Using a Wind Turbine to supplement a conventional oil fired central heating system

[irishguyinspain]

My mum=B4s house, built 1974, has a conventional oil fired central heating system which supplies hot water to a cylinder and radiators. The house is in an area with very good wind resource. I want to install a small wind turbine to supplement the oil fired heating system. The wind turbine I wish to use has a maximum power output of 1.4kW. The DC output voltage can be either 12v, 24v or 48v. In windy weather it can produce 33kW per day.

I wonder what is the best way to tie the wind power into the central heating system. I have considered the following possibilities:

1=2E Install a suitable low voltage 1.5kW water heater in or connected to the cylinder. This should provide lots of hot water but no much thru the radiators. Can you recomend a suitable water heater?

2=2E Install a suitable low voltage 1.5kW water heater on the cold water input pipe to the boiler. Leave the boiler on low so that the pump will circulate the water thru the radiators and cylinder. Can you recommend a suitable water heater?

I would greatly appreciate any advice you may have.

Thanks in anticipation.

[Matt]

kilowatt what?

[PeTe33]

Why not use something easier like....

Electricity supplier dependent, just use generated power to supplement daily electricity use (including immersion heater or whatever), and sell un-used power back to the electricity company.

That's what I am hoping to do as and when we get plans drawn up for house/garage/roof changes. As we get the full force of prevailing S.Westerly winds coming up the Severn.

[Mike Dodd]

Huh?, thought that was pretty obvious from the OP - 33kW per day. Or approx 1.4kW/hr, also what the OP stated. Together with a low-loss distribution system to the water heaters that the OP stated, gives

1.4kw/hr (33kw/day) heating to the house.

To the OP - good luck, mate. I'd look towards the higher voltage setting (48v) to simplify distribution, then check this link for a US distributor of a 48v, 30A (1440W) water heating element:-

[meow2222]

I see a problem here. People dont normally use alt generated electricity for heating because you could generate the heat directly for a fraction the cost. If you are installing a windgen, use its output for leccy. If you need heat, go with one of the solarthermal techs that pays back properly, eg:

33kWh =3D 33x 8p =3D =A32.66. But the great majority of days it wont produce anything like that.

Fwiw if you want to use leccy to heat water, just put it through the water. AC only though.

NT

[Bob Eager]

The point being made was that the units were mixed - 1.4kW is the power rating. He probably meant 33kWh (kilowatt-hours) per day, of course (1.4 x 24 isn't far off that).

The measurement of 1.4kW/hr is meaningless, as a watt is (simply) a measure of power output, not total power - kilowatts *per hour* cannot mean anything sensible here. Again, I suspect that you also mean kilowatt-hours (kWh), in other words a certain number of kilowatts sustained for a pewriod of an hour.

So there!

[Mike Dodd]

Agreed. Remind me to engage brain next time

[Guy King]

The message from Matt contains these words:

Seconds?

[Grunff]

I think perhaps you need to brush up on your basic physics - your (and the OP's) usage of kW makes no sense.

[Guy King]

The message from Mike Dodd contains these words:

Nope - still doesn't make sense. Do you reckon he means 33kW continuously for a whole day - that'd be 792kWh.

Or perhaps it's 33 kWh in a day - that's an average of a little less than 1.4kW continuously across a day.

[Dave Liquorice]

It's generally accepted that commercial wind turbines generate between

1/4 and 1/3 of their rated capacity over a year.

[Mike Dodd]

As previous reply - yes, needed to engage brain. Sad thing is not just basic physics but classically trained with E&E eng through Uni. Was too eager to jump onto a non-value-added reply. You're quite right, though, that original units were ambiguous / wrong. The basic premise, however, that the OP wanted to heat his mother's water by 1.4kWhr all day should still be obvious, and the link to the American website (pah!) with the

48v heater element still addresses the OP's query. Re: "no sense" - agreed, the details were incorrect, however, would not require a massive leap of faith to understand and answer OP's question.

[Grunff]

Needless to say, I posted that before your reply to Bob had reached my server - I wasn't just hammering the point home :-)

[Blueyonder]

What do you think? What do you *really* think?

[Sponix]

Use the wind turbine to power the lighting via a set of storage batteries.

Use the electricity saved to run an immersion heater!

sponix

[irishguyinspain]

Thank you for this. Very useful. I did, of course, drop the =B4h=B4 from the 33kW, it should have read 33kWh. My mum=B4s house is in Mayo on the west coast of Ireland. Very windy place. Selling excess power to the utility (ESB) is not an option. (Nor are there any subsidies or grants for Wind Turbine installation).

Does anyone have any views on how to tie the wind turbine into a conventional oil fired central heating system?

I=B4m grateful to all of you who took time to reply. Many thanks.

[Sponix]

It's not really viable to use a wind turbine for heating.

Use the turbine to generate electricity and use the money saved onelectricity to put towards the oil bill.

sponix

[Matt]

Spend what you would have spent on a wind turbine on insulation, draft proofing and the construction of a porch. Then buy a windmill for 50p from a toy shop, build a sandcastle in the back garden and plonk it in the top.

As an alternative stick the money you would have spent on a wind turbine in a high interest savings account.

[tony sayer]

In article , Sponix writes

Course if you don't need the leccy at the time either charge batteries which is a lot of fuss 'n bother, or use it for water warming.

After all when the winds gone by, its gone;-)..........

[David Hansen]

On 14 Mar 2006 12:51:17 -0800 someone who may be [e-mail] wrote this:-

If the house concerned has more than one room then the hot air has to be moved between the rooms somehow.