Wind Power Economics

One year's warranty is one thing. What it means is that after one year, one no longer gets free spare parts and free troubleshooting backup.

One year's payback is another. That would be ambitious for many construction projects, given the build time, especially in non-dinopower generation applications! Otherwise, everybody would have one!!

Heck, I would take a 10 year payback since that seems to be the terms of the loans available with state subsidy. But even with state subsidy wind power seems to be economically unfeasable. Or, as you say, everybody would have one!

Tax incentives for commercial energy producers make the long ROI on wind generation economically feasible. Another practical application is if you are off the grid and use wind to charge batteries as a supplement to solar and IC generation.

Like most alternative power schemes it is more 'Greenie" pie-in-the-sky.

For a stationary system look into how to build a solar boiler that will run a steam engine to power a generator. To avoid the cost of a large bank of batteries for nighttime power use a small water-tube boiler of the Lamont design and fuel it with the fuel of your choice. Waste heat can heat your water and your house and with thermoelectrics even make more electricity from the waste heat. Power your hydrogen generator to make H for running your tractor, tiller, mower or car. Get 90% efficiency.

You may have to build it or have it built yourself but the warranty is in you. Check the Green Steam Engine site for one possible design you could use.

You didn't provide a link to ther green steam engine site.

So what is the specific advantage of the Lamont boiler design?

Steam had a reputation for low efficiency but if the fire wood is cheap or free; that is hardly a consideration. However smoke emissions is a concern. Locally wood is rotting on the ground , but the enviro whacko are busy outlawing wood burning stoves and boilers. That forces low income families to use expensive fossil fuels or electricity for heat. Makes a lot of sense - but not to me.

elnav - just Search - Green Steam Engine - and the first listing is Greensteamengine.com. The Lamont boiler also can be found in a Search - the main advantage is that it makes more steam in a smaller boiler.

The efficiency is propaganda based on locomotives that exhausted their steam to the air. By using a compound engine, uniflow design and a hermetically sealed condensing system to recycle the water, efficiency is better than internal combustion. A steam- electric generating plant can be 90% efficient if all the heat is used instead of put into the air. Wood rotting puts just as much CO2 into the air as burning it. The environuts are such hysterics they would outlaw fire and have us living in a vegan stone age so as to have less impact on their precious environment. Of course that means everyone but them should just quietly die. Yet using a fan for forced draft on wood pellets would emit very little smoke, due to nearly complete combustion.

A couple of people on this blog are working on powering vehicles with steam engines using wood pellets, which can be mechanically fed into the firebox. For more on steam and electric ideas e-mail - beesidemeusa@yahoo,co.uk - and ask about steam- electric. There is something about a vehicle there and some general steam information copied from many sites.

Apart from deciding the acceptable payback period, how much wind are you getting in your specific location? Local wind obstructions could very well negate any real use of wind power. Or a good location with some wind funneling might put you way ahead of the curve. Remember local topology can greatly affect your wind speed averages.

Have you already done a site survey with a data logging wind speed / direction weather station? this is crucial to knowing how much wind to expect on average.

secondly, are you only looking at replacing your own consumption of utility power, or are you factoring in buy back of energy by your local power authority.

Acros the lake from you Ontario Hydro is actively soliciting micro power generator contributions and paying a fixed rate per kilowat hour of power created. What is your local situation?

In addition to just creating your own replacement power, are you looking at power consumption management to reduce you own consumption thus leaving more for export and thus a faster payback?

I'm 0.5mi from the lake shore, so wind usually isn't an issue. Harbec Plastics has a large windmill (250kW) that I just lust after. But for all the research I've done I haven't found a way to make a windmill pay for close to 20 years. I'll have to read the other posts and see what I can come up with. The steam engine idea is interesting, but as most of my energy is electric (no underground utilities here) the infrastructure change would be expensive as well.

Okay. Unless you just happen to have a big wind break between you and the lake the location sounds good. Lusting after a 250kW is one thing but realistically, how much energy do you personally use in your household? Rochester has an airport. Their met department wil lhave ream of data covering wind speeds etc. since this is key to safe flights. I have found that if you visit that department on a slow day (maybe night shift) they are often very happy to help you out.

This will give you enough data for your area to calculate probable wind speed averages and thus potential energy recovery. Secondly, what did your own energy audit show by way of potential power use reduction? There is always something in nearly every household which offers potential savings.

I'm told its a federal regulation that US utilitities have to buy back surplus energy from micro generators. Here in Canada it seems to vary by province. Ontario has a program. So does BC but the red tape involved here in BC is considerable. More so than in Ontario.

Skystream is a grid-tie system of 2.5 kilowatt capacity and if you bought everything new and hired a contractor to do all the work at $100/hour then the installed system cost is about $15,000. It would be much less if you can do some of the work yourself.

When I lived in Ontario my power bill was $120 - $150 per month. We were paying 7.5 cents per kilowatt at the time. I had also been told that Con Edison in NY state charged something liek 10 cents per kilowatts at the time. That would have made electric utility bills more expensive compareed to my bills.

Sometimes a smaller wind mill (less expensive) can reduce your electricity bills by enough to justify the cost. That might mean a much shorter payback period.

Could you explain more about what you mean when you say "the lift profile and tip configuration of the blades" and are there any scenarios where several smaller wind turbines would be more cost efficient than say 1 5kw turbine.

Also, just to take going green an extra step, in my yard I would have to cut down some trees to get the best results, however, is it possible to situate a turbine at the top of some of my oak trees?

Do you know of any good links, or books that would help someone like me get more familiar with turbine basics?

Lastly, can you recommend any companies in India, China or oversees to purchase directly from?

Thanks for your great article above!

You could talk about it for 10 years. At the end of the talking period it will either be worth it or we will all have come to our senses.

The biggest problem with wind turbines is that they only produce usable electricity while the wind blows within their design limits - the larger the turbine, the higher the wind speed needs to be before any power is produced.

In locations where the average is good, but is made up of very low speeds and storm speeds, the output will be poor.

As has been suggested above, get a wind speed survey done, and then choose the size of unit to give the best returns.

I do not think that producing electricity directly is the best way, as speed fluctuations mean that control of the output is difficult.

I do not think that producing electricity directly is the best way, as speed fluctuations mean that control of the output is difficult.

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Which is why some method of power storage is essential when using Wind or solar. This storage can take several forms. One of the most cost efective is grid-tie combined with buy back of excess power.

Battery storage is the most common form, but recent increases in price of lead is now making this less cost effective than before.

I was thinking of using another collection method, pressure based, which would allow the electric generation to be done at optimum constant speed when required. It may (will) be that more energy will be lost in translation, but it could collect at any wind speed, and the output electricity would be buffered from irregularities in wind speed. Power could still be taken from the buffer supply when the sails stall.

Pressure storage has its own problems in terms of safely containing enough volume at high pressuer without risk of rupturing the containment vessel. It is only cost efffective on a large scale. This is being used in a number of places.

Pumped storage of water is a similar approach, with similar drawbacks. DoE has blessed the grid-Tie approach because it is equally able to accomodate micro sized contributors aand large scale co-generation plants.

Everything has its merits and drawbacks. There is a company in the NE of England which trialled an ocean current capture system with promising results, but were forced to concentrate on their core products as the government put their funds into wind power, even though ocean currents are much more reliable and predictable.

The problems of pressure storage can be kept down by limiting the buffer level, and by using air as a medium - no environmental damage in the event of a burst.

I suppose it is much the same as the way car engines are used - they are built to give the maximum output needed, and run at lesser efficiency most of the time. If the engine was set to run at its optimum output, then the buffer would give a burst of power when it was needed. UPS are using an electric buffer, others use hydraulics.

Make and compress hydrogen with the excess electricity and use it to fuel your boiler at night. H is just a form of energy storage anyway.

Why hydrogen?? It takes much more energy to produce, is impossible to store completely as the molecules are so small they escape through the storage vessel, etc...........Hydrogen is the only element which is light enough to escape the earth's gravitational field.

For use within a day compressed air would be quite sufficient - and most boilers are used at night because the fuel is cheaper then, so being independent of the network would mean that heat could be produced when it is required, rather than overnight.

I think it was Taganan who in another thread mentioned the Green Steam engine. After checking it out I found this engine can operate at very low pressures including compressed air.

This new engine design concept might just be th eway to go with pressure storage. Hi pressure vessels must be certified and re-inspected periodically. This increases the operating cost considerably. However low pressure tanks are not as expensive to get certified and re-inspected. It might actually be cost effective.

I am part owner in a wind generator on the Buffalo Ridge in SW Minn. The payback was exaggerated on ours as well. It would have been close if maintenance costs weren't so high. This generator is dedicated to selling the electricity back to the grid.

I built a smaller more economical version at home. It is a relatively constant speed AC generator with no rectifying or inverting back to AC (to match the grid) and it is dedicated to home heating. When it's windy in the winter, it pulls in contactors for heating elements in the air ducts. The frequency of the AC is not important. It pays for itself in heat energy savings alone.

I have found a very affordable (depending on factors mentioned before) wind generator, from a company that I have been talking with in China. It is called Anhui Hummer Dynamo.

www.chinahummer.cn give them a try. I am sure they are painted with lead paint so try not to get your kids around them and try to keep your self from licking them when in operation. Check the curves vs. stated out put. Not to bad for what I have saw. They also offer different types of towers to mount them on. One is collapsible in case of a typhoon. That is what the rep I have been speaking with says. Her name is Mary and she is very knowledgeable and friendly. I sure the typhoon proof tower will be good for y'all in the mid west.