I don’t like the local electric company (motto: allowed to estimate four times a year means jack the bill up thirty dollars every three months, and if you don’t agree to bad), however I do like the enviroment. A project that greatly decreases my dependance on the electric company (booo! hisss! electric company sucks), and helps the enviroment (WA HOO ! go enviroment!) is a project that has my full attention. I have been wanting to do this for a couple of years now, and that is put in a wind turbine generator. I have got most of it worked out. I just have one issue only this forum in it’s infinite combined wisdom can help me with.
All the wind maps I find just show average wind speed for 100 feet and 165 feet. 100 feet is about 12 mph, and 165 feet is about 14 mph. What I need to know is assuming the atmosphere is not freaky above my house should this trend continue? Would 200 feet have a good chance of getting me to the 18 and above mph average zone?
I can’t answer your question, but for all I remeber from my meterology classes, it’s defenitely not a linear thing. There is some boundary layer effects, that very much depend on the topography (valleys, etc.) and vegetation (trees, etc.)
If I might be so bold, I suggest that you might want to look into the safety of this a bit more. As an occasional pilot, the idea of someone building an uncharted 200-plus foot structure in their backyard seems a bit reckless.
Just a friendly suggestion.
You don’t need to tell the FAA anything if your tower would be less then 200 feet. However, just because the FAA doesn’t care means that you could just build something without telling someone.
And if you really must have a cite it comes from my Terminal Instrument Procedure (TURPS) course. Something I do not reccomend unless you really want to fry your brains.
True. Depending on your local zoning laws and regulations, you might need to take the visual impact of such a structure on your neighbors’ view of the landscape into consideration in the very least.
Is 18 MPH a minimum average speed to make your wind turbine cost-effective? If the maps for your area don’t reflect that, maybe wind power just isn’t right for you. How about some form of solar power instead?
I know that you said you had most of this worked out, but I wanted to give you a few other things to think over if you hadn’t already. The info in my comments will vary from state to state but you can expect them in some form for yours.
Most potential home wind generators think that they will be able to supply their own household current and ship power back to the Evil power company at a profit.
But here’s a few thoughts about home generation
1 - The wind doesn’t always blow when you need it the most.
2 - Evil power co sells to you at retail and buys from you at wholesale EX: you pay .080/KWH for Evil power and Evil pays you .017/KWH for your wind power. The meter doesn’t run backward and take KWH off your bill, in fact, sometimes Evil requires you to buy a special meter to measure flows both ways.
3 - Evil has the right to demand that your generator not be dangerous or mess up the neighbors power with noise. (like TV interference) So Evil can refuse service to you unless you buy additional electronics for your generator and PROVE to them that the stuff works. Evil can do this because they have equipment that disconnects sections of your local grid (distribution) when tree limbs fall on the wires. They don’t want your generator to be backfeeding power in those wires while their service guys are trying to repair them. They like to keep their service guys in a “not-fried” state. Evil can also demand that your electronics are checked and certified annually by a licensed technician (think - house visit by specialist @ lotsa cash)
You can avoid the headaches of items 1,2,3, if you use the wind for dedicated circuits and put up with the varying nature of wind power. If you’re not connected to the power grid you can tell Evil to kiss-off (and understand, if your generator can power your household and so can Evil then you are considered "connected)
If I were to add wind generation to my house I would use it only for dedicated circuits to heat water, charge batteries, pump water etc, but I would NOT connect it to Evil Power Co or my
Whoops, I tripped the send button too quick.
…i would not connect it to Evil Power Co or my house circuit.
Bubbadog
Engineer - some other Evil Power Co., not yours
A less-than-obvious complication to wind generators is their effect on birds – whirling blades often are not avian-friendly. Could I suggest that you check on this aspect of your proposed design?
If you access to flowing water, e.g. a creek, it is probably more feasible to set up a water-powered generator.
First to address some concerns: I plain on putting a warning blinker up on the tower and notifing the FAA. There is a ceullar tower about a quarter mile away anyway so low flying planes don’t come through here much anymore. So I should not bother any pilots. To protect nature’s little pilots I am going to put a metal screen cage around it. The tower will be back in the woods where about the only people who will be able to see it is a farmer when he is working in his field, and maybe some hunters. I do want to use the generator to power my house. I plan on put equipment in to cut my house off from the grid in an outage. If the electric company gives me too much trouble, and given their history there is a good chance they will, I’ll get a diesel generator for when the wind is not enough and cut my self off from the grid. They have ticked me off just that much. One thing I forgot to mention in my OP was that I live on a hill with a lot of trees. The hill is about 105 feet tall and the trees are about 60 feet tall. Other sources of alternate energy just are not feasable in my area for me. Solar cells are out of my budget, and I don’t get sun much half the year anyway. Nature is kind of mean around here during winter. It gets cloudy in the day and clear at night making it colder then it has to be. There is a stream 1/2 mile from my house but it is on someone else property. Wind is about the most promising.
Netscape,
Cutting yourself off from the power co. will save you the hassle of dealing with them. Just be ready to have less reliability from your home made system.
I suggest that you not only investigate the mechanics of this system but also that you seek out others who have successfully disconnected and used wind/solar/etc. Learning their successes and failures will be valuable.
If your building windgen because you have a thing for wind then go for it. But if you just want to live off the grid you might find it less expensive to put your money into remodeling your home to increase its energy efficiency and to switch to other fuels for heat.
Good Luck on whatever you do.
Bubbadog
N6,
Average windspeeds are useless. You need the complete shape of the wind-speed vs time-of-day vs liklihood surface to design your turbine safely and to determine whether it makes any economic or engineering sense at all.
Remember, it has to be strong enough to stand up to the absolute max wind, but able to generate useful power in the 90% time-likelihood wind unless you’re talking about also adding a gigantic battery bank or other storage technology. And storage is neiterh cheap nor efficient, whcih drives towards an even larger (and more expensive) turbine design.
There are plenty of professional folks who do that, and here’s a couple of site cites to get you started: http://www.awea.org/ and http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/renewable/basics/wind/home.html
Hey! I know a guy who knows a guy who generates electricity with solar panels. IIRC he’s a prof. at the UofA, and built his home with all sorts of energy saving stuff as a research project. I think he even got a grant for it.
At peak generation times, his meter does go backwards. The biggest problem he mentioned about the power company was that he sometimes gets calls from new hires in accounting calling him confused that they owe him money.
In an unrelated an uninformed engineering opinon, might it be easier to use a bigger turbine lower down than one insanely high up?
Oh yeah , your gonna be getting a lot of car batteries, so you can run what you want off the battery , and have the turbines recharge the battery.
Ah someone finally make that tokamak reactor please 
Declan
Yes, please. The one with the water/hydrogen splitting so you just dump in a couple of gallons of water every week or two and go on about your business.
You are suggesting that he use a larger/heavier/requires-more-effort-to-make-it-spin turbine closer to the ground where there is less reliable wind at slower speeds for what purpose, exactly?
Well, IMHO, I’d much rather mount/service a larger turbine on a lower, sturdier frame, rather than deal with something smaller much furthur up a spindly tower that has more chance of collapsing given inclement conditions.
And by turbine, I include the blades - bigger blades in a slower stream is going to produce more power than a beanie spinner in a faster stream, n’est pas?
I’ve just got to ask: Have you looked at the cost of building a 200 foot tower that will support a large capacity windmill and withstand the maximum predicted storm wind loadings for your area? Plus the cost of erecting it? My guess is we’re talking big big money here. This is not your run of the mill TV antenna tower.
The day before yesterday I checked up on some local laws. Any structure over 45 feet not used for agriculture requires a special permit that costs several thousand dollars in inspections. This puts the project out of my budget, unless I can find a wind turbine able to put out 500 kilowatt hours a month in a 14 mph wind four under a thousand dollars. When I found this out I was so mad I did not want to talk about it. If I ever find the idiot responsable for this pos law I’m going to chew them out big time. I’m still obviosly quite mad about it.
Anyway the township motto seems to be change is bad. So there is not much I can do now to save this project except think about moving.
Or you could get off your duff, run for local office, and work to change the laws.
Personally, I think it would be hugely cheaper just to mega-insulate your home and hot-water tank, replace your current appliances with more efficient models, replace incandescent lights with flourescents or LEDs, replace single-pane windows with double-pane and do other things to generally reduce your consumption. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if $2000 or so spent on home renovations cut your energy consumption by half, plus you might look into getting a tax credit.