Vawt systems

GreenPowerManiac
GreenPowerManiac Solar Expert Posts: 453 ✭✭✭
Anyone own or dabble with making a small Vawt system ?
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Comments

  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: Vawt systems

    not too many people are going wind these days due to poor performances and high maintenance, but vawts are even less efficient than hawts. do you have a vawt?
  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    Re: Vawt systems

    GPM,

    There are a few people that have--Most have had some sort of "early life failures" and/or terribly under-performing installations. Even the people that find wind fills there needs still have a fair amount of maintenance to keep them flying)...

    And that is for traditional Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWT). VAWT (Vertical Axis Wind Turbines) seem almost all be scams/get rich quick schemes for the mfg (this is my personal opinion--I am not speaking for anyone else here or the owner of this forum).

    Add some links about wind power (good and ugly):

    Wind Power Links
    www.otherpower.com (good forum for DYI Wind Power)
    Small windpower a scam ? Survey says SO (includes VAWT results from Europe)
    Truth About Skystream & SWWP

    And a general DYI Solar Builder site:

    www.builditsolar.com

    What do you think of the above links?

    What has been your actual wind power production... I have found few with Grid Tied Wind Turbines that have dedicated Watt*Hour (Power) Meters to log the power generated month by month.

    Even fewer people seem to have cumulative Amp*Hour meters on their DC/Battery Based wind turbines with a month by month logging of output.

    Do you have a year or more of monthly production figures for your installation(s)? Please feel free to post the details here (Mfg/Model, diameter, ratings and/or link to ratings on mfg. website or elsewhere)...

    About the only only site that I have seen that puts monthly Wind kWH figures on the front of their website is the "Keep Turning" blog (sporadically updated) (I am sure there are others--I do not follow wind very closely).

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • GreenPowerManiac
    GreenPowerManiac Solar Expert Posts: 453 ✭✭✭
    Re: Vawt systems

    I like the solar dinosaur the best..... No, the TLG wind power. Are they trying to sell the T&A rather than the unit ?

    I've built 3 small Hawts and I'll get 0-600 watts depending on wind speed each.

    My uncle showed me a Vawt he designed that would eliminate the wind resistance on the blades return cycle (when the blade rotates into the wind from being pushed). I've got one Hawt built already and the other one was built until I dismantled it for other purposes. Nothing was wrong with it. I might be able to set the dismantled one up to operate as a VAWT with the right squirrel cage.
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  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: Vawt systems

    another vawt problem is getting them up to the winds high above the ground. this is hard enough to do for hawts.
  • GreenPowerManiac
    GreenPowerManiac Solar Expert Posts: 453 ✭✭✭
    Re: Vawt systems

    BB.

    You mention high maintenance earlier. Mine where high maintenance in the first few weeks after install, however developed some alternatives to keep me from climbing up on the barn roof to take care of them. Some of my issues included: The blades where set up to rotate counter clockwise thus loosening the lock nuts on the prop. One flew off but had no damage due to landing in my hay field. Put a small dent in my barn. The other was its rotational axis. I put in a stopping pin to keep the wind from twisting the wires more than 360 degrees. This proved a bad idea but a good intention. When the wind rotates around, it keeps going in one direction like a circle around here. It only wound it up. The pin has been replaced by a 4 dollar utility extension spring bolted to a rear wheel bearing assembly. Surprisingly this works well. When the wind calms down, the spring returns the Hawt to its default position. Since those fixes, it's been virtually maintenance free. This design works really good.
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  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    Re: Vawt systems

    GPM,

    Sounds neat--How much power are you collecting per month (AH at what battery voltage / WH)...

    You have to watch using "cords" if they are exposed to weather / sun--the insulation will not last very long (months, few years).

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • GreenPowerManiac
    GreenPowerManiac Solar Expert Posts: 453 ✭✭✭
    Re: Vawt systems

    Around my area the wind is fairly calm for the summer months. The other 9 months we get gale force winds, sometimes for days on end. Feels like the house is going to fly away like the Wizard of Oz.

    Let's figure this out, shall we ? Battery bank consists of 15 deep cycle SLA's at 120Ah each making a total of 1800Ah's. At 12 volts in Parallel the turbines spin at charging levels about 20% of the month (in Summer). I've not winter tested them yet. Maximum output for each turbine is 10 amps in 40mph winds. At this speed it'll put out 60 volts and 10 amps each. Each turbine is equipped with my own designed furling mechanism. Combined with the 3 of them we're looking at maximum 30 amps. 20% of 30 amps maximum is 6 amps. 6 amps divided by 30 days is 0.2 amps per day average. Am I doing this right ?

    Just the output from the wind turbines since the initial install is around 20% of the charge needed to successfully maintain the bank. The other 80% power comes from my 17 solar panels. Two of them are used to charge a 14 Gel battery backup bank.
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  • GreenPowerManiac
    GreenPowerManiac Solar Expert Posts: 453 ✭✭✭
    Re: Vawt systems

    Oh, the other thing is all the wires are enclosed from weather and sunlight.
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  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    Re: Vawt systems

    GPM,

    Mechanical Furling is good... Some very big wind mfg. seem to have forgotten that little fact when designing their HAWT...
    Let's figure this out, shall we ? Battery bank consists of 15 deep cycle SLA's at 120Ah each making a total of 1800Ah's. At 12 volts in Parallel the turbines spin at charging levels about 20% of the month (in Summer). I've not winter tested them yet. Maximum output for each turbine is 10 amps in 40mph winds. At this speed it'll put out 60 volts and 10 amps each. Each turbine is equipped with my own designed furling mechanism. Combined with the 3 of them we're looking at maximum 30 amps. 20% of 30 amps maximum is 6 amps. 6 amps divided by 30 days is 0.2 amps per day average. Am I doing this right ?

    Sort of mixed numbers here... Assume 12 volt battery bank (15 volt when charging). Assume that your system outputs at 20% of name plate current for an "average windy month" (Mass. Tech Report shows that their monitored small wind typically output 15%-40% of professionally estimated production figures--range was from 2% to 45% or so).

    A 10 kW system running at 100% 24 hours per day, 365 days a year would output 87,600 kWhrs per year. Their predicted average production was around 11,000 kWHrs per year, or ~3,500 kWhrs or 27% of predicted value. Using the numbers:

    3,494 kWhrs measured / 87,600 kWhrs per year maximum potential = 0.04 or ~4% of name plate rating (average power availability) across ~19 sites (number is really a tiny bit better, because there were two at less than 10kW systems included--but close enough for here).

    Call these 500 Watt Turbines (calculation for 1 turbine)--and using the information from 19 sites:

    0.5 kW * 24 hours * 365 days * 0.04 name plate rating = 175 kWatts per year

    175,000 Watts * 1/12volts * 1/365 days per year = 40 Amp*Hours per day (or 480 Watt*Hours per day)

    The above is just based on raw averages for people that think they live in a windy enough location (Massachusetts) to install Wind Turbines (10 kW most of them) and for the State to pay rebates.

    Using your numbers... 10 amp max per turbine, 20% is average for "windy months":

    10 amps * 24 hours * 0.20 = 48 Amp*Hours (576 WH) per day per turbine...

    Sort of similar numbers (40 AH across the whole year vs 48 AH for your site in windy months) so we are probably somewhat close to the actual numbers possible (when guessing).
    Just the output from the wind turbines since the initial install is around 20% of the charge needed to successfully maintain the bank. The other 80% power comes from my 17 solar panels. Two of them are used to charge a 14 Gel battery backup bank.

    I don't know how to use this information without more numbers (solar panels, configuration is one turbine on first bank?, power consumed, etc.)...

    But, each turbine seems to be capable of generating around $0.05 of electricity per day (assuming $0.10 per kWhr).

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • GreenPowerManiac
    GreenPowerManiac Solar Expert Posts: 453 ✭✭✭
    Re: Vawt systems

    The entire system setup:

    1 main bank, 15 SLA's deep cycles, 12v parallel hooked up to two of the 3 turbines and 15 of 17 solar panels. So....

    15 batteries (main bank) 1800Ah's Max.
    2 wind turbines
    15 solar panels

    14 Gel batteries ( backup bank) 1400Ah's Max.
    1 wind turbine
    2 solar panels

    Backup bank runs all the lights, outlets, switches in the Barn when needed. The inverter is off until time of use.

    Main bank runs everything back fed into the Garage per 120v A/C.
    Both systems use Morningstar TS-60, TS-45 charge controllers.
    Nature's Design & Green Energy on FaceBook : Stop by and "Like" us anytime.. Many up-to-date articles about Renewables every day.
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