Domestic Wind Power Generation

jim duff

Hi all,
We could talk all day about the pros and cons of wind power,but could I ask about your knowledge of domestic wind turbines,if anyone has erected one or has first hand knowledge of any particular make?Have been looking at the possibility of buying one but find they are VERY expensive and dont think I would ever get my money back.Also,has anyone tried to build a home-made turbine?Any info.would be appreciated.

quentingargan

jim duff wrote: »

Hi all,
We could talk all day about the pros and cons of wind power,but could I ask about your knowledge of domestic wind turbines,if anyone has erected one or has first hand knowledge of any particular make?Have been looking at the possibility of buying one but find they are VERY expensive and dont think I would ever get my money back.Also,has anyone tried to build a home-made turbine?Any info.would be appreciated.

Hi Jim,

I've had a turbine for the last 8 years. But I would be happy to pay 50c per Kw Hr for electricity that I know to be clean. To quote Hugh Piggott, "why should it be necessary to compete against cheap power from polluting engines?".

But turbine prices have come down a lot in eight years, and the ESB is willing to buy your electricity, with a generous subsidy on the first 3,000 Kwhrs per year. So if you have a really good site, yes, the payback time is there.

However, most turbines are on only mediocre sites with turbulence from adjacent buildings. I would start with a site assessment, and use independent web calculators to estimate output for your site based on turbine power curves.

If you PM me with an email address, I can email you a document with info on how to assess your own site, which can be done from the comfort of your computer! Q

Jim Martin

This training day may be of help:

http://www.clarefocus.ie/index.php/component/option,com_jcalpro/Itemid,46/extmode,view/extid,6287/

MalteseBarry

jim duff wrote: »

Have been looking at the possibility of buying one but find they are VERY expensive and dont think I would ever get my money back.

Much like commercial wind turbines, in fact. The difference is a guaranteed price, with tax breaks, is available to commercial wind turbines, combined with the commercial operators having a choice about where site their turbines, which just about makes them economic.

As a matter of interest, what is it you want to power with a domestic turbine?

ei.sdraob

quentingargan wrote: »

But turbine prices have come down a lot in eight years, and the ESB is willing to buy your electricity, with a generous subsidy on the first 3,000 Kwhrs per year. So if you have a really good site, yes, the payback time is there.

Since the country is bankrupt, the semistates could be sold in short order to raise money
It would be foolish longterm plans around the hope that the ESB would continue this subsidy in such an uncertain "climate"

quentingargan

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Since the country is bankrupt, the semistates could be sold in short order to raise money
It would be foolish longterm plans around the hope that the ESB would continue this subsidy in such an uncertain "climate"

The subsidy doesn't come from the ESB. All electricity providers charge a small surcharge which goes towards renewable energy roll-out.

I don't think the ESB will be sold, but if it were, the status quo would prevail.

But to some extent you are right. I personally have a wind turbine because I want one, and I would pay over the odds to have a supply of electricity that I know is squeaky clean. If there are subsidies to support that, well and good, but some people buy cars without querying the payback time, and some people by turbines;)

robtri

quentingargan wrote: »

I personally have a wind turbine because I want one, and I would pay over the odds to have a supply of electricity that I know is squeaky clean.

reading the other thread, wouldnt really call them squeaky clean now .....

personally i would like a turbine, but at a cost of around 13000 for supply and install for one... the payback is way to long.....

quentingargan

robtri wrote: »

reading the other thread, wouldnt really call them squeaky clean now .....

personally i would like a turbine, but at a cost of around 13000 for supply and install for one... the payback is way to long.....

There are people out there with more than €13K in the bank, where they are getting about 2.5% interest tops. That's a payback time of 40 years:(

ei.sdraob

quentingargan wrote: »

The subsidy doesn't come from the ESB. All electricity providers charge a small surcharge which goes towards renewable energy roll-out.

I am talking about the 19c for first few thousand installations subsidy (4000?) and/or first 3,000 units per year, which then goes down to 9c. Last I checked you have to be an ESB customer to avail of this for some reason.

Unless this has changed since 9mths ago when i was looking into.

I have a fairly windy site on a hilltop location, if I could get a turbine with a payback (including any maintenance costs in that time!) of 15-20 years and able to write off the turbine as a company expense, the Accelerated Capital Allowance Programme (I believe only one domestic turbine in Ireland at moment qualifies, the 6KW Scirocco one top of my head) then I would seriously consider getting one.




P.S: your turbines for 13K are certainly much cheaper than the companies i was looking at earlier in year
P.S #2: what is the date of this document from yourselves? have you better or more up to date figures now (page 3 specifically)??

quentingargan

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Last I checked you have to be an ESB customer to avail of this for some reason.
...

(I believe only one domestic turbine in Ireland at moment qualifies, the 6KW Scirocco one top of my head) then I would seriously consider getting one.
...
P.S #2: what is the date of this document from yourselves? have you better or more up to date figures now (page 3 specifically)??

Hi - Yes, at present you have to be a customer of ESB. However, the don't solely subsidise the tariff - it is paid from a central fund to which all electricity consumers contribute

The capital allowences are an aspect I haven't looked into, because the feed in tariff doesn't apply to commercial customers. If your electricity account is in the name of a business, you can't get the export tariff. I know that's nuts, but that's the way it is.

The info on that page is a bit out of date - we didn't make the target price, and none of those suggested tariffs prevail, but if you PM me an email address, I can email a way of assessing likely output for your site for any given turbine. Its as good a guess as any...

It is very hard to accurately estimate the output of a turbine on a site, because turbulence cannot be measured. People get very fussy about measuring wind speeds with anemometers, but forget that turbulent wind will push the cups of an anemometer, but won't work that well with turbine blades. So an amount of judgement and guesswork comes into it.

robtri

quentingargan wrote: »

There are people out there with more than €13K in the bank, where they are getting about 2.5% interest tops. That's a payback time of 40 years:(

care to elaborate on that...

13k in the bank at 2.5% interest means after 40years I will have just shy of 35K in the bank total... (compund interest)

so explain your payback here??????

Macha

robtri wrote: »

care to elaborate on that...

13k in the bank at 2.5% interest means after 40years I will have just shy of 35K in the bank total... (compund interest)

so explain your payback here??????

Don't forget DIRT

quentingargan

robtri wrote: »

so explain your payback here??????

Uh... I'm an engineer and not a mathematician:o

You are quite right, but people I come across calculating the payback on a solar panel or wind turbine take the cost and divide it by the annual savings. If it is more than about ten years, they blanch. But on that simple calculation, it would be like wanting 10% on your savings in the bank.

robtri

quentingargan wrote: »

Uh... I'm an engineer and not a mathematician:o

You are quite right, but people I come across calculating the payback on a solar panel or wind turbine take the cost and divide it by the annual savings. If it is more than about ten years, they blanch. But on that simple calculation, it would be like wanting 10% on your savings in the bank.

Actually it is noting like wanting 10% on your savings, you cant compare the two like that.... not at all...

del_c

robtri wrote: »

Actually it is noting like wanting 10% on your savings, you cant compare the two like that.... not at all...

Well the comparison is not quite accurate from the point of view of the numbers, but they are still comparable....it's just to get a realistic picture you need to add in either the cost of capital, or the opportunity cost of returns foregone...but either way you can still come up with a business case for doing it...

After all it is conceivable that any interest rate in the bank which you would forego, would be offset by increases in energy costs.