wind turbine option?

Tom Hagen

Lads,

building a new house and I hope to put in air-to-water heat pump for all my heating and hot water needs.
so basically I will have 1 esb bill every month job done.

can I retrofit a mini wind turbine in the future maybe down the line? (to pay for my esb bill)
I haven't the funds currently.

is there anything I should do now during the build to allow for this?

and finally, are they any good?

(loads of space and loads of wind around me.) :-)

Bad_alibi

My suggestion is ditch the turbine idea and just go with solar PV panels, cheaper, easier install

quentingargan

Unless you are an enthusiast for some reason, I would agree that domestic turbines don't add up financially. Solar PV panels fell in price so much that they produce electricity for a fraction of the cost of small wind.

Small wind is useful in off-grid situations where it balances solar quite nicely.

If you really wanted to do it, you would lay armoured cable - probably 3X10mm or 3X16mm from the plant room or a shed (with electricity) to the turbine site.

You may need solar PV anyhow to meet Part L. If that is already required, it is quite easy to make it expandable.

At present, both PV and small wind have their viability compromised because there is no scheme to buy back surplus power

Bad_alibi

@quentingargan

Do you have any idea or figures on the cost of a small turbine.

quentingargan

Bad_alibi wrote: »

@quentingargan

Do you have any idea or figures on the cost of a small turbine.

I once designed a 2.5kw machine that we sold installed for €13,500 but we never got enough sales and I wrapped up that business a few years back. We still get some enthusiasts building their own versions of it.

MCS standard in the UK required tests that cost about €130K regardless of the size of turbine, and that pretty much banjacksed the smaller turbines like ours and pushed up the price of others.

I think you can expect to pay about €18K to €20K for a 3kw and €30k for a 5kw turbine, but there are no companies doing this full time.

On a really good hilltop site, you might get 10,000KwHrs from a 5kw turbine. You could put in 6kw of PV for about €8K on a shed roof giving a yield of about 5,000KwHrs, so you can see why, bang for your buck, solar PV is a better option. Also, there is no maintenance on a PV system and it usually works trouble free for 25 years, with perhaps an inverter failure during that time. By comparison, most turbines require €300 to €500 maintenance per annum.

All prices are plus VAT and approximate but just to give you an idea....

Tom Hagen

ok i'll ditch the wind turbine idea and go with the PV panel idea.

can a pv panel system give enough electricity to cover my heat pump needs and general household needs. ? ..or a percentage of it at least

sorry now if seems very random question

rolion

Tom Hagen wrote: »

ok i'll ditch the wind turbine idea and go with the PV panel idea.

can a pv panel system give enough electricity to cover my heat pump needs and general household needs. ? ..or a percentage of it at least

sorry now if seems very random question

Hi,

I do understand your feelings.
I spent countless nights designing my ideal wind turbine !
I even studied magnetic levitation for a while...
End result: solar PV.

Answer to your question:maybe not,based on your house location,position.
Maybe yes,daytime but dont think so.A small perentage yes but not major affecting your electricty bill.

A solar PV may influence your living style around consumption with in relation to daytime and Sun presence...

Take some time and go trough some of the posts here,you will find answers to questions you never had tought before !

Either way,enjoy the ride and not the destination !!

2forjoy

wind power is not gonna take off . too many big organisations against them

quentingargan

Tom Hagen wrote: »

ok i'll ditch the wind turbine idea and go with the PV panel idea.

can a pv panel system give enough electricity to cover my heat pump needs and general household needs. ? ..or a percentage of it at least

sorry now if seems very random question

Unfortunately, your consumption will never exactly match your production. So you will always produce either too much or too little electricity. You can use a device to divert all your surplus electricity to the immersion heater so you get solar hot water from your surplus power. That can make the system viable. However, if all your consumption is at night, that may be a problem. As Rolion says, you might time washing machines etc. to optimise your consumption.

Attached is a simulation of a typical system of 14 panels. You could scale that up and down, but it gives an indication of likely production each month.

Tom Hagen

quentingargan wrote: »

Unfortunately, your consumption will never exactly match your production. So you will always produce either too much or too little electricity. You can use a device to divert all your surplus electricity to the immersion heater so you get solar hot water from your surplus power. That can make the system viable. However, if all your consumption is at night, that may be a problem. As Rolion says, you might time washing machines etc. to optimise your consumption.

Attached is a simulation of a typical system of 14 panels. You could scale that up and down, but it gives an indication of likely production each month.

thanks guys, that 14 panel simulator says it could produce 3,308 kwh per year. anybody know what an average irish household built with the new regulations with a heat pump would use per year? two adults two kids for example?

maybe up around 6,000 kwh + ??

quentingargan

Tom Hagen wrote: »

thanks guys, that 14 panel simulator says it could produce 3,308 kwh per year. anybody know what an average irish household built with the new regulations with a heat pump would use per year? two adults two kids for example?

maybe up around 6,000 kwh + ??

Yes - according to SEAI, the average household is on about 6,300 in 2006. I guess a heat pump would add another 1500 or so to that, and if you are more economical than the average you might end up back at the same level. The heat pump is probably best run at night when electricity is cheaper, with perhaps a midday boost on your solar. But if your heat pump uses 2kw and your 3kw array is producing 1.5kw at the time, you'll be buying the balance at full price.

There is a bit of a mismatch between heat pumps and solar. The solar works best when you need it least. But if, as we all expect, an export tariff or other incentive is introduced, then things should stack a lot better financially. Sell your surplus during the day for 12c and buy it back at night to run your heat pump for 9c. We live in hope...

Wegian

quentingargan wrote: »

Yes - according to SEAI, the average household is on about 6,300 in 2006. I guess a heat pump would add another 1500 or so to that, and if you are more economical than the average you might end up back at the same level. The heat pump is probably best run at night when electricity is cheaper, with perhaps a midday boost on your solar. But if your heat pump uses 2kw and your 3kw array is producing 1.5kw at the time, you'll be buying the balance at full price.

There is a bit of a mismatch between heat pumps and solar. The solar works best when you need it least. But if, as we all expect, an export tariff or other incentive is introduced, then things should stack a lot better financially. Sell your surplus during the day for 12c and buy it back at night to run your heat pump for 9c. We live in hope...

Without this feed back tarrif I find it hard (despite my best attempts as I really like the technology) to justify the spend on PV.
The context is my having to make a decision in the coming fortnight between an A2W Heat Pump or Oil/PV

Do you have any recent analysis which shows a positive financial benefit for Oil/PV in terms of running cost?

Up front spend difference is circa 5K!!

quentingargan

Wegian wrote: »

Without this feed back tarrif I find it hard (despite my best attempts as I really like the technology) to justify the spend on PV.
The context is my having to make a decision in the coming fortnight between an A2W Heat Pump or Oil/PV

Do you have any recent analysis which shows a positive financial benefit for Oil/PV in terms of running cost?

Up front spend difference is circa 5K!!

Without a feed in tariff for surplus power, the cost of a PV system may be hard to justify, but it depends on the system size required to meet part L. If your system is over 1.5kw, it is worthwhile to use an immersion diverter to send surplus power to your immersion heater. That way, you save 18c on electricity you use and about 9c on any electricity you send to your immersion. However, that is something you retrofit after the BER assessment is complete...

If your house is exceptionally well insulated, the cost of heating is reduced, and this has the quirky effect of making it more difficult to justify the capital cost of a heat pump. I hate saying that because for environmental reasons, I'd prefer to see oil consigned to the scrap heap.

Have a look at your DEAP calculations and see how much energy it is going to take to heat your house (excluding hot water). Then see if you can justify / afford the heat pump option.

To really assess the savings, you'd need to send the XML file from your BER assessor.