptions.
What, on top of the purchase and installation and maintenance costs?
Rob Graham
As far as I can tell, you don't save anything. The estimated time taken to recoup the installation costs is between 8 and 11 years. But the lifespan of these windmills is about ten years, less in coastal areas due to salt corrosion. So it would just about have paid for itself and then need to be replaced, effectively cancelling out any savings. Only certain properties are suitable. The B & Q Windsave is mounted on a 6ft pole which needs to be attached to the gable end of the property so that the blades are at least
30ft high. The blades also need to be out of the wind shadow of any tall buildings. The Windsave stars to generate electricity at 9mph, but the average wind speed across the UK is 12.5mph at 33ft above the ground. So apart from on very windy days the amount of electricity generated will be limited, and none at all when the wind sped falls below 9mph.When the wind speed is 28mph the Windsave will generate 1 kilowatt of power, enough to run a TV, DVD player, computer, fridge freezer and several lights. B & Q expects to sell between 20,000 and 50,000 a year and believes they will be a common feature of the skyline within 5 years. It reminds me of Sir Clive Sinclair's C5.
The one aspect of all this that hasn't been really considered is the environmental impact of manufacture, transport, installation and ultimately disposal, all these things require energy. My feeling about this turbine is that it is highly unlikely to pay for itself in energy savings for the consumer and may well, if all the other aspects are included, ultimately do more harm to the environment than good. I admit I don't have any figures for this, it is just my gut feeling and I am ready to be persuaded otherwise.
I really do wonder about domestic rubbish recycling. I needed a respirator the other day when the chap in front of me at the bottle bank set off in his diesel Range Rover, pumping black smoke from the exhaust, after he put a few newspapers and bottles in the bins. In my area we used to have a once weekly collection of our domestic rubbish. Then the council introduced boxes for recycling paper, cans and bottles, but that needs a separate lorry to collect these. Then the council introduced bags for garden waste, but that needs a separate lorry to collect these. My understanding is that 3 massive diesel-engined lorries are 3 times more environmentally damaging than one. They certainly make 3 times more noise. The logic of this escapes me. Is there really any net gain with recycling? Is anyone measuring all the extra petrol, diesel and other non-renewable resources being used?
Yes, I have a 1KW grid-tied, tower mounted domestic wind turbine at home. It produces at best 6kWh of power on a good windy day, and 0 on a bad one. The average power produced on my site is 1.67kWh per day, based on a 12 month window since last October. There's no substitute for mounting a domestic turbine on a tower, away from any buildings and trees, on a tower at least 10m tall. Mounting on your house is scary, since the "humming" noise would drive you nuts!!1 and you're shi**ing yourself when it's blowing a howler at night, just in case you end up wearing your turbine in bed.
There's a lot of sense being discussed on these groups, and hopefully not too many people will fall for the building-mounted solution before the truth about their poor performance comes to light. Anyone wanting to know the hard facts about what it's really like to live with a 1KW wind turbine in your garden, please ask...
Just curious how a 1KW turbine produces more power than its rated hourly performance. From what I have read in manufacturers data sheets they tend to state the maximum produced with ideal non gusting wind and before regulation cuts in through feathering or braking etc.
Gio
It doesn't. His average is 1.67/24. At best 6/24 - equivalent to a
0.25kW average output..
It produces power of up to 1kw. If run continuously for 24 hours at
1kw it would produce 24kwh of energy. Since the best was 6kwh in a day then it's only managing 25% of it's ideal maximum output even on a windy day.HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.