Wind Turbines

[tinnews]

Oops, remove that apostrophe! :-)

[wind nut]

My household consumption is 8kWh per day, so I'm saving 1.67kWh of that per day on average over the year. This translates to a saving of 20% on my bill, on my site, with my wind conditions. The results would be better in some more exposed sites, and considerably worse in others. The reality of wind power is that the wind doesn't blow for a whole day at the same speed, and so the peak output of the turbine shoots up and down like crazy, with only the larger wind turbines having enough inertia to smooth out most of these fluctuations in the wind gusts.

Despite what everyone seems to think, the UK's wind resources are not ideal for wind turbines. You really do need a good smooth laminar airfolw to make the most of wind power, and we simply don't get that here. Gusty winds play havoc with small turbines especially, where they will flip round on the tower with irregular gusts, which can be quite frightening in really high winds. If anyone posts wind turbine views on these groups, and bases their ideas on what they think they know about turbines, then this isn't realy all that useful to those who want to hear from those who live with wind power on a dailly basis. I've got really quite used to using wind turbines now, and would not hesitate to advise others, on good exposed sites only, to use it. For urban and other buit-up areas, spend your money on solar water heaters, or something else, since wind power won't do you any favours.

[Handy]

"wind nut" wrote: My household consumption is 8kWh per day, so I'm saving 1.67kWh of that per day on average over the year. This translates to a saving of 20% on my bill, on my site, with my wind conditions.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Does that take into account capital cost and replacement? My understanding of the B & Q Windsave is that it takes about 10 years to recover the initial cost but the lifespan of the unit is said to be 10 years. If that is true, then the savings are nil.

[Gio]

Thanks Sue and Chris for the explanation. I have a better grasp of the ratio now.

Gio