Micro wind turbines

unkel

Nice graph. How high up is your weather station? Have you any graph from a few weeks in December / January?

I did also think their figures seemed reasonable, but imagine installing a 120kg yoke on the top of your house. I'm sure you can't without planning permssion. And how much does this thing even cost? It seems a company based in India from a quick browse

SD_DRACULA

It's at the back of the house, about 2.5m off the ground so I'm guessing it's quite "sheltered" but only up like a month or so, during the most windless times in recent history 😂

Should be Dutch company.

Apparently the "1500" model costs €3999 according to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnVXuMfiHdI

Which is what, at least the cost of a 5-6kwp array, so a bit pricey in my books.

unkel

And producing just 1MWh per year. Let's say it runs for a very generous 10 year life with zero maintenance, then it will have cost €0.40 per kWh. Cheaper to just buy from the grid...

samdeluxjones

Generation update 2023 2kW Ista Breeze

March: 58kWh

April: 32kWh

May: 14kWh

June & July : 35kWh

August: 20kWh

September : 51kWh

October : 29kWh

November: 28kWh

December 78kWh

Total 345kWh I reckon Jan & Feb will add Another 100 easily.

This year has not been great for wind compared to previous but then the sun has been fairly good throughout the colder months.

The wind for December is 60kWh less than the solar which is a 6kW array so if I double my wind to 4kW I would be ahead of solar for December.

Interesting to see the monthly discharged minus the monthly charged is almost the wind generation total for December.

bullit_dodger

For context, my 6.5Kwp costing €10-11K (with battery) did 64kwhr in December, so it beat that. Granted my arrays are split E/W which are fairly rubbish in the depths of Winter, but yeah, you beat my solar for Dec! That's alright to be fair. I mean sure - the solar array has knocked out 40Kwh -in a day- in May so I'd not swap, but getting ~80Kwhr a month from wind would nearly sort out HW usage for 2 adults. Take money out of the equation that's kinda neat.

I guess Jan & Feb (your missing months so far) are probably the best months for wind?

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121557225#Comment_121557225

Fair play for posting the updates. I find it interesting. Living in Dublin suburbs it's never a runner but still interesting to see.

unkel

Thanks for the updates. Just to play devil's advocate here. I just bought a few 355W PV panels for €65 each. These generate almost as much each as your wind turbine. Zero maintenance and super cheap setup too.

If I had a suitable site and was somehow forced to go off-grid, I would have a turbine too though 😁

samdeluxjones

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121558420#Comment_121558420

Not in December they didn't.

Where did you get them if you don't mind me asking you?

samdeluxjones

January 2024 59kWh from 2kW Ista Breeze, thanks to Isha & Jocelyn.

The very cold week was also very sunny so the panels generated 12-16kWh on those days softening the draw on the heap pump which I reckon could be between 25-30kW

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703977#Comment_121703977

Lovin' the stats. 60kWh is close to what my suburban E/W 5kWp did in December. Deffo jealous of someone with 2 types of energy generation :)

Dtp1979

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703977#Comment_121703977

Are you the person who was going to install the istabreeze about 6 months ago? If so, how did it work out?

championc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121752526#Comment_121752526

Read back 6 months in the thread !!!

samdeluxjones

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121752526#Comment_121752526

At the end of this month it'll be a full year so Ill post annual results.

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121753722#Comment_121753722

Nice one. You'll be the first long term user stats that I've seen. Looking forward to it. I know it won't beat solar, but that's not the point.

reboot

I know its not really for the Micro turbine thread,but interesting article in the new issue of New Sientist magazine.

Denmark, Netherlands Germany and Belgium are looking a building 'Energy Islands' for off shore turbines to act as a Continental Supergrid which could produce 56 Gigawatts, equivalent to 30 Neuclear power plants.

The interesting aspect is that instead of transmitting the power via an expensive infrastructure of cables,Green Hydrogen would be produced by electrolysers on the Islands. This would then be shipped,of piped back to land.

The West cost of Ireland is mentioned as an ideal location, with lots of wind ,and where the demand for electricity is relatively low ,but would be 'A fantastic place to make Hydrogen'

ColemanY2K

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121904290#Comment_121904290

producing electricity to turn into hydrogen to then turn back into electricity is a bit daft given the losses incurred during manufacturing process.

the above is paraphrasing elon musk who I'm no fan of but makes sense.

graememk

If your going to all that effort to build energy islands, and all the hydrogen infrastructure (Inc either desalination or handling the chlorine gas) and the hassle of getting the hydrogen out (ship? Pipeline?)

A DC interconnector starts to look cheap.

reboot

Maybe you don't need to turn it back into electricity in every case?

tedimc

Just wondering if the thoughts on Micro Turbines have changed? I've been looking at solar for a while, but the serious drop in output during the winter is a concern for me.

I live in the country near Sligo, on a hill, with some land around. I could easily locate a wind turbine in a good location (was considering doing the same with solar anyway). But I was considering if a group of small, vertical-axis turbines would be a good choice. I'd prefer to keep it as simple as possible, and not bother with batteries, etc. initially. And while solar may be better during the summer months, wind may provide more consistent output across the year.

I have geo-thermal heating/HW, and household bills are significant (~€4k/year). Still using an old mechanical meter.

Any recommendations for installers would be appreciated.

graememk

Micro wind is unfortunately expensive, and that's doing it yourself.

Solar is so much better, even taking the 3 worst months into account. W

Go with solar first, then start exploring micro wind, to fill in the gaps

bullit_dodger

100% jump on the bandwagon there behind graememk above. While your right about the solar drop off in winter, one thing you need to think differently about is with FIT (Feed-in-Tarriff) you get paid for excess.

In summer (Apr→Oct) virtually all of us are generating more than we need, so your getting credits on your account with ESB, Energia, SSE, etc. Probably not paying any bills as your FIT will cover everything including standing charge. Come winter time, it's highly likely that you'll have be "in credit" with your supplier and your winter bills will reduce because of that. This year and last year with the government grants of €450 it's hard to know what I would have paid, but a lot of us here haven't paid a leccie bill in 2 years now :-)

Wind very much is a hobby/enthusiast thing down at the residential level. With the right setup and right location (plenty of wind) it can work, but it's like 5-10x more effort than solar which is basically install & forget.

championc

And forget about vertical axis ones. Plenty of videos to explain why.

And for horizontal, don't buy eBay AliExpress crap either.

Buy an Ista Breeze one if you want to play with something

bullit_dodger

This video (which I've linked before) gives a good background into why wind turbines down at the residential level are typically not great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRREJZdRA8g

That's not to say that it's always a non-runner, but compared to solar, it's ROI typically isn't as good. Bottom line if you want the fastest payback on your money, it's install a large solar system.

reboot

If we are talking Micro power in general,a 100 watt turbine at around 200 Euro will output obviously on average around 3 amps into a 12v car battery. A toe in the water beginning, blades about 3ft across , 15 feet off the ground.

With Kathleen around I've dropped the pole down completely.

Solar is less mechanical work but as pointed out not great in winter,my setup is mobile so it follows the arc of the sun throughout the day,not on the roof.

SouthWesterly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121986082#Comment_121986082

Any chance of a photo of your solar array. Interested in the mobility of it. Thanks

reboot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121988283#Comment_121988283

How to send pictures from my phone to boards? Thanks.

Panels are a mixture of 30 watt flexible, from the Maplin days,sometimes series or parallel connections depending on the exhaustive field trials,and 50 watt BP solar from decades ago.

As a rule of thumb,I expect half of what they promise,as I don't live in sunny Spain.

A swiveling scaffold pole copes

with about a 240 degree rotation,could be motorised,but can't be bothered.

I sometimes use a small trolley set up,but storms like Kathleen can blow them onto the road 20 ft away.

In any event its just a hobby,and if they were on the roof I can't turn the house around!

I've never been interested in large scale off grid stuff,and am happy with 12v dc down to 5v USB charging etc.

Mostly lead acid batteries, but moved onto Tesla modules in recent years from breakers yard in Newry.

I

SouthWesterly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121988389#Comment_121988389

Click on the square I have ringed to add photos. Sounds an interesting set up.

tedimc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121979081#Comment_121979081

That's great to hear re your bills, I will look into the solar so in more detail.

I was actually talking to a work colleague who had solar. He never changed his meter over to a new type one and still had the old mechanical meter. Apparently, when he was generating more than consuming, his meter reversed - so while not in theory selling back to the grid, he was saving a lot of money.

On a side note, if your FIT locked in for a period of time, or is it likely to drop as more people start feeding in their excess?

bullit_dodger

Yeah, there are a few of those old mechanical ones about that spin backwards. They are like a treasure chest if you have one - but ESB want them gone (as with all other non-smart meters)

Even many of those mechanical ones had a little rachet in there which stopped it from spinning backwards which made the ones that do, ultra rare. If you have one, you need to be careful that you always submit a bill which has a higher "units consumed" than the last bill so that it looks like it's always increasing, but yeah, effectively every unit you made from solar you got paid for it.

To be fair though, with the generous FIT we have today, your typically looking at 6-9 years payback. Roughly. Sure, if you pay an outrageous price for a small installation your not going to get that 6-9 year range, but if you source your quotes well from reputable suppliers (there are actually some out there!) then you could do a lot worse things with your money than install solar.

tedimc

Thanks - I kicked off the conversation with a well-recommended local supplier so will see where it leads.