Windpower anyone?

For local energy to be resiliant, the power generator can't be a magical "black box" that comes from china. When it magically stops working in a couple of years, what do we do, buy another one? :)

When it comes to something like power generation equipment, it seems like for starters we want the highest possible quality. Cheap chinese wind turbines are probably just that, cheap. 

Having said that about quality, for resiliance, it also needs to be locally maintainable. In practice it should really be locally buildable. I've been looking over wind turbine building instructions recently. It really doesn't look all that hard.... (hehe)

I think we should try to avoid "cheap" stuff... stuff that doesn't last, cannot be repaired etc.

Lots of Chinese stuff (no offense) falls in that category unfortunately...

Just something to keep in mind :-)

Hi folks

Yes I think I would like to see this gear made here, even out of recycled stuff to start with. We are likely to be/going to be hit with dwindling resources, and cycling it from local waste is important.

The ability to buy cheap imports may abruptly change, and the employment opportunities here in a relocalisation drive may make a huge difference in chasing resilience, especially from a long emergency point of view.

As a transition in high wind areas, some TT folks may want to try these out, but I would not like to see our possible wind generation all in this "basket"

Regards

Ted

The website of the manufacturer is: http://www.f-n.cn/

I would also be careful before jumping into getting Chinese generators. Talk to www.ecoinnovation.co.nz about that.

They have made a conversion of a cheap Chinese windmill with a F&P smartdrive generator and have increased output by twice or so I believe. They also would have the experience to offer to install and site wind generators.

If you have a good windy knoll, wind generation can be an ideal combination with sloar PV and a good battery bank to go with. Noise is a factor as well as storms. The behavior of wind mills in storm conditions is crucial. Do they feather the blades or what other means of preventing destruction to they offer?

Generally I would think that there is a lot of future in looking to China for energy products. China has to solve the transition issue on a scale beyond comprehension. They already have a benefit in way of their population in large parts still living an agriculture / self sustaining lifestyle. Aspiring to an electric bike is away up for many, not down as perhaps for some of us. They have now 7.5 Million electric bikes on the road, adding 2.5 Million per year. Their vacuum tube solar collectors seem to be a step forward to. The scale at which they manufacture is making many things possible at prices that nobody in NZ could match. And with customer numbers internally in the many millions, issues of quality I would think will sort themselves out too.

It apparently is an art form though to deal with China. One needs to develop personal contacts and friendships and build trust. Then a lot is possible. Dealing from here over the Internet is perhaps not ideal. I think that there is a growing market for Mandarin speaking people who can spend some time there and develop the right channels to quality products.

Thomas

I am playing with building turbines from F&P smartdrive engines.  Here a a few things I am learning.
I am intersecting washing machines at the local refuse, I would say about 10 to 20 F&P machines get biffed every week. They do get broken down for the copper in the engine. I pay $10 - $25 a motor (depends where I go, who I see). I have never  had a damaged one. I take the stainless bowl too to use as a planter, It is very simple to pull them apart. Just need a philips srewdriver and sidecutters, and about 2 min. The motors are robust. I must admit, I am not the only one chasing the motors, there is quite a few DIYers intersecting the washing machines. There is so much great stuff that goes in the tip, it makes me cry. This week I bought a battery pack from an electric forklift that was to be scrapped. Batteries only a year old.

It is easy to get something to spin in the wind, It is not easy to get something to spin in the wind, perform efficently, be quiet, start at low wind speeds and last along time.. Eco innovation have done all the hard yards, and have designed lower cost reliable turbines. Locally.

I also concur with Tomas in dealing with China, although they are doing their best to welcome western buyers, to get the best deal with fewest surprises, you need a man on the inside. I often think about the oppertunity to bring  a container of solar PV, from what I have seen they would be about 40% cheaper. Once again, contacts and a man on the ground to make sure everything goes smooth. Any one know someone bringing in panels?

what ever you do regarding energy, the most cost effective, cleanest and sustainable way to meet your energy needs is to use less.

If you like to build a windmill see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2x7u4GAqPc

This is what happens if the automatic feathering in storm conditions fails...

I agree with Daryl that ecoinnovation are definately worth a look. I've been reading through their stuff and thinking about building a Fisher and Paykel turbine. I've also recently received some wind turbine construction plans from Hugh Piggott at http://www.scoraigwind.co.uk which are pretty thorough. His design is similar to the F&P style, although he winds his own coils and makes his own permanent magnet rotor by embedding magnets in resin.

In a sense, what we need more than wind turbines is lots of people who know how to build, or at least service wind turbines. We also need good solutions for using the power that don't necessarily involve batteries. For example, simple switches that can use the power for running the freezer (until it's cold enough), then running the hot water booster (until it's hot enough) before thinking about where to store the power. Batteries and inverters are the weak point in the whole thing.

After 4 and a half years living on with renewable power I have to say that its wonderful but its not as easy as just putting up a wind generator. Renewable energy systems have a range of components, the generator, charge controllers, inverter and batteries. So you are still tied to the wider system becuase you need a robust economy to supply the components of your system when they need replacing. . 

As always one of the main issue comes back to storage of the energy you generate. At best you can get about 10 years out of your batteries, There is also the issue of inverting the voltage from 12/24/48 volt into 230volt to run your appliances, otherwise you need appliances thant run on what your generator puts out. All in all renewable energy is complex and believe me you go through a STEEP learning curve when you first start living by it.

The cheap chinese wind generators are at best a lower quality and in my opinion its better to go with a good quality unit, it might be a lot more expensive but believe me you want to be able to rely on your generator because essentially you WILL HAVE TO rely on it. Renewable power is NO GOOD when it doesn't work....I know because I have been there.

Grid interactive is one way to get around the battery issues but at the moment, though it is now possible to do, the power utilities aren't falling over themselves to encourage it. I have been told by one company that you need to be generating 10kilowatts.  Thats is A LOT of power. To put it into perspective our family of 4 lhappily lived on a 2 kilowatt system and a renewable system NEVER operates at its full potential.

In saying all of that, renewable electricity is definitely worth pursuing and I reckon the answer lies not in setting up your own household system but setting up community cooperatives that install medium to large scale equipment  and feed into the wider grid.  If all our towns and localities did that the grid would essentially become decentralised (which is what the Government wants to do,. See the MED's 2050 Energy Strategy) and therefore a greater degree of resilience would be built in.

In my opinion the answers to many of the issues we face can be met by coming together on the community level. Community Supported Energy schemes are one way to do this and are happening throughout the world. For more info on this sort of thing Greg Pahl's "Citizen Powered Energy Handbook" (Chelsea Green Publishing  2007) outlines numerous case studies from all over the world.

Cheers

Richard

Well it's safe to say the idea of cheap imported windmills didn't go down too well! :-D

The "Citizen Powered Energy Handbook" is really interesting and I recommend it also.

Wow what a productive discussion board. My 2 cents goes like this:

When factoring in ALL costs - Social, environmental and economical it is more effective to differ generation (use less) than it is to increase generation capacity. by about 10:1 (c/-o Dr Warmsley school of engineering Waikato)

The key figure in calculating the amount of energy generated by wind is the rotor size cubed ie. 10mt x 10mt x 10mt. Which is why those Vestas giants have become popular in N.Z. However they have to shut down during peak wind as their european design cannot withstand our raw wind energy.

Batteries are toxic and its hard to recover these resourses.

One potential solution to this could be:

-Use less, simple and achievable NOW

-Solar Waterheating, easy to make and maintain.

-Low energy living i.e LED lights, Passive solar house design (Facing North)

-Community owned & decentralised medium capacity generation using N.Z built turbines (wind, water and geothermal) N.Z is very capable of engineering genuis. We just need to get our literacy up in regards to sustainable energy.

-Methane/BioGas digester. Recover ALL that energy and vital nutrients from the food we took so much care to grow. Cooking with Gas and also a transport fuel -CNG.

Put it all together and you have a community that is connected to the energy and life force that sustains it.

You are so right James in saying that "a small amount of power can be a huge advantage, and the difference between having a little and none at all has a big impact on our life experience".  So its definetely worth having some kind of back up for lighting when there is no power in the switch.

We have got a couple of old solar panels, batteries and some 12v LEDs for that scenario. As we are currently in the early stages of creating our new home (construction will hopefully start early in the new year) I am wieghing up the pros and cons of getting a small inverter so that we can run some of our 230v appliances and lights if there are prolonged distruptions. In our new place we will be connected to the grid......I really don't like the batteries or the isolation of stand alone systems. It only takes one nutter with a gun and you don't have it anymore......the answer there is embracing your community and finding ways where everyone can have what you have.

Again in the slow decline scenario I would argue for a community supported grid interactive medium sized wind or hydro system.(which I reckon makes an awesome project for a TT energy sub-group) However in a collapse scenario most of us with a bit of tinkering already have a back up electical system.

Now this is going to sound incredibly heretical........but its called your car!

Under the hood is essentially a generator that charges a battery. ( I can hear the collective groaning as I write this but hear me out). You probably all know that I am an avid advocate of  David Blume's local community organic alcohol production. But if need be it can be done in the back yard and you can buy or make a still very easily. There are many starchy or sugary plants that are already growing around you.....comfrey, jerusalem artichoke, raupo etc. Basically if it is sweet or has a tuber its very likely that you can make liquid fuel from it. Your'e not going to be able to grow enough in your backyard to run your car but you will be able to grow or wild harvest enough to run the motor to charge your battery, that will give you electric lighting.

Home alcohol production will also give you fuel for cooking, lighting (if you are happy to go with oil lamps etc) and a tradeable commodity that may be very sort after in a bartering economy.

Using ORGANIC growing practices, Blume claims that such a system can sequester up to 13 times the amount of CO2 than what burning the fuel releases, so GHG is not a worry here.

Sure, it would take a small modification of your engine to be able to run it on 100% alcohol but I would argue after seeing the instructions on converting a F&P smartdrive from a motor to a generator that it would be a whole lot easier to tinker with whats under the hood. ( I have not tried either yet so that is merely an assumption).

I say this because even though I have them I am still dubious about solar panels. As many know a  lot of research out there is suggesting they are bringing a lot or rare metals into decline. So from that perspective I am not really sure if solar panels are a sustainable answer. They too have a life (usually gaurenteed for 20+ years) but eventually they will need replacing, which takes us back to the old argument of a robust industrial economy to provide them.

However, the internal combustion engine, though certainly not perfect, is reliable and I would argue there are enough used parts out there to keep us going for a long time without the need to manufacture new ones.....Just a thought.

cheers

Richard

http://www.provenenergy.co.nz/

A NZ company with a new design.  I like the idea of windcrofting.  Sounds like a perfect TT project.

Looks like a multinational to me and their design doesn't look any different from any other but their "windcrofting" does look interesting and is essentially what the whole Community Supported Energy concept is all about.

A TT group faciliatating a community cooperative could become what they are calling a THC (Turbine Holding Company that is ....not the active constituent of marijuana ;-), withe their agents being the Service Company (SC) all you would have to do then is find a willing landowner.

Thanks for the link Kazel....much appreciated.

cheers

Richard

Hi everyone,

I have read with interest your conversation.

First I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Ju and I have created a startup with another business partner of wind turbines installations in New Zealand and the Pacific.

We are the reseller of one of the most renewed manufacturer called Fortis, based in Holland. So if you want to contact us if you're interested and want to know more about ourproducts, don't hesitate to ask in the conversation or in private.

As for those chinese turbines, I do agree that are definitely not very good even if modifications done can imporve their efficiency. I had the opportunity to see them couple of months ago during a business trip and I met one of their client. One of the big thing is that blades need to be balanced and electronics (inverter...) are pretty basic.

Ju

Hi there,

Seems like the subject doesn't seem to get lots of interest. Shame because communities can find lots of advantages on generating their own electricity together.

Our website is now up running.

www.pacificwindenergy.co.nz

We could do a presentation to one or several communities at the same time to demonstrate our turbines and the advantages that you could get out of it. And also the different issues that you could face.

Feel free to have a look to our website and contact us if any questions. Or keep the conversation here alive.

Cheers

Ju

So, realisticly would this be a smart move? I personally think not. I know that the money spent on this will just go to waste when 10 years down the road you need new ones.

Narconon Vista Bay

Windpower has positives and negatives, just like fossil fuels- At the moment, the negatives outweigh the positives with respect to gas, oil, etc. WIndpower generators are relatively expensive to build, but have low maintenance costs. More importantly, wind can only generate power while there is wind-you cannot increase output with high use, you are stuck with whatever you get. During low energy usage hours, the excess energy has to be stored in batteries or capacitors, which are fairly inefficient. Thus, windpower has no flexibility to respond to need. In addition, each expensive generator produces a fairly small current even during high wind conditions, so its not presently a viable major alternative.