Domestic wind turbines and area specific wind speeds?

[PremierPDS]

Hi all, I've spent the last couple of days looking into building a domestic wind turbine which doesn't appear to be too difficult and much less expensive than I thought and cheaper than manufactured kits. Has anyone tried this? This is a project I'd be working on with my dad who's a retired electrical engineer and I thought it'd be something fun for us to work on together

I live in a pretty built up area but right on the coast (Wirral) so it's pretty windy around here. The Energy Trust recommends wind speeds of 6m/s for it to be effective but how do I measure the wind speed here? Some websites suggest measuring the average wind speed over a year in the desired exact location but after searching around I can't find any instrument or government department who might deal with this. Anyone got any suggestions???

[benr123]

Hi all, I've spent the last couple of days looking into building a domestic wind turbine which doesn't appear to be too difficult and much less expensive than I thought and cheaper than manufactured kits. Has anyone tried this? This is a project I'd be working on with my dad who's a retired electrical engineer and I thought it'd be something fun for us to work on together

I live in a pretty built up area but right on the coast (Wirral) so it's pretty windy around here. The Energy Trust recommends wind speeds of 6m/s for it to be effective but how do I measure the wind speed here? Some websites suggest measuring the average wind speed over a year in the desired exact location but after searching around I can't find any instrument or government department who might deal with this. Anyone got any suggestions???

http://www.bwea.com/noabl/ try that.

[solar technology]

Hi,
With wind turbines the most important factor is how consistant the wind is. If you are in a built up area the wind direction or speed is unlikely to be constant and this will give you the most problems.

[MikeBoxwell]

First of all, if you are planning to build your own unit rather than use a kit, be wary - there is an awful lot of design that goes into an effective wind turbine and most home built units end up being worthless junk, generating little or no useful electricity.

With regards to air speed, you can get all the information you need from the Met Office web site. I believe Nasa have some figures as well. All wind speed measurements are based at a height of 10 metres above ground level, and then calculated for heights of 20 metres and 45 metres.

The issue you are going to have is with turbulent air. If you are in a built up area, you need to ensure that your wind turbine is high up and well away from any other obstructions. There are some calculations to work out how far away and how high you need to be, but in most built up areas this height ends up being a show stopper. I'll dig them out for you.

How much electricity are you hoping to be able to generate from your system?

[PremierPDS]

Thanks for your replies guys, they're really helpful!

Firstly, in answer to some of your questions...I'm hoping this will go on the roof of my property (subject to relevant planning permission)! I'm not hoping to generate huge amounts of electricity from this- it's going to be more of an experiment than anything else I guess and will also be good for my dad- he's not been too well lately and is bored out of his mind. He's a bit of an Einstein lol and the lack of something useful to do is really getting him down so I think this will give him some purpose over the summer and we'll have a common goal to work on together.

I've tried to link to the ordinance survey wind speed map and it would appear that the wind speeds are good enough here but again, this doesn't give me an exact measurement for the exact location (my roof)!

[AccountingBasics]

Well, to get that specific information you have to pay for it.

You either have to pay for a RE expert to come around with all their measuring equipment, or you can buy a windspeed monitor.

Maplin have a semi-professional wind speed predictor system for sale at the moment for just £129. This is the sort of thing the professionals will use - the benefit of you owning one is that you can measure wind speed over a longer period of time and therefore get a much better prediction for wind speed and power.

Here's a link to it: Wind Speed Predictor

Have you considered solar power as an alternative to wind power? If you have a sunny location with no obsticles, it could be a lot more effective - especially a hot water system.

If you want me to do a prediction on how much solar energy you could generate from your house, send me a private message with your details and I'll give you the figures you need for your house.

[PremierPDS]

That's not a bad price and defo what I was looking for...I can always sell it on once I'm done with it!!!

I've looked at solar power but not in any great detail. I was thinking more wind turbine as it'd be something my dad and I could get our teeth into although I was reading last night that you can make your own solar cells from copper sheet etc as I know to do it properly can cost thousands which isn't the idea. I'd still be willing to consider it though, I'd just have to look into it a bit more but first things first...lets find out how much energy I could generate living in the not so sunny north...PM on the way!!!

[Alvin]

Might be some useful stuff on our site.

http://www.wind-farm.biz/explained.htm

Alvin

[PremierPDS]

Oooooooooo completely forgot about your new site Alvin...oooooooo, how did that happen, feel free to give me a big slap lol!

[MikeBoxwell]

Just to make things slightly more confusing, I was logged on as my wife's account earlier (accounting basics), so apologies about any confusion.

I've had a look at your house on Google earth and it looks like you're in a very busy built up area and whilst there are no specific obstacles other than other houses, you are relatively close to two main roads and you're going to have a turbulance problem. To get anything more than a few watts I suspect you're going to have to go up around ten metres high in order to get a useful amount of wind.

However, you have a lovely south facing roof, which is ideal for solar panels. Now, you could of course do something with solar electricity, which could be interesting but not cheap (making your own panels from scratch is an interesting academic exercise, but you're not going to produce worthwhile amounts of energy), or you could build your own solar hot water system. Now that could generate some useful energy, save you money and have an instant benefit to your house.

I've had a look at the solar insolation figures for your area and they're not too bad, especially during the summer. Here are some figures for you:

Jan 0.67
Feb 1.33
Mar 2.31
Apr 3.65
May 4.9
Jun 4.99
Jul 4.86
Aug 4.01
Sep 2.78
Oct 1.56
Nov 0.81
Dec 0.50

These figures show the average number of kilowatts per square metre per day of energy the sun gives per day, on a flat surface, based on a daily average across each month of the year.

A home made solar hot water system can be between 35-70% efficient, depending on what you build and how you build it, so for every square metre of solar hot water panel you build, you multiply your estimated efficiency with those insolation figures to work out the heating capability of your system for every month of the year.

You can increase these figures by getting your solar panel at the optimum angle to capture as much sunlight as possible. Even better if you have the ability to adjust it throughout the year to keep your system working at its optimum. The optimum angle for these solar panels for your house are as follows:

Jan 20°
Feb 28°
Mar 36°
Apr 44°
May 52°
Jun 60°
Jul 52°
Aug 44°
Sep 36°
Oct 28°
Nov 20°
Dec 12°

These figures are shown degrees from vertical.

You'll find that getting the right angle makes a significant difference in the winter, when you can increase your insolation calculations by up to 40%. During the summer the difference isn't so pronounced - nearer 5-10%.

If you're really keen, you can actually do some maths to work that out in degrees celcius for a given mass of water if you want to. I'll have to work out the maths for that because I haven't had to do it for a while.