Wind turbines - can be DIY made?

[Mr Harry]

there is far more evidence of illness being caused by pylons, mobile phones and mmr. out of interest do you believe/disbelieve those 'causes'?

harry

[Mary Fisher]

I don't believe any of them.

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

Oh! That's not what a grandson said when he visited us last week. He lives somewhere near Limoges and said it was great to be back in England even for a short time because of the reliable power.

Perhaps it's different by area - as it seems to be here.

:-) I'd like to think I could remember that!

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

I'd put up a wind generator if i could afford it simply to p1ss off the neighbours.

Now that's a good reason - I like it!

But come to think of it they'd just put it down to 'those crazy English!. They did when they saw us putting a solar water panel on the roof and when we got chickens and when we ride the scooter and ...

etc.

Mary

[Guy King]

The message from "Mr Harry" contains these words:

What, you mean "bugger all" is more than something else? Wow.

[Mary Fisher]

:-)

[Owain]

Perhaps they export their best electricity, like their wine, leaving the locals with the rough peasant stuff.

Owain

[Dave Liquorice]

Mobile phones *very* doubtful. MMR no my kids got their jabs mid hype. Pylons, no way would I live under or within 1/4 mile of a big line (above

125kV). Direct personal experience has shown that electromagnetic fields *do* affect the human body.

[Dave Liquorice]

The way you included it was out of context. If you dig deep enough on the BWEA site you can find it in context but only if you dig. The good Dr's personal comment is always trotted out by pro wind lobby when ever infra sound is mentioned, presumably on the hope that people don't look to closely.

I've yet to see any proper research into the matter. Research that abandons the assumption that "if you can't hear it, it won't hurt you"(*) and uses preferably a flat measuring scale or the G-weighted one.

(*)Odd that the military have infra sound weapons. If infra sound can't hurt you what use are weapons using it?

[Dave Liquorice]

Leaders in the field. B-) Trouble is the Cisco APs and bridges used are unobtainium and the increasing number of domestic WLANs on 2.4GHz are becoming a problem. Cash flow is restricting an upgrade of kit to 5.8Ghz with bigger bandwidths for the backbones.

The biggest real problem we have is the backhaul to the internet. Anyone know a reliable ISP with good support that can provide a 5 to 10 Mbps link and won't charge an arm and two legs for traffic levels of 1 Gigabyte/hour download during the day? Evening traffic levels are probably higher...

It's not too bad, fairly open rolling fell with valleys but 99% of the habitation is along the valley bottoms and lower sides. Pick your AP sites well and you can cover large areas.

[Dave Liquorice]

My interpretation of "No I didn't write that."

Well TBH my gasted is flabbered. If people are paying those prices they really are mugs. I've just looked on uswitch for here, Norweb area. Cheapest "pay on bill" is EDF Standard 13.713 (8.316 over 900kWh).

[Dave Liquorice]

Wrong button before I'd finished... B-)

Well to be honest my gasted is well and truely flabbered. If people are= paying those prices they really are mugs. I've just looked on uswitch fo= r the old Norweb area.

Based on 8400kWh/year usage the cheapest "pay on bill" was EDF Standard =

13.713 (8.316 over 900kWh). Most expensive (excluding the greens Ecotricity and Good Energy) was Southern Electric RSPB Energy at 10.36 plus =A322.15/annum standing charge) but that is based on their prices f= rom Jan 1st 2007, current prices are lower.

If you go for a fixed monthly direct debit things change dramatically an= d agin if you choose an online tarrif. I'm pleased to say that Scottish Power Online Energy is still my best deal at 7.55 plus =A347.49/annum standing charge. The next cheapest is the same company and tarrif but without (ha ha ha) the standing charge 12.83 (7.55 > 900) (12.83 - 7.55)=

• 900 =3D =A347.52.

Even so the top of the quoted range (16 - 10p) looks low by 4p and the bottom high by 3p. The range being more like 7 to 20p, which I find quit= e incredible and some what distrubing that the postcode lottery applies to= electricity prices to such and extent.

[Andy Hall]

If anything Cisco does at least keep products on the market rather longer than the typical domestic products.

I suppose if you were going to go for a different band/technology, Alvarion (Breezecom) would be worth a look.

Presumably your main POP is in Alston?

Do any of the providers have LLU equipment in the exchange there?

I guess you've tried the obvious players like Easynet and Pipex?

I guess that there's a limit to what people are willing to pay....

Realistically if they are in a low valley small community in the high Pennines, they can't expect to get the same price points as someone in Carlisle.

Since you have traffic shaping, couldn't you offer different bandwidths and contentions and charge accordingly?

[kd]

look at this web site

[Matt]

Well that as well but I thought everyone knew that! It wasn't as far as I recall a primary design aim though. Before Dinorwig came on stream the electricity system coped reasonably ok. Even without any pumped storage, and assuming the system is not fully utilised (loaded), spinning reserve in the form of less than fully loaded generation across the country can cope with just about any ad break mainly because load pickup during ad breaks is much smaller now than say 20 years ago. Football matches and dead royals make the biggest impact on the load profile - perhaps a good reason for getting rid of both.

[Dave Fawthrop]

|No "direct line" is needed. Just like all the other generation |regardless of power source Dinorwig has a governor that will instruct |the output to increase as the grid system frequency falls. Also other |means are available to automatically request Dinorwig generation with |the press of two buttons

The Grid frequency does not actually need to fall for Dinorwig or any other power station to feed power to the grid. All that is required is to increase the mechanical power to the generators, which will feed more Electrical power to the grid, or in Dinowigs case absorb power to pump water from the lower reservoir to the upper. Grid frequency is a complex and difficult function of all the generators on line at the time and is controlled *very* closely. The amount of power supplied by any power station nowadays is controlled by commercial contracts.

AFAIK the generators are normally synchronised and spinning when Dinorwig is waiting to supply power to the grid. All that is required is to open the sluice gates, and then make sure that everything is under control.

| (I'll keep the precise details of that under |wraps though)

The methods used are available to anyone who cares to get say a BSc in Electrical Engineering, When I did the tour some years ago, the explanations were very good.

[John Phillips]

A friend visited Dinorwig this summer. He reported that they can meet unexpected demand surges within 90 seconds. If they have advance warning it can be done within 10.

[Dave Fawthrop]

|Well that as well but I thought everyone knew that! It wasn't as far |as I recall a primary design aim though. Before Dinorwig came on |stream the electricity system coped reasonably ok. Even without any |pumped storage, and assuming the system is not fully utilised |(loaded), spinning reserve in the form of less than fully loaded |generation across the country can cope with just about any ad break |mainly because load pickup during ad breaks is much smaller now than |say 20 years ago. Football matches and dead royals make the biggest |impact on the load profile - perhaps a good reason for getting rid of |both.

Spinning reserve with a coal or gas fired power station running at less than full load costs a lot of waste heat, which is of course money. The advantage of Dinowgig is that it costs very little when not generating it used very little power/money.

[The Natural Philosopher]

But dead royals have already been got rid of haven't they?

[Mary Fisher]

:-)

This same callow youth (you don't hear that oftn these days!) denied that we got the best wine, he said that French table wines are very cheap and "superb".

I take everything he says with a pinch of salt :-)

Lovely lad, he'll grow up.

Mary