air turbine

System
System Posts: 2,511 admin
Hello all....I have a 400 watt turbine since 2000 and never completely installed.....my intention was to have the turbine attached to side of house elevated to a decent height (which I installed back in 2000 without the blades) from the turbine to a series of (8 ) 100 amp hour batteries wired (in series or parallel) which ever is best? Then to a Trace SW2512 Power panel (which produces 2.5 kw continous power, 12 vdc input voltage, wave form sine, 120 vac output, with a 150 amp battery charger. My wish is to see if anyone could e-mail me a schmatic in layman's terms on how to wire eveything.....I have all which is needed to put this project together, 60 amp inline fuse from turbine to batteries, stop switch, amp meter, 30 amp sub-panel, DC disconnect. I had several electricians come in and look over the minor project....all of which wanted to install it for almost 3x the price I paid for all the equipment.....one actually started installing the trace on my basement wall and started to wire it (to the sub-panel which he also installed) he never returned to complete the job, I realized he did not know what he was doing, that's why he never showed up again......I noticed his wiring he used through his pvc to the main panel was that of DOORBELL gage, which I removed as soon as I saw it.......thank goodness he never came back.....would of burned the house down......anyway, a few other "electrical experts showed up wanted to try it out like a sicence project on the side to see if it works then hook it up for real.....of course I threw him as well......It seems to me they were all afraid of a battery hook up like it was the strangest thing they ever saw.....so my project has been on hold ever since and now with the use of these post with other uses of wind and solar power I may be able to continue with their help.......thank you all, POP

Edited by crewzer on 4/10/07 to read "(8 )...batteries..." instead of "(8)...batteries...".

Comments

  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: air turbine

    hi pop,
    yes it is difficult to get people who know what they are doing and won't overly charge for it. now the output of the wind generator is going to be typically in the 4 amp range if it's the one i think it is and certainly won't do much for the batteries. you will also find that once you've put the propellers on the wind generator that it will have vibrations. i'm not sure if on the house is where you will want it for that reason. the inverter would've been the main charger for the batteries as its 150amp output would've been much higher. this would be good roughly for about 1500-3000ah in battery capacity. i'll bet this was a y2k system that was to be installed. being the world didn't go into meltdown the project was put off, but it will still make a good home backups system.
    the battery arrangement is determined by the output voltage of the wind generator and/or the output of the inverter which must match each other in voltage output. i can see by the model number the inverter is 12v and if i miss my guess your wind generator is also 12v. this would mean if all of the batteries are 12v that you will have a parallel arrangement. however, if you have 6v batteries you must place 2 in series to come up with the needed 12v before it can be paralleled to other seriesed 6v batteries. now for the bad news. since the batteries have been laying around since 2000 without a charge they are now quite dead and need replaced. they were dead long before this forum even existed. :-o
    i lack the ability to email you a pictoral diagram as i haven't a scanner that would input my drawing to the computer to send it to you. others may have that ability or can find a basic diagram of a similar system to show you. do not replace your batteries until you've gotten somebody lined up to install the system or you may risk them laying about and going bad again. batteries lose power even laying there and some could lose as much as 7% per month if memory serves me right. you don't want that to happen again i'm sure. if you quit the project all together, then feel free to sell your remaining stuff here providing you aren't a dealer coming up with more than one used system to sell, which it doesn't sound like it.
  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,433 admin
    Re: air turbine

    I second Niel's comment about not attaching your wind turbine to your home... At best, your home will act almost like a drum and amplify every mechanical noise produced by the wind turbine (plus the issues of buffeting winds from the home blowing up into the path of the turbine). At worse, the constant vibrations and stresses of the wind load and mechanical vibrations will eventually cause nails to back-out and cracks to form in stucco (although, I would bet that you would take it down from noise long before damage could accumulate).

    We don't know where you live or if your location is a good location for wind and that the tower is of sufficient height to be above trees/obstructions.

    My two cents--if the area you live in does not make you think that it you live in a windy location and can't have a pleasant picnic free of items blown off the table most days--then you probably will not gain much power for day to day living when combined with this "relatively" small turbine.

    If you still wish to install the turbine and put a small (read inexpensive) battery back on the turbine to see how much power you can get from the winds in your area--go for it. But it would be hard to imagine that this 400 watt unit support more than a small fraction of the power you seem to expect to consume with a 2.5 kW inverter...

    Here seems to be an interesting link for home wind power:

    http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_wind.html

    Home wind turbines seem to have been improving quite a bit over the last few years--and the one that you have has probably been much improved since 2000 (if not obsoleted by the manufacturer). And if you install a new tower to support this (small) turbine--you will probably find that you are spending more on the tower than you spent for the 2000 turbine--and it may be hard to justify the money for a new tower only to put old technology on top (even new turbines are not that expensive with respect to the the towers/batteries/chargers/inverters).

    I am not a wind expert--but Bergey seems to have a good reputation for turbines:

    http://www.bergey.com/

    Most people--if they can, combine wind with solar for off-grid applications... Typically, when the sun is shining there is not that much wind, and in bad weather when there is no sun, there is good winds. In most areas it would be difficult to expect wind to be the only source of power (at best, wind is seasonal in most areas and is not available all year long).

    Taking some numbers for for a Bergey 1kW model--you can expect 2-9kWhrs per day (minimum of 7-8 MPH annual average wind before any power is generated). And yours is only 40% as large--giving us an approximate 0.8-5.6 kWhrs per day. That is would support a 5 hours per day load of 160 watts to 1,100 watts. And that is only when the wind is blowing.

    Any way, without further information that is my two cents worth...

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • crewzer
    crewzer Registered Users, Solar Expert Posts: 1,832 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: air turbine

    Home Power magazine occasionally offers wind energy articles that might be helpful. Check issues #110 (Dec 05 & Jan 06) and #118 (Apr & May 07); you might be able to download the issues or just the articles for small fees. See: http://www.homepower.com/archive/

    HTH,
    Jim / crewzer