Wind turbines - can be DIY made?

[Andy Hall]

Must be running all those GSRs in the shed ;-)

[tony sayer]

Along the lines of "Put that bloody light out" as per warden Hodges in Dads army;)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yup. Sounds like a case for a nice PIC controlled inverter.

And the genny itself is no big deal. Plenty of up to 3KW PM motrs that would make decent generators, sround.

The problem is that it doesn't work, because the wind is fractious and inconstant at ground level.

FAR better and more cost effective to put one or two MW scale turbines off the West coast of Scotland than equip suburbia with turbines.

Or simply burn rubbish.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Indeed.

Its like all those diet fads.

I once saw this girl who had lost a remarkable amount of wight - actually I saw her a few days ago, and she is still remarkably well formed after over 12 years since that time..the secret..? "Eat less" she said....

[tony sayer]

ISTR that one of the biggest problems was syncing with the mains. Why feed power from small installs back into the grid why not simply use it for heating and other purposes on your premises?..

[Andy Hall]

I see. So topology is kind of like a tree with some links being base-user--user | --user

?

Do you do anything to contend the bandwidth per user?

[Roger]

The message from David Hansen contains these words:

Are you sure you are not being over generous? Even the propagandists don't go that far:

"One 1.8 MW wind turbine at a reasonable site would produce over 4,7 million units of electricity each year"

I make that a load factor of only 0.3.

Now that is a statement worthy of a religious fanatic.

There is indeed a crucial difference between wind power and conventional forms of generation. That is that while wind power is completely at the mercy of the wind conventional generation can when needed produce 100% of its rated output on demand at all times except during downtime for maintenance or repair.

[Steve Firth]

They are priced at £1500, not valued at £1500. Similar turbines and control packs can be bought for £900.

[mogga]

Navitron.org.uk may be cheaper.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Why would you want to make wind?

[Guy King]

The message from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

Ah, yes, the "If you don't put it in your mouth it can't go round your waist" diet.

[dennis]

Well you aren't going to get a decent flow of wind unless you put it on a pole at least 2-3m above the roof. You probably want 5+m. People object to TV aerials on poles I suspect that they will treat wind turbines the same way.

[Mary Fisher]

There's another fundamental difference between wind power and conventional (i.e. gas or coal) forms of generation.

Wind generated power is not polluting, does not use precious resources and does not produce carbon dioxide.

It will never be able to generate all the (some imagined) need for electrical power but it will reduce the demand for fossil fuelled generation.

To some of us that's important - call it religious fanaticism if you like, you won't change our minds. We care about the future.

Mary

[EricP]

With the claims they are making, the things will sell. This "30%" business, and having it injected straight into the house mains will camoflage the failings of the things. Only when buyers notice no difference in their electricity bills will the con be found out, and far too late for those who bought. In the meantime, the racket from them will be enjoyed by neighbours.

Nobody has commented on the "solar panels", a snip at "Only £2498.00".

[Guy King]

The message from "Dave Plowman (News)" contains these words:

It's that or bust.

[Chris]

The fact that more energy is probably used manufacturing them than they will ever produce obviously isn't a consideration.

[Andy Hall]

It certainly will. They claim 33dBA at a wind speed of 5 m/s (11mph) but 55dBA at 7 m/s (15mph) at 5m distance.

The latter will be highly audible. Conveniently, they don't say what it will be at the rated speed of 12.5 m/s (28mph). 65dBA? 75? Either way, one hell of a racket.

Hopefully customers will have a get out if neighbours complain or planning departments intervene.

That one's too much of a joke to even be considered.

[Andy Hall]

Of course not. When did reality ever enter into religion?

[Mary Fisher]

Give me some authenticated accurate figures for that and I might believe it.

Mary

>

[David Hansen]

On Thu, 5 Oct 2006 10:56:11 +0100 someone who may be Roger wrote this:-

Excellent, personal abuse.

We know from the work done by Oxford University that a distributed set of wind farms will always be generating some electricity. Their study just looked at land based wind farms by the way.

Wind power is diffuse and variable, but that doesn't mean it is not a useful way of generating large amounts of electricity. It is clear that with current prices up to 20% of total generation can be by wind without the need for expensive changes to the electrical system.

There are plenty of detailed reports on this subject for those with an open mind to read.

Incorrect. One of the ways that it is incorrect is that, like any plant, "conventional" generation can suddenly fail without warning. Small numbers of large power stations introduce greater vulnerabilities into the system. At the moment the largest failure to be guarded against is the sudden failure of Sizewell B, followed by things like the line to France. Fortunately renewables are on hand to help guard against such things, the rapid start ability of hydro stations keeps the lights on many times a year during such failures. They buy enough time to fix the problem or wind up some other forms of generation.