Wind Power for the Money

Just make sure you DO have enough wind for this. Many people think that they have LOTS of wind, only to find out that they only THOUGHT they did. However, it sounds like you know what you are talking about since the price you mention ($15K) is about right for a real system. And getting it up high is important. One thing you can do is to first, set up an anemometer and log the wind at your site, at the height you think your turbine will be (or only slightly less), to check the average wind speed, which is what is most important... Not gusts

boB

I gave you a GA for two reasons.

1) I got me thinking of which variants out of your list apply down here in Aus.

2) It is an eye opener to all the Other thing that our technical\engineering areas run into rather than "Just the issue at hand".

Thanks & Regards,
Sapper.

Well said, right up on the subject, well done.

If bored theres a Co2 turbine self activating below and above zero degrees Celsius, going without a conversant mind.

Same tonnage Coal Carbon emission. 350 megawatts Steam. 18,000 megawatts Co2 conversion.

Did $20.00 per tonne Carbon tax just go phoof, (wiping out a bit of incentive) in Prime Minister Speech looking ahead 2010.

Cheers

Peter

Green is cool, as long as it's in your pocket.

There are so many unanswered questions, that only you can answer. 15K per year is a pretty big return in my book. For instance; if you require a 10% ROE, you would have to put up 150K to get that 15K. You had better do a lot of number crunching to expect 10% ROE in todays market. IMO .... keep dreamin.

as discouraging as my prev. sounded, I am just trying to cover all the bases without any limiters.

Don't know who, where, what, etc. so I trew any possibles in. Lots of these go away as the research is done.

Good news in New Mexico was IF you stayed under the generation limits AND you were selling to the major suppliers rather than the coops THEN you got a guaranteed .15 kWh.

Hi...

Firstly obtain wind data from your local agency. In India the Dept of renewable energy has logged data of wind flows, pattern, speeds etc for different regions which they hand out.

Next, calculate potential generation on this data. The potential generation depends on machine availabilty and wind speeds in different seasons.

Usually m/c availability is 98% as most equipment is good. But for your info capacity utilisation of a wind turbine in a good wind condition for a country like India is about 18% and in Germany say 30%.....so if the wind conditions on your plot are superb even then you may at best extract 35-40% of yearly capacity. So plan your equipment size accordingly.

Hello All,

I to have property in the country, 28 acres on a mountain side in Northern Ireland. I have been looking for information from the local companies that deal with this with no response. I have been toying with this idea for the last six months or so. Is there anyone out there that is familiar with my area and can get me on the right track? Looking to go green on the Green Isle!!

I am not familiar with Northern Ireland, but I also found the utilities completely unresponsive. Instead I reasoned that the incentives in my case were from the Federal and State governments and pursued my answers there.

In my case, tiny power generation sites were a complete pain for the utility, with no benefit and a damned lot of bookkeeping as well as hazards to their linemen.

AND the gov't was going to make them buy power at 5 times the cost of producing it themselves. And don't underestimate the cost of that bookkeeping. My local electric coop is so small they have every employee on the webpage.

Mandates be damned, if no one went into it, they wouldn't have to service it. And the mandate would go away and everyone would be happy - power companies could say they complied, gov't could say they made it possible - no blame and no problems.

Be prepared to be a problem. As nicely as possible.

2 things that haven't come up in this thread yet;

1. Be prepared for your electric bill to go up next year to cover those costs I just referred to - a utility is a monopoly allowed to recover X profit in exchange for the service. Green is going to raise expenses and that cuts profits and that sends them back to the commission for a rate increase. How much will depend on the saturation of the mandate. Most western states are targeting 15% green power.

2. The legislative mandates *may* have to go away during this downturn. State revenues are way down and I haven't actually looked to see if these mandates are locked in to future years. It would really be a vacuum if you finished investing and then got told they don't have to buy from you next year - prepare to disconnect.

Wow!

Excellent systems approach!

Here's an interesting article posted by Guest in another thread:

http://www.windenergy-the-truth.com/

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/30077/Wind-Turbine-Experiences

There is a company starting up after the first of the year in Muskegon, Michigan that will be selling affordable wind turbines.

http://blog.mlive.com/grpress/2008/06/muskegon_energy_center_to_laun.html

Try the link above. Good luck.

Sandia National Laboratories is one of the wind turbine study centers of the world. Look at their web site. I know the Wind Energy director at SNL quite well.

These turbines have very low reliability and in fact I am faced with a few internal technical questions from my own company who happens to own hundreds. We have an entire wind turbine reliability team who are quite busy. One crane rental to repair something can destroy several years of profit if you only have 1-2 turbines. Careful. These machines are far from foolproof.

A lot has been said about the economic feasibility already. The grid can actually only buy power when there is a need for it.

1 Acre is about 4040 square m. if the property is rectangular the small side may be less than 60 m.

Depending on the terrain the placement of the tower could even further reduce the maximum turbine size. (You would not be allowed to occupy the neighbouring properties air space)

What I am getting at is that the fiscal maximum turbine size must be kept in mind when calculating.

I would recommend Sky stream 3.7 wind turbine of South west wind, flatstaff, Arizona, USA (http://www.skystreamenergy.com/)

Please make your enquiries and you will appreicate it as i am a partner of Solartime Electric, a representtaive of Southwest wind in Nigeria, West Africa.

They very much fit into your needs and you will not regret it.

I am registered with Global spec as Okpoksbaba@yahoo.com

Regards

Michael E.S. Kpogbara

T-ohbari Global Concepts

{lot 229 Bodo Road, GRA II

+234(0)8037060242,

Port Harcourt

Rivers State

Nigeria