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Took the plunge this year and installed a 10 kW wind turbine.



link to clickable thumbnails of construction photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/southslope ... 702085418/

I'll be 153 years old when it's paid for.
Barb

Then you can buy another one!!!!!LOL

Will have to learn my camera's video a little better first!
Barb

WOW! 10kw Nice!
I would like to have some of those, but will probably be smaller. And some solars.
Just in the dream stage.

very green of you Barb. That picture is very cool. how much land is yours. How much of your own electricity can you produce?

Yes solar interests me too.
I thought solar could be hooked directly to the hot water tank

I dreamt about a turbine for 15 years.

The 15 acres end at the road that runs left to right in the bottom one-third of pic.

Contractor is still tweaking the thing for max production (and I'm waiting for more substantial winds).

Constructed in June. All the power goes to the grid on a two-way meter, otherwise there'd have to be a roomful of expensive and dangerous (in case of leaks) batteries. Hydraulic arm for servicing of tower...tower lowers in 30 seconds. Two 6 kW inverters DC to AC. Components in shop include a "heat dump" (a contraption that looks like an old car's grill). The heat dump is activated IF there's a power outage in the valley and the wind turbine is producing electricity. The electricity has to have somewhere to go, so the heat dump acts like a heater to use up the energy, preventing damage when the valley's hydro is "down".

Max production is 10-11 kilowatts.

During summer I saw each inverter running around 5100 watts = ~ 10 kW
Had hoped for substantial production come winter, but the last 5 days have been disappointing.
Barely turning in this deep low pressure.

Software is being tweaked so it turns into a new wind direction in 3 minutes versus the current 5 minutes.
Smaller turbines have a tail that continually turns blade angle into a new wind direction, handy in areas with gusty winds.

Lots of tweaking still to do.

Despite internet stories, there are NO dead birds or bats on the ground. Not even a feather in six months.

Hey Aaron, with your open terrain, I bet you get some terrific winds.

Mine has its limit for tolerance...when it "feels" damaging winds coming (I forget the numbers), it turns away from the wind, and then back in when it "senses" a decrease. If winds continued to increase, brakes automatically employ.

Time to go blow on it gone dead again!
Barb

Barb,
let me add this to the "Santa" thread. I'd love one of those! I've been researching them for years.
Short of Santa or the lottery, I'd need to borrow the $ up front and coal-based electricity here is so cheap it just doesn't make $ense/cents.
As for the bat issue, a former student of mine is now working on her PhD studying that so we'll have real data in another couple of years. Her research involves the colossal wind turbines, though, and so might not apply to the "small" one you have and I want.
--Erik

There are incentives in place to help with the amortization.
And the individual States in the U.S. have varying incentives for green energy.

It's Canada that's lacking. Shameful!
Ontario is an exception, though, offering independent power producers nearly one-third of entire project costs.

Oh, both the B.C. website...and the Canada federal government website have a lot of fluff about dedication and commitment to green energy "retrofits".
I applied for both and got nada from both.
Why?

The B.C. Live Smart program--which has now ended because "all funds have been allocated"--turned out to only go up to a 3 kilowatt turbine.
The Federal program, with their fancy schmancy website, turned my application down because "historical electricity usage is too low to qualify".
But it took each of them approx 4 months to let me know. They apparently only write cheques to the big wind farm companies.

Yet according to B.C. Hydro, my electrical usage is substantial, kicking me into the onerous Step 2 billing "conservation" (Penalty) rate.

Governments everywhere have added to confusion...subsidizing industry via dirty and cheap coal. Natural gas, while considerably cleaner, was touted by governments as a cheap fuel over the last 20 years. So much so that half of B.C. homes switched to natural gas, including purchasing new furnaces, etc. etc.
Once everybody switched over, the price to consumers went up until natural gas virtually matched electricity costs.

I'm not in a class 5 or 6 wind area...once the turbine has been running for a year, I'll have an idea of what to expect each year.
Guessing we're probably class 3.
I knew the production numbers wouldn't be huge but, for me, changing all my light bulbs to compact fluorescents didn't seem enough.

The thing that bugs me...couldn't afford a North American turbine (easily $10,000 more).
Ended up getting mine from China.
The more things change, the more they stay the same

There are a few websites from the U.S. where people have built their own, putting their electrical knowledge to superb use.
They've made money right from day one.

Hope you're correct on the bat issue.
Barb

Very cool Barb,I hope it works out great for you!

Really cool Barb... How much land do you have there?