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Evaluating my site for a Vertical axis wind generator |
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NOTE! In researching
roof mounted wind turbines I have come to conclude based on
expert advice that they are considered impractical. It is easy to
become seduced by the hype and the idea of having a sexy "green
power" device on the roof. However I am still open to
considering a turbine as an augment to our solar array.
Please read the bottom
of this page to see what I have learned.
March 28, 2010 One of the things I have noticed about the Maine weather since installing our solar power system is that when there's no sun, there is wind - sometimes a LOT of wind. So I figured I would do some research on wind generators. It would be great to offset the loss of solar power with a small 1 to 5 KW wind generator on the same roof top. The first thing I learned was that Maine is not a good place for residential wind systems. But it's all a matter of siting and selecting the right equipment, so I kept an open mind.  In
my research I learned that the conventional wisdom
is that you can't site a wind generator too close to trees or
buildings. The rule of thumb being that the generator needs to
be at least 20-30 feet above the nearest obstructions within 250 feet. These rules apply to the
typical horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) that look like a big
propeller. If these units are sited too low the upper part of
the swept area will see more wind pressure on the blades than
the lower half and this unbalanced load can quickly destroy the
turbine. More importantly, the wind near any horizontal
surface - including roofs - is too turbulent to yield good
performance. |
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Our buildings, like most in Maine (known the Pine Tree State) are surrounded by trees. We have maybe a half acre of open land as you can see from the Google map - my workshop building is
the lower right one (The satellite image was taken in the
spring of 2010). The strongest winds tend to blow from the north and the evergreen windrow at the north edge of our property is about 200 feet from the building.
The road is lined by deciduous trees 50 feet to the east and some are as tall as the building. To the west is wide open for 250 feet and the tree line to the south are all less than 30 feet high.
So my site is not optimal for a wind generator of any type - be
it mounted on a tall mast or roof mounted.
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  I
read on the manufacturers web sites that vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) can be sited in less
than ideal locations like urban roof tops. They look like
egg beaters and have the advantage that they can tolerate
turbulent air and do not need to swivel into the wind.
They turn slower, start at lower wind speeds, and tend to be
quieter than their HAWT cousins. A number of companies
have sprung up to make these turbines for residential roof top
mounting and the list is growing.
(This
list on ecobusinesslinks is the most comprehensive). Many of them are quite
attractive and could pass for modern art! The unit at
right is made by
Urban Green Energy and is designed to mount on flat urban
roofs. The
30 ft tall 1KW
Windspire at left can be roof or ground mounted with a
relatively low ground clearance. Based on
the availability - and relative affordability of these turbines
I thought I would see if my site might be a viable candidate for
a vertical turbine. Generally a 1 to 2 KW turbine
with grid intertied electronics will cost in the range of $5-7000
from what I have seen to date. This means that the point
at which they break even in ideal circumstanced is well over 10
years, but since ideal circumstances do not exist on a roof top I
guess you would be looking at 40+ years. Not too exciting. |
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 Nonetheless
I choose to be well informed. The
best way to
do a site survey for wind generators is to put up a wind gauge at the site and
record data for a year. So I researched weather stations,
and was originally put off by the high prices - most were well over
$400 not including mounts etc. But then I found the
Ambient Weather WS-1080 weather station that sells for under
$100. This is a full professional grade weather station with
the capability to log data and display it's data graphically on
the web.
So I ordered one on-line and went over to Radio Shack to get an antenna
mount for the roof so I could locate the equipment right where
the turbine would go about 10 feet above the middle of the roof. |
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 April 1, 2010 I got the WS-1080 and quickly set up the instruments to test it in the back yard for a week per the instructions. This is to make sure that it all works and the wireless system sends the information properly - it has a range of 100 feet to the base station. I'll move it to the roof when I'm sure it all works right. Both units are battery powered, and the touch screen base station connects to a PC via a USB port. |
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  After several days of testing the system on the ground I climbed
up on the roof and installed it on a TV antenna mast. I used a tripod mount and 2 5 foot lengths of
steel mast.
It went up fairly quickly with my
wife
Rebekah as ground crew and photographer. I was careful
to ground the mast to the solar panel grounding system - it's a
big lightning rod that may attract a strike. |
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 The only drawback to this system was that I would have had to leave the desktop PC on all the time to post the current weather data to the web. So I decided to order a Weather Hub (about ($230) that serves the data to the web independently of the PC. At less than 10 Watts this will save power compared to leaving the PC on 24/7. It also can log up to 2 years worth of data on a 2GB USB drive connected to the unit. And this is the primary goal of my installation - to review a year's worth of wind data. |
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April 3, 2010 I connected the web server to Weather Underground's web site, here's my official weather station page, and, and below is the current summary: |
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I am really enjoying being a "weather geek" , looking at my
weather station data has become an obsession for me. The
more data I collect the less practical a wind turbine seems, but
the process of learning about wind is very engaging. May 1, 2010 Weather station installation update: The 10 foot mast I use is in 2 5 foot sections and when the wind blows hard from the north or south the mast starts moving a bit. Movement in the N-S axis causes the rain sensor to flip-flop and record rain when there is none. The rain sensor is in a small square box and as rain drips from the funnel in the top it lands in a pair of little buckets on a see-saw that tips and dumps each time one side is filled. Each flip counts as .01" of rain. So I went back up onto the roof and rigged 2 guy lines to prevent it from moving. Problem solved! I do feel a responsibility to report accurate data to Weather Underground. |
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The remaining issue is how to extract meaningful
information from the recorded wind data. If I were to take the
average wind speed per day it would not represent the real
performance for a wind turbine if half the day was calm and the
other half was all 20+MPH wind. So I need to calculate average
wind in smaller increments, I think that 10 minute averages
make sense and hope to come up with a way to put those averages
in a spreadsheet. Then I could input the performance
characteristics of various wind turbines to see if they could
yield a reasonable return on investment that would compete with
solar panels.
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 Wind realities April 18,2010 I have had some email dialog with Mick Sagrillo a wind expert who writes about wind power systems for Home Power and other magazines. He has clarified that most small VAWT units do not live up to the hype in an excellent open letter on the AWEA site. They will not yield a return on investment that is viable if installed on a roof top. Unless the site has an average wind of over 15MPH of good clean wind these units will simply not perform well. Clearly this is not my site, nor is it likely that most roof tops would have the ideal siting for good performance. Ian Woofenden, an experienced wind installer has written an excellent 1 page article that debunks many of the VAWT myths for the June/July 2011 issue of Home Power (p.124) click here to download it. But if I consider wind power as a augment to solar only on days when solar is low or at night then it may have value. It would still be cheaper to put up more solar panels, but I'm hoping a low cost unit may become available. I must admit that I just kinda like the idea of putting up a piece of "wind art" on my roof! I will continue to monitor the wind and at the end of a year I will evaluate the number of hours where the wind exceeds an average of 15MPH and then see if there is a VAWT that has a proven track record that could produce useful power at my site. Mick thinks that this is unlikely and cites the formula Power = Velocity cubed. From this he suggested that if I wanted to generate 400 Watts in 15MPH wind I might need a turbine with a swept area of 300 square feet. That could look like a unit 10 feet wide and 30 feet tall! No so small, and definitely not cheap - nor would something that size be roof mountable or have a return on investment less than 100 years or more at my site. The only other option would be for me to consider leasing a spot in my neighbors large (100+ acre) hay field and install a tower mounted turbine at 60 or more feet from the ground and 250 feet from the trees surrounding the field. Steve Wilke of Bergey Windpower has said , “You cannot change the site, but you can increase the height.” Well, given a choice of site and height - I could do both, but it would get very expensive. Updated March, 2011 Well the daily wind averages do not look good, although I have not yet analyzed the data by the hour. Here's a graph of the data logged for the last year from my Weather Underground page:  click on the image to see complete weather data for the period shown
The average wind speed for this period was 4.9MPH.
Note that the maximum wind gusts are significantly
higher than the average wind. A small turbine is able to respond rapidly to sustained gusts and thus
extract usable energy. So the daily average wind
may not be the most realistic way to evaluate wind
sites. Winter is definitely windier and I would
hope that a small wind generator could offset the
reduced solar hours - especially when it blows hard all
day and night.
When you look at a fairly average windy day like April 30, 2011 below you see sustained wind of more than 10 MPH for several hours. This often happens on overcast days and at late into the night.  click on the image to see today's data
I am still hoping (perhaps unrealistically) that
there are enough days with several hours of 10+MPH wind to
sufficiently complement the solar panels when there is low
or no sun on them. But most small 1-2KW wind turbines
cost over $6000 so the return on investment is not there
compared to adding more solar panels. So I have to
look at it as an expensive augment to the solar with a poor
return on investment.
 One
rellatively affordable option that is available now
is made by
WindTronics and branded by Honeywell. They make
this somewhat dubious claim: "The Honeywell Wind Turbine is
the highest output, lowest cost per kWh installed turbine
ever made (in class and size)." At a list price of
around $6500 including inverter this baby produces "up to
1500 kWh's per year depending on height and location."
They recommend a minimum of 12MPH average wind and claim it
will "start up" in .5MPH wind. Here is a
very
detailed performance evaluation of this wind generator. |
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