Wind Turbines

[Torahman]

Which brand of wind turbine is considered the best for the money?

Shalom

[MadTripper]

I've been researching the Skystream 3.7 lately. I don't really have a lot to compare it to at this point and it is pretty small but might be a nice starter unit. Our local Trehab is offering them for around $16K. The pay back is about 50 or so years in our area (and with current rates) so I'm not really seeing the feasibilty.

Tripper

http://www.skystreamenergy.com/skystream/

[AlchemyAcres]

How many kilowatt hours per month do you need?
Do you know your average wind speed?
How about your general wind class?


~Martin

[odysseus1959]

What does pay back mean ? Do you buy a car, truck, SUV, tractor, boat for a pay back time ? NO ! You buy it cause you need it, thats the same for RE. For me I want the life style of no one telling me how much to pay for power and heat in my home, the pay back time has nothing to do with it.

[odysseus1959]

Try this one on for size.
http://www.otherpower.com/20page1.html

[12vman]

A car, truck, or boat doesn't save you money or provide security or independence. You'll be constantly putting money into them. A renewable energy system is mostly self sustaining with minimal maintenance.

If I were to install a huge solar system, I'd like to know how long it would take to "Pay Back" the investment that I've invested into it by the savings of having it. This could be a big factor in the choice of doing it or not, IMO.

I understand what you are saying too. If ya want it, Get It! It doesn't matter how much it costs, just as long as it does the job!

My resources were somewhat limited when I took the dive. The power company wanted 7K to run lines back here. They would have made it easy on me and added a small amount of that bill to my monthly usage bill. Still, it was 7K! I decided, like you, and said.. Screw It! One investment LOWER than the amount that they wanted to get me trapped into their money pit and I can basically be free! So, I did it!

I ended up with around 6K invested in my system. The best move that I've ever made! I'd say that it has paid for itself in 10 years, wouldn't you?
~Don

[flatwater]

I think pay back should only be considered if the prices for both are close and are going to stay there for a long time. It doesn't make much since to go solar for 10,000.00 $ then move in ten years to another place with electricity. Yes I know you can take your solar with you but you would take a hit on your selling price.
Flatwater

[MadTripper]

Payback should be a consideration on every major purchase including vehicles, but hey, I guess I'm just concerned how far my money will take me instead of having the ability to say, "I'm green because I have a windmill or a hybrid car or etc etc etc!"

I suppose another term would be ROI but no matter how it is presented, it should certainly be a consideration for self-sufficient minded individuals. Paying a high price for an item that will fail before the initial investment is returned is a bad practice in general. IE, if you purchase a windmill that has a 20 year life expectancy but will take 30 to cover expenses, doesn't make a lot of sense. Sure you can say "Down with the Man!" by removing yourself from the grid but your pride is the real expense in that situation.

Tripper

[walls0stone]

I don't think half this stuff is selling to say down with the man, but "I'm the Man."

Do you know Berth Betterthanyou....that bitchy old woman in church who looks at everyone who had a moment of joy and held them in contempt for it wile proclaiming her own self righteousness,

she drives a Preus, has a wind mill and spent tons of high-end green products.... and her investment built Al Gore's house

[Drawbar]

What does pay back mean ? Do you buy a car, truck, SUV, tractor, boat for a pay back time ? NO ! You buy it cause you need it, thats the same for RE. For me I want the life style of no one telling me how much to pay for power and heat in my home, the pay back time has nothing to do with it.

Pay back is a huge issue no matter who you are.

My Uncle has a windmill, and while it is not ideally suited, the payback on his windmill is over 17 years. By that time it will be time to buy a new one. His is 5 KW and his saves him about 65 dollars a month in power costs, but is only half of what he needs.

He paid something like 12 grand for his machine and has had a lot of problems with it to boot. This was the third one they set in place for him and it seems to be working. The other two went kaput just months after installation.

For the average homeowner looking to save money on their electrical bill, conservation is the best method. There is no way you can produce power cheaper then what is on the grid. Even the guys on the Other Power will tell you that. My suggestion to people is to to take that 12 grand, and invest it in insulation and high effeciency appliances. That will save far more money then a windmill ever will.

[wy0mn]

Like everyone implied... it depends on the application.
Are we talking about grid-tied, so you can sell back power? Or off-grid cabin or RV type of installation? Do you need inverted power (household current)or DC current (similar to automotive, various flavors 12v, 24v, 36v, 48v, etc) only?
Large turbines invaribly mean having a tower, smaller ones can get by with a mast setup.
Grid-tie may not even have a battery bank to maintain, a completely separate, yet real cost to off-gridders.
I believe in redundency (sp?), having multiple small units, as opposed to one larger one. That way if something goes awry... ya can still get by until repairs/replacements are accomplished.

I love linguistics! So many ways to say the same thing:

amortization, amortizement
the paying off of a debt in equal installments composed of gradually changing amounts of principal and interest.

[JAK]

Definitely the way to go I think.
Try this one on for size.
http://www.otherpower.com/20page1.html

If you can build it you can maintain it.

[Drawbar]

To me the whole off-grid thing is kind of funny. Over the 34 years I have been here I have seen a lot of homesteaders come and go, and many of them who took to the woods and planted a small cabin down the far end of an old county road all by themselves. That is all well and good, and it has its nice charming romantic homesteading thoughts, but reality is often another factor altogether.

What I have noticed over the years is these people move to far flung places in town, living off-grid and all that with windmills, wood stoves and mini-hydro generators...for a short time. It seems after the newness has worn off, and no one seems to care any more that they are "sticking it to the man", the reality of having expensive off-grid power really hits home.

That is about the time the wife starts wanting some electrical amenities and the husband is gosh darn sick of working on unreliable power systems. Wantpoweritis sets in along with 'wantphoneinitis', So the next thing I see is a parade of power company trucks making their pilgrimedge down that road and putting in 7 poles and subsequent power and phones to get these homesteaders on the grid.

And then another thing happens. Because the power poles are in, and the umbilical cord has been stretched, then here come the neighbors. One by one houses pop up around them because what prevented people from moving there in the first place, was a lack of power. Over the years this power stretches back a bit more..three or four poles at a time until that once peaceful road is now a regular town road. Now granted this is still rural land so its not intolerable or anything like city life, but these homesteaders have homes that are no different then mine...except I did not have to live 3 years in dismal conditions, only to have to pay 7 grand to attract neighbors I did not want.

Now I am sure there are some hearty marriages and homesteaders that have started with off-grid and stuck with it, but of all the homesteaders that have moved here, I cannot think of one. I can however tell you about 50 that started off-grid and now are as tethered to the grid as my house is.

I am sure many will get angered at this post, but in all honesty its just reality. It takes a lot of grit, determination, a strong marriage and commitment to stay off-grid and there are very few that can do that for any length of time. A solid piece of advice is to plan a homestead to be on-grid from the beginning and use supplemental power to help stem the cost of utilities.

[walls0stone]

Draw...your one smart farmer ;D
But we see it in other stuff also..like animals and woodstoves...sooner or later the old friends stop in to see what your place is like, and before ya know it....your chatting about the good ol days..when you had running water and the the game on your dish.

Kinda like kicking drugs...you think I can take just one outlet..sure one power poll won't hurt..I'll just use it some times..next thing you know, you got all the lights on in the house like before and your watching HBO from your heated chair and buring oil in the furnace.

oh the humanity ;D

[Drawbar]

sooner or later the old friends stop in to see what your place is like, and before ya know it....your chatting about the good ol days..when you had running water and the the game on your dish.

WOS...you are just too funny.

Quite a few years ago my best friend and I, and our wives went camping up to Coburn Gore. Now google that up here in Maine and you will see its pretty far stretched from civilization. Anyway we were some 22 miles off the paved road and decided we were going to watch the Indy 500 come hell or high water. So we brought the satellite dish, rigged up a pole to orient it south, and then got a generator, chairs and all that.

Now considering where we were (great outdoors and no wheres near a campground of any kind) it was almost wrong. I mean a satellite dish in the great outdoors while camping ??? I say almost because as people drove by they would stop in. Soon we had about 10 people miles from anywhere watching the race on our TV and satellite.

Now if we had not brought that stuff they would have passed us by without a thought. Instead we made some good friends that day and met some great people. In the end it was a memorable trip even though it was morally wrong :)

[Drawbar]

What gets me is hunters. They are the funny ones. While they are young and don't have anything all they do is complain that all the land is posted and they have no where to hunt.

So then in a few years they do alright in life, buy land and the first thing they do is post the living crap out of it "so no one hunts on their land."

But wait. Two years ago you complained that everyone was posting their land and now you are posting yours? I don't get it. Isn't that a bit hypocritical? I can see putting up signs to protect your home and kids from stray shots, but post land way up in the back 40 to keep it "all to yourself?" What's up with that? Besides do you really think you own the wildlife? (Some actually think they do).

My family has never posted our land (just around the houses) and we have had a federally funded ATV and Snowmobile trail on our property since 1983. Beyond that we allow fishing, hunting, and trapping because its the right thing to do.

[12vman]

Very well said, Drawbar! I agree with you on many of your points..

What I see is that many have this vision of living a totally normal lifestyle in time using some type of alternative energy with the understanding that it may take a while to get to that point but they are only fooling themselves. With choosing the alternative route, it isn't going to ever be "normal" and folks lose their dream because of the inconveniences that occur..

IMO.. Going the A.C. route is totally out of the question unless you have some very deep pockets. I don't want to sound arrogant but my system supplies me with everything that I need and I certainly didn't break the bank. I adjusted my life to live with what I have and I have more than most can fathom. I get tired of trying to educate folks sometimes merely because they can't even imagine doing what I'm doing with 12 volts D.C. It seems that most don't want to lower their lifestyle to my level.. LOL So be it.. ::)
~Don

[Drawbar]

It might be interesting to note in that the system my Uncle has is pretty good because he is attached to the grid. Here in Maine anyway, the power company here does not pay you cash for excess power but rather gives you credits for excess power.

For instance, if my Uncles windmill makes 5 kws per hour, and he is only using 3 KW's, then the meter on his house spins backwards and he is credited with 2 kws. Now this means when the wind is not blowing and he is getting power off the grid, he gets 2 free kws before he has to pay. That is how the system works.

Now this is an exceptionally good deal, because by rights his residential windmill is producing power at a retail price. (16.5 cents a KW). If he owned a massive windfarm, those windmills would only get 10 cents a KW or the wholesale price of power here in Maine.

Personally I think residential places should get the whole sale rate (10 cents) and not the 1 to 1 ratio that they get now which equates to 16.5 cents a kw.

Now its interesting to note too, that even though I am grid based, and do not have a windmill, I probably consume more green power then off-grid based homes with windmills. That is because when the wind is blowing here, my Uncles windmill is producing excess power, and since I am only 3 poles from his place, more then likely a portion of that excess power I am using. At the same time, there is a 3 turbine wind farm near me (200 foot blades) that produces power to the local sub-station. Since wind here is the same wind that is blowing 5 miles away, on windy days the grid is charged with wind powered electricity. More than likely my home is powered by a good portion of wind power just because of where these windmills are located.

So if my home uses 100 kw's a month of power that is mostly wind generated, and a non-grid home uses only 25 kws of wind, then its easy to see my home uses far more "green power" then the off-grid home. The key here is conservation. If I can reduce my overall consumption of power, more of that "green power from the grid" is available to more households. Suddenly the evil utility company is not so evil huh?

Of course when the wind isn't blowing I am one of those evil coal, gas, nuclear, bio mass consuming evil power villains.

[wy0mn]

I'm well pleased with my location. Its 2mi off grid and will most likely stay that way.
Those two miles must cross federal BLM land to get to me. I seriously doubt that anyone will succeed in getting the necessary permits to accomplish that, even if "their pockets were deep enough".
Ya'll know I'm a 'gloom~n~doom' prophet. I have zero faith in our government and this economy. Therefore I'm hedging my bets with alternative stuff.

Posting land sometimes makes sense.
There is no public access to the BLM lands from my road, yet all the poachers treat it as if it were wide open. Legal access can be made from another road across the canyon. They are armed tresspassers on private taxpayers property. Poaching of that nature should be a felony, yep, a felony. A taxpayer on his own property should never have to confront an armed stranger!
Draw, I know your feelings about Wyoming, but this prairie can be darned fragile. A trespassing moron can do lots of vehicular damage that erodes the thin soil away. It took 18mo for one of my 'experimental driveways' to disappear on my place, and I only drove across it once!

[Umbriel]

VAT options are available, and the cost isn't too bad. I like them because they are both quieter so I won't hear the "whoosh, whoosh" of the traditional turbines, and safer for wildlife since birds seem to see these and you won't have birdie corpses under your windmill.

http://www.pacwind.net/

As far as payback, that isn't your only consideration. With any off-grid system you need redundancy to have power all the time. The reason I am interested in alternative energy is two-fold. Firstly, it is renewable and non-polluting. There are enough out there polluting the environment, I don't need to add to that burden if I can avoid it. Secondly, there is no way of knowing what will happen in the future. Power might not be as easily available as it is today, and will probably just keep getting more and more expensive. Making your own electricity seems a prudent thing to do to prepare for the future.

There are countless stories about the elderly and the poor being forced to choose between food and heat, or heat and light. I don't want to gamble that in my old age, my income might change and I might have to make the choices that some make. Having my own clean water, my own source of power, and my own source of heat, as well as having my home and property paid for will greatly ease the burden of being older on a reduced income.

[crafty2002]

Umbriel, that's a good link but they don't give enough info to know if it is a good deal or not. The way it sounds if achored good enough it could withstand a huricane but is those the wind speeds that it is rated on??? You don't have a chart that shows the output at different wind speeds do you???

I have always thought that wind mills more like the ones they used way back for pumping water on farms would make more power than a 2 or 3 blade mill could think about and I still think that. I found a site over the ocean somewhere about a company that builds them with a continuance of blades arond the wheel but I can't find it again. This piece of junk computor locked up and I had to shut it down and reboot it and I have spent hours looking for the site to no avail.
If any one knows of it I would appriciate it if you would post a link to it.
I am still studying but getting close to starting a wind mill or a water wheel, (I haven't decided which will be first) built simular to Hugh Piggets design, but will use a larger diameter disc than what I have seen yet with more magnets on it. I have come to understand the larger diameter and the more magnets the slower the cut in speed will be and the lower the RPMs will be needed to make the power.
I have also realized that two times the blade diameter = 4 times the power.
Right now I am about sold on building a wind mill with a 4' dics and 8' vains which will be a 20 foot mill.
Any ideas on this.
Dennis

[Umbriel]

They say to look at the graphs for how much power they generate, but I couldn't find any graphs on their site. Maybe if you sent them an inquiry?

[machinemaker]

Reading hugh pigget's book is a good step in DIY wind turbins. the fewer blades = higher speed and most alternaters want high speed. Another site for DIY wind turbins is www.windstuffnow.com.
kent

[crafty2002]

Machinemaker, lets build a machine and prove them wrong ;D...
If I had the money which sadly to say I don't, I would start on a mill this morning. In the shape I am in I would be lucky to finish it in about 5 years but it sure would be fun.
Dennis

[DavidOH]

his residential windmill is producing power at a retail price. (16.5 cents a KW).


:o No wonder it's worth putting up a genny in your neighborhood.

My Electric bill says I am paying 6.3 cents per kWh
...yup, it's an old coal fired plant with smoke scrubbers.

BTW, a Natural Gas company called me offering me a rate of 1.19 per Ccf. My gas bill says I am currently paying 1.02 per Ccf.


The alternative energy plan is going to cost me about $6k also. Including PV panels and wind Gen.

I have a skystream pamplet also. It looks like a lot of overkill for the unconventional home I'm planning.

Air-X Land Wind Turbine is hard to beat for Cost/Power ratio. Others produce more, but cost more. :-/