admin answers:

Hey Chris, good for you getting involved in this. About 12 years ago we looked into wind and solar power for our home. We used to have frequent power outages and just wanted a reliable backup source. Well today our home is completely powered by the wind and sun, we heat with wood, solar and propane, heat water with solar and propane and collect rainwater.

When it comes to wind or solar power you have 2 questions to answer. First, how much are you trying to produce. You said, “help power my house?” In this case, any size you are comfortable purchasing and installing will help. If you want to run everything most of the time like we do, then you have some more math to do. The second question is, “Do I want a stand alone system that can operate without grid power, or just produce some power to dump into the grid.” This is important. We had a stand alone system for years, meaning if we produced too much for our home and our batteries were full, then the rest was wasted. But it also means if the grid power goes down, we still have power. Grid tied systems need the grid to operate, they use it like a battery. They are less expensive and simpler to install, but cannot operate if the utility company has an outage, they simply shut down. There is a third type system just coming out, a hybrid. It has a battery bank, but ties to the grid at the same time. If the grid fails, it will power your home until the battery runs down. If you have wind or sun, this might be all week. These systems are the most expensive to purchase and operate, and more complicated than the other two, and are less efficient because they use some power keeping the batteries charged all the time.

For most people that want to get started, I recommend they build up a small system first and experiment with it. We did 11 years ago, it had one small panel, a 50 watt size, 4 golf cart batteries, and a 300 watt wind turbine from Southwest Windpower that was designed for a boat. Everything cost us $1,100 USD, and everything except the turbine is still operating today. We use the 12 volt power for kitchen lights, small electronics, like cell phone chargers and flashlights, and a radio and fan. There is a great magazine called Home Power that gets into doing all these things, and it doesn’t cost much to subscribe. They even ran 2 articles on our home, one on our small system, and another on our full sized one several years later. If you subscribe, you can use their online search to look for those articles, search for, “Small System First.” There are also some great websites, I will list some below.

As far as building your own wind turbine, it can certainly be done, but look for instructions first. And shy away from the vertical axis types, they look really cool and people say they are better because they can take wind from any direction. Wind only blows one way at a time, and the horizontal units have no problem with this because of thier tail. The real reason is because the vertical units are horribly inefficient. Generally they convert about 5 to 8 % of the incoming wind to electricity, horizontals run closer to 30%, this is why all the power companies are using the horizontal types. Check out Mick Sagrillos article about them in the AWEA website to learn more. Do some more reading, and if you can, get to one of the energy fairs listed in the back of Home Power, we did 12 years ago, and that is how we got here today. Good luck Chris, and take care, Rudydoo

admin answers:

Try here, found most of my ideas here.

Http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wind+turbine&aq=f

admin answers:

Wind energy is not transported but TRANSMITTED. These are also known as wind turbines.the blades move with the help of wind with particular speed on which the generator build the electricity,this electricity is then transmitted to the transformer to step down and connected conductors (wires)lead them to residential area by the help of poles.the electricity reaching to you,no one out side of the power plant can tel its from wind turbine,nuclear power plant,thermal power or any other………from all types the electricity is transmitted after transforming(step-up or step-down),the frequency and voltage is kept as recommended for any country……so no one finds any difference in electricity.no difference means appliance need electricity which is in particular frequency and voltage,if you provide it according to its need it will work,weather its from wind power plan or thermal.

Renewable energy in Spain

Spain is the world’s third biggest producer of wind power, after the United States and Germany, with an installed capacity of 16,740 megawatts (MW) at the end of 2008, a rise of 1,609 MW for the year. The largest producer of wind power in Spain is Iberdrola, with 27 percent of capacity, followed by Acciona on 16 percent and Endesa with 10 percent. Steady growth in capacity is expected in 2009, despite the credit crunch, due to long-term investments. Spain’s wind farms are on track to meet a government target of 20,000 MW in capacity by 2010.

On particular windy days, wind power generation has surpassed all other electricity sources in Spain, including nuclear. On April 18, 2008 the all time peak for wind generation was seen (10,879 MW, 32% of Spain’s power requirement),and on November 24, 2008 the wind energy produced the 43% of the demand.Wind power is an important energy source in Spain because the Spanish government has sanctioned a green energy approach to guarantee an increase in the country’s wind generation capacity, with aspirations to install a total of 20.1 GW of wind power by 2010.The approaches of energy deregulation that have been initiated in Spain recently are generating noteworthy developments within the energy sector. Multilateral cooperation for involvement in wind power production throughout Europe has created investment prospects for the industry and lower energy costs due to the efficiency of the renewable energy source and its domestic availability.
“The business framework for the installed capacity of wind power in the Autonomous Regions was made up of more than 170 companies that included manufacturers (wind turbines, blades, towers, generators, multipliers, electrical equipment, etc.), suppliers (hydraulic and electrical equipment and equipment for controlling and regulating), mechanical construction and public works companies, installation companies and maintenance, exploitation, and engineering companies in 2003”.
“Spanish companies are leading the way in turbine innovation by increasing the size of turbines while reducing turbine weight, and are also developing new technologies to take advantage of wind changes and split-second power outages”.

admin answers:

Hey Nita, do you already own that 5kw wind generator? That is a lot of power to feed into that size battery bank. If you have done a load analysis on whatever you are using the power for and come up with this battery bank and generator, then I am assuming you don’t need the battery to run your loads very long. On a windy day, your 5kw turbine will fill that battery up from empty to full in less than 8 hours, which might not be good for them. And then if you have several thousand watts of loads, on a calm day, a 700 AH battery will be dead in just a few hours.

At any rate, virtually all wind turbines do not use a charge controller. They tend to throw that phrase around a lot in discussions when what they really use is a load controller. There is a big difference. A charge controller is normally used in a solar array, by limiting the amount of current from the panels to the batteries when the battery bank is near full. It does this by sensing the battery voltage. A 48 volt battery bank will be near full when the voltage gets near 58 volts, or goes higher. The problem with wind turbines and hydro generators is that the power is developed mechanically with a source you have no control over, the wind or flowing water. To keep from overspeeding the turbine, all the power it developes must go someplace. So they use a load controller instead, which lets the batteries begin to overcharge just a bit, like maybe to 59 volts, then the controller turns on a dummy load, like a bank of 100 watt light bulbs, or an electric heating element. This load starts draining the batteries until the voltage comes back down to maybe 55 volts, then it turns off again.

Most turbine manufacturers include this type of controller with the turbine, or charge a nominal fee for it as an add on. Ours is a good example, it is a Southwest Windpower H-40, rated at .9kw. It has a 1.5kw heating element dump load that is controlled by the same box that the turbine output feeds into. You set the voltage you want the dump to start at, and it does the work for you. All the power from the turbine comes into the box all the time, it has no idea if it is going out to the batteries, or to the dump load intermittently. If you have a turbine with no controller, you could simply buy one, they are made by heliotrope, xantrex, morningstar and other companies. You’ll need one with the correct voltage, and enough amperage to handle the entire turbines output. A 5kw at 48 volts will need at least a 100 amp controller. You can add your own dump load if you like, maybe a bank of ceramic light bulb sockets with 100 watt bulbs screwed in. If you are using a large inverter, like a Xantrex 5548 for example, they have several programmable dump load controllers built in, you can set the first to go on at 55 volts, and off at 52, the second to go on at 57 volts and off at 55, and so on. There are lots of ways to set it up, but it has to be a load, or dump controller set up, not a charger controller. Many controllers can be set up to do either, but not both. A few have both, designed for solar and wind setups together.

If it were me, I’d call someone that sells these things and tell them what you are trying to do. A good place to start is Home Power Magazine, they have tons of ads for places like Backwoods Solar, or Alt Energy Store where you can get expertise and purchase a controller on the spot. I’ll list some sources below for you. Good luck Nita, Rudydoo

admin answers:

You can buy a mobile home approved, direct gravity vent wall heater. Like a Cozy, Williams, Empire.
They just mount on an outside wall and take combustion air from outside and exhaust to outside. Don’t mount near a door or window. They have standing pilots and don’t require any electricity. They have millivolt gas valves that work off pilot generators. For 800 sq. Ft. I think you need about 38,000 btu’s on the coldest day of the winter when the wind is blowing 40 mph. Good luck! Hope I helped.

admin answers:

A permanent magnet hobby motor from Radio Shack, some rubber tubing and hose clamps.

The motor will generate a voltage when its shaft is spun. You need to attach a small diameter pulley or wheel to the shaft of the motor. You may also try slipping a piece of small diameter rubber tubing over the motor shaft. Either way the bike wheel will rub against the pulley or tubing covered shaft to cause the motor shaft to rotate. You can attach the motor to a frame or bracket using hose clamps and wire ties..

You may find it easier to wind a coil of magnet wire and mount that coil to the bike frame near the rim. Then crazy glue pairs of magnets to the rim (alternating the pole orientation).

THis will generate AC power as the magnets travel past the coil. Use a pair of white LED’s connected in parallel but in opposite polarities to the coil. Each LED will light on part of the AC volatge.