Hugh Piggott's Blog

Blog is moving to scoraigwind.co.uk

2010-09-19T00:03:00.002+01:00

Jimmy at Eirbyte is hosting my blog now.

The new blog URL is http://scoraigwind.co.uk/

see you there....

Wind Turbine Course at Abergeldie 24th to 26th September 2010.

2010-09-04T08:18:00.003+01:00

A wind turbine course, run by Bruce from Talamh Housing Cooperative and hosted by the Abergeldie Community Organisation, will be run on a learn by doing basis - equiping participants with the hands on skills and knowledge to build their own wind turbines.

The completed turbine, built during the course, will be donated to a local organic vege farm which plays an active role in the local community.

Course fees will be £80 / person. For people on benefits / low incomes there is a suggested donation of £20. Catering is included in the course fee.

Camping space is available and a shared yurt space will also be available (16ft) for sleeping between six and eight people sharing (first come basis).

If you wish to take part in the course please contact Bill Boggia email bill_boggia@yahoo.com, Tel: 013397 42467, Mob: 0771 969 0480 to book your place and advise of any special dietry requirements.

Map of the location:

Nova Scotia weekend installation workshop

2010-09-03T19:51:00.001+01:00

Learn how to install a wind energy system - October 1-3rd - Windhorse farm, Nova Scotia

To reserve a place and to find out more, go to
http://silverfootwind.com/workshop2010_install.html

Another absurd example of urban wind ignorance

2010-08-18T11:11:00.002+01:00

I came across this article today:

There is a lot of comment and discussion underneath the article. What I find striking and alarming is that nobody seems to notice that the tower is so short that the wind turbine is not being exposed to any wind. It makes me angry and sad to see small wind turbines of this sort, sited in this way, being held up as examples of the way forward. Anyone with any real knowledge and experience of small wind turbines knows that they need to be on tall towers above surrounding obstacles to work properly. This site is like putting a solar panel in the cellar. Also the turbine type is a VAWT which has huge problems but we can put that to one side since it is never going to produce any useful energy placed like that in any case.

grrrr.

Cutting out magnet rotor disks - Chris Olsen's method

2010-08-16T05:17:00.001+01:00

Pictures of the setup here.

Leeds Metropolitan University Volunteering in the Gambia

2010-08-04T18:55:00.001+01:00

Constructing a wind turbine to charge batteries in Kartong village, The Gambia March/April 2010

Thanks Anne Schiffer

Some nice educational ideas:
some scary moments

Electronic edition of Wind turbine plans

2010-08-03T12:18:00.005+01:00

My Wind Turbine Recipe Book is now available in electronic form on Amazon Kindle. As yet, this is only the metric edition but if the project is successful I will also adapt the 'English units' (inches) edition for Kindle too.

Meantime if you want hard copy then you can still get it in either metric or inches units from me by post using Paypal. Orders are dealt with immediately and should reach you anywhere in the world in under a week (often less, but we cannot guarantee any timing).

The Amazon Kindle price is dramatically cheap at least to begin with, because I want to make this available to as many people as possible. I am hoping for a lot of sales but if these do not materialise then I will probably increase the price later, to try to make my efforts more worthwhile.

Chris Olsen writes on rust prevention

2010-08-03T11:33:00.003+01:00

"Hi Hugh,

"I remembered just now about a post you made in one of those threads on Fieldlines where you are investigating ways to prevent magnet corrosion.

"I have been painting my rotors with a product called Rust Master Primer that I get from Kimball Midwest here in the US. This product has acetone in it. When the rotors are still raw steel with the pins installed (for the magnets) I paint the rotors with it and leave them set for 48 hours. The product converts any oxidized steel to a very hard, black polymeric coating. The product is clear when it goes on but if you wait for 24 hours the rotors start turning black as it converts oxidation in the steel.

"After treating them with this stuff they can be left out in the weather permanently, unpainted, and they will not rust.

"I then glue the magnets over the pins with epoxy (JB Weld) making sure to use enough so that the entire underside of the magnet is covered and sealed all around the edges. After the JB Weld sets I paint the magnets with Rust Master and leave them set for 48 hours. I then prime and paint them. I do not pot the magnets in resin or any such thing, which really serves no purpose in my thinking.

"The key is to prevent magnet to steel contact and then seal everything in the polymeric coating before painting it. I have been using this stuff for over 20 years on semi trailers that run in the winter time in high amounts of road salt. Once you treat the underside of a semi trailer with it, it will never rust again.

"Disclaimer: Rust Master or POR-15 is a VERY toxic material. It instantly bonds to moisture, dehydrates it and seals with the coating. If you get even a tiny amount of overspray in your lungs while applying it, it will instantly bond to the moisture in your lungs, seal them, and you will never breathe again using that pair of lungs. Same goes for your eyes. It has to be applied while wearing an organic particulate filtered full face respirator with an external air supply, and if done inside a building in an approved paint booth with organic particulate filtered exhaust fans. If you get the stuff on the floor or walls, you will never get it off - you can burn it with an oxyacetylene torch and cannot remove it from cement.

"20 years ago when I first started using it I painted the underside of a semi trailer with it and let it set up for 48 hours. Nothing on that trailer would move. It took us 5 hours alone, with air chisels and air powered rotary files, to get the landing gear freed up so it could be cranked up and down. We never did get the hopper gates freed on it. We had to grind the bolts off and replace the gates with new. Just to give you an idea of how tough the stuff is after it cures. Space age chemical treatments are amazing things - but you'd damned well better read the directions before applying them.

"The stuff is sold around the world and is made by this company:
http://www.por15.com/whatispor15.asp

"Chris Olson
Barron, WI"

Chris Olsen's gallery is here

Thanks, Chris! For now I will continue using galvanized disks (my latest tactic), and embedding the magnets in resin, since the resin casting is something I know works well to retain the magnets and protect them from accidental damage. I hope that others find Chris's Rust Master system useful.

Nicely welded frame and tail

2010-07-28T12:38:00.001+01:00

Michael Jones in Ireland sent me these pictures of his wind turbine.

Answering some questions about rooftop wind

2010-07-27T16:45:00.003+01:00

My answers to some questions:

(1) We're looking at some of the design problems of rooftop turbines, and we had an expert installer tell us that in a best-case scenario, a rooftop turbine can generate 18 to 33 percent of a household's power. Is that an accurate assessment?

It's a very vague promise. The best case would be a house on a bare hilltop with nothing around it. A realistic case would be dramatically less productive. For real examples see this study
http://www.warwickwindtrials.org.uk/resources/Warwick+Wind+Trials+Final+Report+.pdf

(2) Is it true that a rooftop turbine generally creates 2 to 3 times as much noise as a tower turbine? And, if so, what can be done about this?

All wind turbines produce some noise and vibration. The amount varies, but whatever level of noise and vibration is produced, the associated problems will be much worse if it is connected with a building. Only a very massive concrete building can absorb this noise and most buildings will transmit it. The occupants will be subjected to this noise. The building may be damaged by the vibration in some cases.

(3) An installer told us that a tower turbine generally requires a consistent 10 mph wind to work. Is that true?

Most properly designed turbines are optimised for the range 3 - 12 m/s in which most of the energy will be produced. (that would be 7 - 25 mph in layman's terms). Below 7 mph (3 m/s) the density of power is extremely low, so one would need a very large turbine working for a very long time to produce useful amounts of energy.

And by "work" do they mean to generate their maximum power capacity, or to generate power at all?

Most small wind turbines will start to produce at 6, 7 or 8 mph (around 3 m/s) but obviously the power has to start from zero. Maximum output is achieved at 20 - 30 mphs (9 -14 m/s) depending on the make but such winds are relatively rare so they do not contribute a lot to the overall energy production.

Are there any tests that indicate that tower turbines ever hit their maximum capacities?

Of course a wind turbine on a good site will hit its maximum. But the more important thing is the average power it can produce, which can also be expressed as the energy produced over the year. This basically depends on the swept area of the rotor and on the windspeed 'regime' that it is exposed to. Rooftop turbines are usually rather small and cannot access good winds, so they are incapable of producing the best results in terms of energy per year.

(4) What good do you think will come out of the Small Wind Certification Council's certification program for power, sound emission and durability? Will the SWCC truly act in the consumer's behalf, or will they accede to manufacturer demands? Will we see less models, better models?

Independent testing of wind turbines is long overdue. I hope that it will not impose overly onerous burdens on small wind manufacturers, but it can only be a good thing to obtain independent test results for performance, noise and safety. I hope we will see plenty of models and that we will also get past the hype and learn what they can do for us.

(5) I heard that WindTronics will be releasing a turbine this fall that generates power in winds as low as 2 mph. Have you seen it, and does it work?

while it is possible to generate power in such low winds, the amount of energy will be relatively pathetic. The laws of physics determine the maximum power available per unit of size in a turbine and a very small turbine with very little wind can only produce a negligible amount of energy.

Is it a big step forward in rooftop turbine designs, or is there still much to be done to make sure these things work?

I would rather describe such products as a big step backwards (a disaster even) as they will encourage unrealistic expectations in the consumer, who will later decide that wind energy is a waste of time and money, based on one bad experience.

Two follow-up questions:

* Is it accurate to say that unless your home fits the (location, wind and zoning) requirements for successful wind generation, that a residential wind turbine (tower or rooftop) won't pay for itself completely in its average 20-year lifespan?

Yes, I would say that it is unlikely that a rooftop wind turbine will pay for itself unless the site if unusually windy, and the property is very open to the wind.

* According to National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a 1.5-kW rooftop wind turbine will meet the needs of a home that requires 300 kWh per month in a location that has an annual average wind speed of 14 mph. ------------Are any of those numbers reasonable?

The numbers might add up, yes, provided you can find a house with that sort of wind at rooftop level. I have to say that such houses are very unusual indeed! And the turbine would need to have a diameter of at about ten feet.

Is a 1.5-kW turbine an average size,

The power rating doesn't really tell you anything about the size, so it is not a good description for a wind turbine. A better description would be the rotor diameter.

and a is a 300 kWh monthly requirement typical for a family?

Yes in The UK that would be sufficient for a very small, energy efficient family. It's a little less than a typical North American family.

Moreover, I found a chart that says that only 5 of 275 American communities averages an annual wind speed of 14 mph. So how can that "14" number be used as a realistic benchmark?

I don't think that anyone could claim that it's a realistic benchmark, no.

===

See the full article in Consumers Digest

Treadle Powered Computer

2010-07-22T07:40:00.003+01:00

Thanks to Jean-Paul Tarit for these pictures of his treadle powered computer.

Real world data

2010-07-12T10:31:00.003+01:00

Here is a site with some real world kWh per month as generated by Eoltec, Proven and Bergey machines in the UK. Data uploaded by users.

http://www.renew-reuse-recycle.com/
Direct link to spreadsheet

Courses in England and nearby

2010-06-25T06:18:00.003+01:00

Some course dates in England for imminent courses that I will not be teaching but they are based on my design:

V3 are doing the following:

Introduction to Building a Wind Turbine -Weekend Course
16th - 18th July, Workhouse, Wales

How to Build a Wind Turbine - 5 Day Course
26th - 30th July, Nottingham

transitioncambridge are doing

Friday 9 - Sunday 11 July 2010 (3 full days), 9am to 7pm (some nights may be later); finishing by 5pm on Sunday At Cambridge GreenTech Workshop, Harvest Way, Cambridge

£150 (bookings before 25 June); £180 (bookings after 25 June).

My own next course that I will be teaching is at CAT in Wales

29th August - 3rd September 2010

This will be my last course in the UK this year,

but I am also doing one in Ireland

13-18 September Ballinamore Co Leitrim with Eirbyte

A full calendar of my courses is here including several in the USA.

Blade hub question

2010-06-22T06:42:00.004+01:00

Hercule writes:

Hello I'm trying to sketch in CAD the blades for a 3m turbine using your 2009 metric recipe book (I'm enjoying the read so far). For some reason I am getting an overlap of 76mm (see image attached). Have I misinterpreted your instructions (Metric Guide - Page 16) or is this intentional? Thanks
hi Hercule,

It is not important whether there is an overlap or not. It depends on the width of the wood and in some cases the edges of the blades will meet each other but there is no advantage to that and it makes no difference. I suggest that you use the widest wood that you have but at least as wide as the minimum size quoted in the manual. So there is no 'right answer' for the width of the wood and sometimes the overlap will be large and other times there will be none.

I hope this helps.

Hugh

Galvanised disks

2010-06-16T11:00:00.002+01:00

I have just received a batch of galvanized disks for making magnet rotors.
Some ten 300 mm diameters and a pair of 660 mm for my big windmill.

No more rusty magnet rotors!
It cost me 64 pence per kg, which comes to about £3 per small disk (about $5).
Transport was a bit more expensive going via the galvanizers,
but I think it will be worth it.

Cost per disk:
cutting £10
galvanizing £3
transport (in total) £7
Total was £20 per galvanized disk delivered to me in a batch.

Bike pedal power project at school

2010-06-14T05:18:00.004+01:00

Here is a nice video from Delaware about a bike using the axial flux alternator for a school class project.

Videos of French courses

2010-06-11T11:07:00.005+01:00

I have just produced a video of the course in Normandy in April, building a 3.6 metre (12 foot) battery charger and a couple of smaller machines. I was helping Thomas Plassard and Tripalium with this course for CIER

Patrick Chalmel also put some other videos on youTube of the same event.

The earlier Tripalium course in the south is here

Siting of small VAWT turbines in the UK

2010-06-06T05:02:00.003+01:00

Factors affecting the success of a wind turbine are :reliability, windspeed, swept area, cost and efficiency. I found a Quiet Revoluiton QR5 turbine at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh and I am checking out these criteria.

There is a good rule of thumb that says a wind turbine should be 30 feet above any obstruction within 300 feet. Windspeed is highly critical for energy production since the energy depends on the cube of the windspeed. There is hardly any wind for turbines sited below the 'canopy layer' of the tree tops. For more details check the Carbon Trust wind siting tool. The company state that "Please note that the minimum recommended average wind speed for a QR5 is 5m/s." But they were willing to sell one to go on this site, maybe just for "demonstration purposes"?

Reliability is very important since the kilowatt hours of energy generated will depend on the hours the turbine is available. The QR5 is out of action so far as I am aware due to problems with the blade attachments. Vertical axis turbines do have intrinsic fatigue problems which along with the problems of starting and stopping, and the problems of putting them on proper towers have made them a poor choice for wind energy.

The turbine is a nice size (5m high x 3.1m in diameter) but in relation to its cost it will not produce much energy even on a good 5 m/s site. The turbine alone costs £25,000. It does not matter how efficient it is it can never produce more than about 12,000 kWh per year at a 5m/s site, and the manufacturers claim 7,500 kWh per year. A HAWT of similar size and a fraction of the cost would do the same.
Nice ornament? Or a big waste of money, and another big embarrassment to the small wind industry?

Scoraig wind turbine workshop 2010 video

2010-05-30T11:31:00.003+01:00

I have uploaded a video of the latest workshop here

It was a fully international group with no UK residents involved at all.
We built and tested a 3 metre diameter turbine and it produced 6-700 watts peak.

Another windmill born in Mozambique

2010-05-21T21:37:00.003+01:00

Jason Morenikeji

THE CLEAN ENERGY INITIATIVE Mozambique

more here

new updates for Recipe book

2010-05-21T21:24:00.003+01:00

Here are some of the new diagrams.

see more here

Comet ME videos from the Middle East

2010-05-14T22:58:00.005+01:00

Tiny little video of the activity in COMET:
http://www.youtube.com/user/CometMiddleEast

YouTube - CometMiddleEast's Channel

www.youtube.com

also now
MSNBC nightly news video

Rooftop nonsense in Paris

2010-05-11T10:59:00.003+01:00

Rooftop nonsense is alive and well in France. See this article from Paul Gipe

It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry that these guys get public acclaim for wildly oversold nonsense.

www.wind-works.org
elena energie

Scoraig Croft for sale (£140,000)

2010-05-06T15:51:00.002+01:00

For sale CROFTING TENURE for 13 lotts of Scoraig. The croft extends to approx. 3.6 acres. Including a three bedroom timber house with solid fuel stove. Gardens to the front, vegetable and fruit gardens to the rear with young orchard. Also chicken runs and duck pond. Mature trees provide a wind break (and fuel source), on three sides whilst open to the sea and mountains on the fourth. Electricity is provided by solar panels and a wind generator with diesel generator backup. There is good mobile reception and a land line. The house needs some work for completion, including upgrading of the water supply.
This offers an exciting opportunity in a unique, challenging and beautiful environment.
Please see Crofters Commission website (www.crofterscommission.org.uk) for more information on Crofting Tenure as it is not the same as private ownership.

Click here to reply
Phone: Paul on 07800 951681

The Italian job

2010-05-03T18:44:00.003+01:00

Yikes these guys are going to win the prize for style!

Mact Engineering
61122 Villa Fastiggi Pesaro ITALY

Picture diary from Leucate France

2010-04-25T17:49:00.004+01:00

Lots of nice photos from the Leucate course in the south of France on a clifftop in an abandoned communications base near a lighthouse.
There is a page dedicated to the small 1200 diameter turbine (watch out it rotates to the left or counter-clockwise as it is known in the USA)

Also some details of an interesting wire tensioner invented by Eddy of Tripalium. We managed to get all the coils identical and the right size to fit exactly in the stator. (This also involved some experimenting with different thickness shims.)

I am working on some video footage. I also taught a second course in Normandy, also with Tripalium, straight after, so I am a bit overloaded with material right now. And trying to get home but have to go to a conference in Glasgow instead.

too much fun...

Warning...These magnets are Extremely Dangerous....

2010-04-24T06:42:00.004+01:00

Harold Graley sent me this:

Warning...These magnets are Extremely Dangerous.... I was prying two Magnets apart when all of a suddon, the two magnets slammed together pinching my index finger between them... There was no one around to help me, so I pulled them off myself taking a piece of my finger 1 cm long x .5 cm wide. or in English 1/2 in x 1/8 inches with them... Please ... Don't do this alone... These Magnets are Extremely Dangerous... Thank you ... HD Graley - USA

Later he expanded on what happened and sent me this sketch.

They were N42 Ni-Cu-Ni 2 in x 1 in x 1/2 in ... It happened while trying to take one from the stack. I found that if you take a wooden wedge and drive in between them, then there is no problem...The wedge I used is the piece of wood that I cut from the root section of the propellers.... I will send you a drawing of the method I found safe and easy...

That's a pretty slick system. I usually just rotate the magnets and then lever them off, taking great care to pull them well apart. I have found that lately since I emphasise the dangers I do not see injuries with handling the magnets in my classes but the risk is certainly there as the magnets tend to be surprising.

pdf drawings of how to build a wind turbine

2010-04-21T06:44:00.002+01:00

Piet Willem Chevalier writes

I posted my drawings on my site that helped me allot explain to the local malians how to make the wind turbine. Please tell others who might be interested in it for training purposes in developing countries, that they can download it from here .

Recipe book axial wind turbine plans now translated into Spanish

2010-04-18T19:09:00.003+01:00

Bajatec are now selling the my metric axial plans in Spanish

The Hungarian translation is nearly ready too.

Coil winder made from 5 mm steel sheet

2010-04-14T06:41:00.002+01:00

Noam Dotan writes:
Hello Hugh. While making the laser cut for the new turbine, we have decided to spoil ourselves and cut the parts for the coil winder from 5 mm metal sheet. We made the coils yesterday and they cam nice and easy. Attached are few images of the parts and an AutoCad drawing of the part. The narrow slot is for the start and end wire. The wide slot is for the adhesive tape to hold the coil before opening the winder front part. The longer screw is to hold the start and end wires so one person can do the whole thing by himself. The spacing between the two parts is maintain by copper or brass 10 mm OD pipe that is cut to 10 mm length and inserted on the 8 mm screws. One can weld the screws head to the back part of the winder, so they stay in place and thus to take it apart you need to open only the middle screw nut. We cover the edges of the metal parts with tape so it will not harm the copper wire while winding It might be an overkill for a workshop but if you make quite few of them coils it is really more easy and the end result is nice. All the best. Noam

More about wind turbines in Palestine in this article.

When the wind stops

2010-04-03T16:29:00.002+01:00

Vivek Mundkur writes:

Hi Hugh

I got hold of 100 LED modules and lit them up with the pedal generator.
With effortless pedalling they work. I could light up 100 more I think. Each LED takes only 0.72 watts power but gives as much light as a 15 watt incandescent bulb.

Cheers

Vivek

One way to erect a wind turbine

2010-03-30T08:29:00.003+01:00

Don't try this at home, folks!

Ian Woofenden and Kelly Keilwitz assembling an ARE 442 turbine on a 120 foot free standing monopole tower. Some people have all the fun.

Last minute chance for the Feed in Tariff without MCS

2010-03-22T21:32:00.001Z

MORE FROM KARL ...

Hi

Yes i am on the FIT because i registered before the end of March under the existing Renewable Obligation Scheme. When i asked Ofgem they said :-

As of 1 April 2010, microgenerators in the following technologies to be covered by FITs will not be eligible for support under the RO:

• Anaerobic Digestion
• Hydro
• Solar PV
• Wind

Microgenerators in these technologies who have applied for accreditation under the RO on or before 31 March 2010 will have this accreditation transferred to the FITs scheme. In the case of wind, hydro and solar PV microgenerators transferring from the RO, they will not be required to meet the MCS accreditation requirements for new microgenerators in these technologies.

However, all microgenerators transferring from the RO will still need to find a supplier in order to access FITs. Generators will need to find a supplier within 6 months of the start of the FITs scheme (i.e. before 1 October 2010) in order to avoid any interruption to their support.

It looks like there is still time for people to get on the FIT if they can apply under the RO scheme and get it sorted out within the next week. It looks like its just for the 'big boys' after that.

Karl

New video of my latest welding project - the 3600 recipe

2010-03-19T23:04:00.005Z

the new Youtube video is here

Plans to build this wind turbine here.

Nice homebrew grid connected project

2010-03-19T22:53:00.004Z

Karl writes:

I registered with the Npower 'juice' green electrity tarrif and told them i had a wind turbine i would like to connect to the grid. They sent the forms to register asking what make the turbine was and who intalled it, i also had to fit a generation meter for them to read my power output. The terms and conditions on the application do not mention having to have MCS certified machine or installer so i just told them i did it all and drew a simple diagram of the layout and told them the inverters were g83 compliant.They said it was no problem and signed me up but now after reading your blog i wonder if it will be!

The turbine i have connected is 10' diameter mounted on a 13 meter pole. I use 3 mastervolt soladin inverters with a dump load controller in between and it ties to the grid via a standard 13 amp plug wired on its own into the house distribution board. I have built 5 more 8' turbines as in the pictures all with laminated blades caved using templates that fix onto the sides of the blanks and follow bearing guides on a modified 9" surface planer, it takes 5 minutes to cut the twist and taper in each and they all turn out exactly the same.All i then do is to form the aerofoil shape on the back by hand.

I hope my machine and anyone else's will be allowed to work with the FIT as the whole idea of green energy should be above and beyond the greed that got our climate in such a mess in the first place

More photos from Mali

2010-03-19T22:48:00.002Z

Thanks to Roland for these pictures.

Matthew Rhodes writes about feed in Tariffs and MCS

2010-03-04T12:37:00.001Z

http://www.yougen.co.uk/blog-entry/1428/Three+ways+we+could+improve+UK+feed+in+tariffs/

"There was not a single voice at Monday’s meeting raised in defence of MCS, which is an unaccountable monopoly run by people who may have their hearts in the right place but who are anonymous and naturally most interested in defending the interests of their own businesses. It creates an additional learning barrier and cost for existing, completely skilled construction contractors who might want to enter the market, and thus slows down growth and keeps microrenewables as a relatively niche market accessible only to those in the know.

It also creates a whole heap of completely gratuitous technical arguments (and diversionary hot air) about whose standards should be adopted, and who should be on which committee, at a time when the industry should be focused on creating imaginative propositions for customers.

Personally, I cannot really see why we need to confuse customer protection with promotion of renewables at all, particularly in the context of a scheme which deliberately rewards quality installations over those that work less well.

In the end, a green kWh is a green kWh and can be measured accurately by your generation meter."

right on.

Youtube tour of Scoraig wind turbines

2010-02-25T10:00:00.002Z

Scoraig Wind Skylines video
is here

Wooden blades are best

2010-02-21T20:19:00.002Z

"I thought you and your wooden blade fans would be interested in this . We're currently building a short run of 16m blades in wood epoxy in the now disused Vestas workshops in Southampton. We've taken an old design which was last built about 10 years ago and redesigned for birch veneer. The blades are for 400Kw Turbowind machines and weigh approx 1 tonne each. The birch veneer is like plywood but with the all grain running in the same direction. It is a fantastically strong material. Each veneer is approx 4mm thick and made up of 3 plys. Its vacuumed into female moulds along with glass and foam sandwich for the trailing edge panel.
I think we are the only big blade builders in the UK now! Crazy!"

Nick Barlow
Designcraft Ltd

My courses and events in 2010 on a map

2010-02-17T22:24:00.002Z

My courses calendar is here.

View course locations 2010 in a larger map

23-28th March 2010 CAT in Wales, UK

12-17 April Mondial du Vent, Leucate France

19 au 24 Avril MONTCHAUVET France (40 km de CAEN)

small wind conference 27 - 28 April Glasgow

8-15th and 22-29th May 2010 Scoraig

Saturdays: 19 June, 10 July, 14 August EarthshipFife

29th August - 3rd September CAT Wales

13- 18.September in Ireland (Leitrim)

September 27 -- October 1st Paonia, CO

October 18-23 Guemes Island WA

October 25-30 Guemes Island WA

Owners of self-built renewable energy systems will be excluded from Feed in Tariff

2010-02-13T22:51:00.003Z

Received from Brian Faux - invitation to sign a petition:

Please sign and pass this on

The Department of Energy and Climate Change intends to reward generators of renewable energy - Solar, Wind, Hydro etc - with a guaranteed price for the electricity they produce: the Feed In Tariff. This will come into effect in April 2010.

However the regulations will be such that that owners of self-built renewable energy systems will be excluded from these rewards even though these are the very people who pioneered home produced electricity. To assure a fair reward for these green pioneers, please sign the petition to 10 Downing St.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/GreenPioneers/
'Usually provided there are 500 signatures or more, it will be passed to officials who work for the Prime Minister in Downing Street, or sent to the relevant Government department for a response.'

This 20-foot waterwheel generates 5.5kw - enough electricity to power two
houses 24 hours a day.

Under the proposed regulations it will be ineligible for the Feed In Tariff.
http://s990.photobucket.com/albums/af26/brianfaux/Waterwheel/

"One of the proposed conditions of the recently announced Feed In Tariffs for renewable energy is that only projects which have Microgeneration Certification Scheme approved installers and equipment will qualify for FIT`s. Individuals that have pioneered the use of renewable resources by building their own Solar,Hydro and Wind installations will not be able to claim the reward promised by the FIT`s. This is a kick in the teeth for those who have led the way to a greener future at their own expense."

To add a little Kafka to the situation: although the DECC is insisting on MCS certification for systems installed between July 2009 and April 2010 there are, for hydropower, no existing MCS certified installers and no certified machinery. There is in fact no protocol yet agreed by the MCS for the testing of either products or installers.

Local manufacture of turbines in Mali

2010-02-04T07:32:00.002Z

Piet Willem Chevalier has successfully launched a project in Mali by training a group to build wind turbines. This group will start manufacturing these wind turbines as a profession, that will open doors to supply electricity to the rural poor, that is absent until now.

When do you consider your battery to be flat?

2010-01-28T18:42:00.005Z

I got 42 answers to my (rather cryptic) question:

10/20/40 volts	7 (16%)
11/22/44 volts	4 (9%)
11.5/23/46 volts	10 (23%)
11.75/23.5/47 volts	12 (28%)
If it drops below nominal voltage I freak out	9 (21%)

Battery makers tend to define the capacity of their products in terms of a 'final voltage' where the battery is 'flat'. This voltage might for example be 1.75 volts per cell (10.5, 21, 42 volts depending on the nominal battery voltage 12/24/48 volts). At this point it is said that the state of charge (SOC) is 0%. So the ones who voted for 10 or 11 volts were correct in that respect. By then the battery is really flat.

It's interesting that the capacity (expressed in Amphours) of a battery is defined in relation to the time it takes to discharge down to this voltage, for example the capacity at the '20 hour rate' will be lower than the capacity at the slower '100 hour rate'. But at the end of each process the battery will have reached the same arbitrary final voltage, and be considered 'flat'. Peukert's Law gives mathematical form to this relation between capacity and rate. Roughly stated, the capacity varies as the square root of the rate (or some similar power depending on a coefficient for the battery). It's all very tidy.

Peukert's Law works well for a constant current discharge, but it is not a good model for intermittent, variable loads such as we use in real life. It is not true to say that the battery is actually flat after reaching a certain final voltage. If you leave it a while the voltage will recover, and if you discharge it more gently you can find a lot more capacity. The 'capacity' depends more on the average discharge rate than the actual current at a given moment. More here.

Anyway whether you approach 0% SOC fast or slowly, one thing is certain: it's not going to be good for your battery. There is broad agreement that you will get best long term value from your battery if you do not discharge it beyond 50% SOC. Serious sulphation sets in after that. Just how many amphours you will get and how to determine when you have got there is the hard part to answer. You can use a hydrometer to estimate the SOC, but its a pretty rough instrument, (and it doesn't read true during a partial recharge, before the stratified acid gets mixed up by the action of gas bubbles). We can maybe say that specific gravity 1.200 – 1.180 represents 50% SOC for a particular battery type at 27 degrees C. But it's just not practical to go out and take such measurements all the time.

If there is no current (charging or discharging) at the time of the measurement and the battery has had time to recover and stabilise, then we can say that
Cell Open Circuit Voltage =Specific Gravity + 0.845
= 2.025 to 2.045 volts (using the above specific gravity figures for 50% SOC)
Now it seems the people who voted for the last answer got it right! But in reality a working system will not give you this opportunity. In reality the working voltage at 50% SOC will be lower, due to the resistance of the battery and the gradient of ions approaching the plates. So it maybe well be below 2.0 volts per cell. Especially at low temperatures.

The most popular answers were 11.5 and 11.75 volts. These may be reasonable choices, or they may be hitting the battery rather hard - it does depend on a lot of factors such as load current and temperature. A lot of people say that it's impossible to use a voltage set-point for this purpose and you need to use a battery SOC meter (amphour meter) instead. Quite a costly item, and actually rather tricky to set up well enough to give meaningful answers over a period of time during which the battery SOC may wander up and down, and various losses take place. How for example do you define 100% full SOC? There are several possible criteria but none are perfect.

It's best to operate a battery in the top 50% of its capacity. The top 20% (above 80% SOC) gets harder to achieve and will result in some gassing, which loses energy but it vital to get there on a windy day for the sake of the battery's health. Make sure you get up to a good finishing voltage, and be aware that temperature has a big effect on this. 14.8 volts at 25 degrees C is equivalent to 15.5 volts at 0 degrees C. In cold weather your inverter may shut down on over-voltage before the battery gets properly charged up.

If you mostly use the range between 50-80% SOC then you only use 30% of the battery's energy capacity. A 6-V, 400-Ah battery has energy capacity = 6 x 400 = 2400 Watthours = 2.4kWh. It might cost you about £200. If you can only use 30% of this routinely, then you only get 0.72 kWh from this 6-V battery. If like me you use about 6 kWh per day, then a string of batteries that can last you through a day or two is not cheap!

Finally one great tip I have just learned for making battery maintenance a bit less horrible. Buy a plant sprayer! It's brilliant. You shove the end of the lance into the battery vent and pull the trigger. Whoosh it fills it up and you can actually see what you are doing at the same time. I tried this for the first time today, and I was amazed.

Vacancy for a teacher at Soraig's (wind powered) school

2010-01-28T18:11:00.002Z

Highland council are advertising for a new head teacher for our school.

Low cost pipe couplers for hydro

2010-01-26T09:41:00.002Z

Paul Camilli is an expert at using what he has got (it's called 'crofting' in the west highlands) and he has got a lot of old fishfarm pipe and a rather nice little stream for hydro power. Here he is using different pipe sizes and hot water to connect discarded sections of pipe together.

The pipe will feed a Stream Engine (supplied by me) with a high voltage stator and a transformer panel at the battery shed for charging his 48 volt battery. (Paul also has a 2.5 kW Proven wind turbine, but the wee hydro is likely to produce more energy due to running more steadily.)

More information here on the Navitron forum.

Gross head 40 metres, flow 4 litres/second give about 700 watts power (about 17 kWh per day)
Transmission voltage around 200 volts 3-phase AC.
Cost of turbine and transformer panel including shipping and VAT is under £3000 from Scoraig Wind Electric.

Workshop in Chemille by Etienne Mousseau

2010-01-21T09:52:00.002Z

Apprendre à fabriquer une éolienne
Du Lundi 22 au samedi 27 février 2010
chez Damien Cailleau et Sébastien Marti, maraîchers bio « les Petites Noues »
Sur la commune de Chemillé (49)
etienne.mousseau@laposte.net

images from France

2010-01-19T21:23:00.003Z

OPERATION BURLESQUE
A La conquête de nouvelles formes d'activisme
Ne tombez pas dans le trou !

"Entre la parole et les actes, il y a un trou
Plus de vingt ans après la lutte victorieuse contre la centrale nucléaire de Plogoff.
Pourquoi aucune dynamique d'envergure en faveur des énergies renouvelables n'a t-elle émergé en Bretagne?
La lutte se spécialise, s'atomise et se fossilise :
entre les légalistes (copenhague), les bloqueurs(ses), les saboteurs(ses), les partisan(e)s de l'autonomie....
il y a aussi des trous : d'indifférence, d'incompréhension, de mépris.....
La question est de savoir comment transformer l'antagonisme pour ou contre en une complémentarité pour et contre."

Tripalium

==============================================================="Angélique adopte une figure libre comme l'air mettant, je pense, en valeur le design de la turbine."
Hubert MARIN
qui termine actuellement une petite éolienne de 1,20m (200W).

The Scottish Government consultation on 'Permitted Development' status for small wind turbines

2010-01-17T22:52:00.005Z

The Scottish Government have published a consultation document
Permitted development rights are extended to certain types of development through the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Order 1992 (GPDO). They will now be examining the option for new permitted development rights for micro-renewable systems in the context of the review of the GPDO. Responses are due by the 1st February.

Existing planning policy can be found in the 2006 PAN 45 document. It's a bit loopy in places, and obviously fully sold on the rooftop hype.

"Turbines should be sited in a way that creates a balanced composition that does not undermine the architectural integrity of the building or structure. They are generally positioned on the highest point of the roof, however, to reduce their visual impact it may be possible to locate them at a lower position provided they have a 0.5m clearance from the base of roof. Consideration should be given to positioning the micro-wind turbine at the rear of the property, where visual impact will typically be lessened."

"Towers should be sited in a way that minimises the landscape impact. Whilst tall towers and hilltop locations will be best for capturing maximum wind energy, smaller towers and low lying locations should still be able to generate sufficient energy to meet the requirements of an average home."

"Careful consideration should be made to the desired height of the turbine. While it will be important to avoid undue turbulence and areas of low wind speed, the choice of height needs to be carefully balanced with the visual prominence of the turbine in relation to existing buildings and surrounding landscape features. Where possible the height of towers should relate to the height of existing vertical elements in the landscape such as light columns, telegraph poles, trees, buildings and other structures. A turbine sited on a prominent ridge is generally not desirable. Where possible towers should be coloured to minimise the visual impact."

In other words they didn't really have a clue (in 2006) how important height actually is. Nor the importance of being well above surrounding obstacles. They actually believed that a rooftop wind turbine can have a 7 year payback.

Interestingly, noise issues did seem to be a big hurdle:

"Noise stemming from micro-wind turbines will generally be of an acceptable level. However, to protect nearby residents from any potential noise, a condition can be attached to any consent controlling the level of noise. A detailed noise assessment should not be required. Where turbines are fixed to a building, there may be a risk of noise disturbance from vibration to the building itself or neighbouring buildings and a condition might be attached that appropriate measures should be taken to mitigate any such vibration."

The brand new Permitted Development Rights for Domestic Micro-Wind Turbines and Air-Source Heat Pumps Consultation takes noise more seriously

Their research "considered that where a free-standing MWT is in excess of 100 m from the nearest neighbour’s curtilage and the maximum height does not exceed 11.1 m; with a maximum blade diameter of 3.5 m (or swept area of 9.6 m2) PD rights could apply. Permitted developments of this scale are likely to be achievable in
mainly rural situations. The PD rights conferred by the amendments proposed here do not go as far as setting height or swept area thresholds."

So it appears that permitted development status (no need to obtain permission, just a duty to notify) might apply to turbines that are more than 100 metres from a property boundary, and it is not clear to me whether any height or size restrictions will be applied (within reason).

They are not about to require compliance the the MCS process:

"Our proposals for PD rights meantime do not rely upon the application of MCS to provide further safeguards and assurances in circumstances where planning permission is not required."

They also wisely note that:

"Wind trials continue to indicate that the performance of MWT is highly sensitive to a range of factors and in some locations, particularly parts of urban areas, they perform poorly."

So it seems as if a bit of reality is seeping into the plan.

It may be worth responding with views on this consultation, although they seem to be in a rush and are unlikely to give any such input much weight. Personally, I think it's a good idea to site turbines at a comfortable distance from neighbours houses. I do hope they allow decent tower heights. And of course these are not planning requirements as such... they are requirements for exemption from planning permission.

magnet4energy are selling my free plans

2010-01-17T21:53:00.004Z

Here is another scam. Magnet4energy are selling plans for 'free energy'. What you get is an 80 page pdf document. More than half of this consists of my own description of how to build and alternator. You can also download this 'PMG' construction manual free of charge from my web site here. But don't expect to get any free energy other than wind generated energy that way.

Criminal? It's happening all the time. Most of the time you can buy these same plans on eBay. For some people it makes more sense to buy them instead of getting them for free off my site.

Is it my problem? Yes I do have a problem with it, but I have exhausted my limited will to fight it. But I can at least make it public, so there you go.

If you don't believe me, then buy a copy yourself. When you are done (assuming you are not satisfied with the product) you can reclaim your money from Clickbank - I have tried it, and that works well too. I only hope that all of their customers do that.

Birth of the British Small Wind Association

2010-01-14T22:36:00.004Z

Stephen Tasker of Hymoto has outdone himself as the 'loose canon' of the UK small wind industry by setting up a new Association in competition with BWEA.

"For the record I have repeatedly tried to work with the British Wind Energy Association but unfortunately this organisation has advised me that it has taken a policy of no communication with myself....

"Our view is that some things which are now happening in our industry are “just wrong” – particularly with regard to MCS - and we are not prepared to accept “that the establishment can’t be beaten” or that you have to be a “member of the club” to be in the British small wind industry"

Let's hope he has got his facts straight and isn't just scuppering the chances of the small wind industry being taken seriously by government. But the idea of a not-for-profit association promoting the interests of the British Small Wind Industry, rather than a club that exists to make money by whatever means, is quite refreshing.

We do not agree about the best way to test a turbine and predict energy output. But he does propose that there should be no link between the new 'feed in tariffs' and testing, a link that worries me as it excludes all homebrewed wind turbines from earning legitimate revenues under the new FIT system. Any testing regime is likely to be extremely expensive, excluding the small guy from the table. The cost of gaining approval under the MCS scheme has been estimated at £80,000.

Microgeneration scheme (MCS) approved turbines list

2010-01-13T20:23:00.004Z

There is now a list of wind turbines that are currently approved for the microgeneration certification scheme (MCS) here. These are only 'transitional' approvals though.

They are the lucky ones that are eligible for Grants and Feed in Tariffs.

Most of them seem to be Ampairs!

But there are some Provens in there, and one of them is a newcomer. Before they have even got the 15 kW working, they have got certification for a 35 kW (is it?) or what. No, a quick inspection of the Proven web page reveals that the 15 kW has been re-badged as the 35 (The 2.5 is now the 3.2kW and has been rebadged the 7, the 6 kW is now called the 11. Simple, isn't it.)

Among the verticals there is a new name 'Vertical Wind Energy'. This is one to watch, I am told. Hmm.

Renewable devices have not been Swift enough to get listed this time in spite of all their considerable BS.

All the usual suspects, Eoltec, Iskra(Evance) and Gaia wind are there, I am pleased to see.

And a newcomer from the Chinese direction(?) called Evoco have got themselves on the list too.

There has been a fair bit of controversy about the MCS approval process largely stirred up by Mr.Stephen Tasker of Hymoto. Nobody seems to understand the process or where it is going but it has received the endorsement of a large group of BWEA members in the form of a letter of support signed by representatives of 85% of the small wind industry worldwide (according to BWEA calculations.) That's the same BWEA that has a Swift turbine on a rooftop in pride of place on its web page and will take money from anyone and give them credibility, because that's what they have to sell. So their endorsement and calculations don't prove much to me.

With Feed it Tariffs due to start in April, this show will be fun to watch in the next few months! Who will make it past the transitional phase, and will the process be successful in filtering out the nonsense products, or will it just be another bandwagon gravy train for the bureaucrats? Time will tell.

Email chat about batteries and how to store wind energy

2010-01-10T22:32:00.002Z

answering another email today...

Hi Ruth,

I have just come across your website (whilst looking for a feeder for bees, of all things!) and have not yet had time to check out all the links, so I apologise if my question is already answered somewhere.
What I would like to know is if it is possible to store the energy produced by a wind turbine somehow, other than in a battery?

Yes, but the battery is still probably the best option for small stand-alone (off-grid) systems. Nowadays the biggest market is for grid connected systems that 'use the mains grid as a battery', but I live off-grid and I like being independent. So I do use batteries and I also use a generator for back up if the wind is not sufficient (like recently).

The biggest argument against wind turbines that I keep hearing is that they only work when the wind blows,

Yes I would say that this is their biggest weakness. They only work about 80% of the time, and for part of that time they do not produce very much output. The wind is very fickle. So a lot of the energy comes when you do not need it, and there are also times when you do not get what you need. But it's a natural commodity and a bit wild, and I love it.

and when it doesn't blow you have no electricity.

Well in a properly designed system you will have solar photovoltaics, and batteries, and a generator for backup, so that is not at all true, no.

What I would like to see is the energy produced by the turbine being stored in some other way than a battery.

Me too, but I have not seen any good options yet. Except for the grid of course. But that's more like trading than storage. The grid is a good option for mixing up different energy sources to produce a blend that offers the best of them all. But I like being independent personally.

My understanding (admittedly extremely dodgy) is that the electricity a turbine generates is AC, which is then converted to DC to store it, and then usually converted back to AC to use it, all of which is extremely inefficient.

Not that bad. Overall in my system, it's about 85 % efficient.

(Also batteries aren't exactly 'green').

No, they are not, I do agree with you there. Lead is a very toxic chemical. But it's there to be used and there are worse things in the world. For a long time people actually got their drinking water out of lead pipes and survived. It can be recycled. Sulphuric acid is biodegradable and no real problem.

Would it not be possible and more efficient to store the power in some other form,

I doubt that. All of the other forms of energy storage I have looked into are really inefficient on the small scale. Pumped storage of water in reservoirs is good on the large (grid) scale but not so efficient in small systems unfortunately.

for example like a clockwork radio that stores power in a spring, gradually releasing it on demand.

The motor and the generator to do this in small systems are not very efficient compared to a lead-acid battery.

I don't suppose that a giant spring would be a suitable store,

It would have to be big. Pumping water up to a high reservoir is better. It works really well actually.

but I was wondering about using a turbine to compress air, storing that, and then using the compressed air to drive a turbine to produce electricity on demand. Is anyone doing anything similar to this at the moment?

It's a nice idea but unfortunately the air gets hot and then as it cools it loses much of the pressure and thus the energy. Again it's more feasible on a (very) large scale where you can keep the heat in. I believe that something similar is done to augment the power from steam turbines with stored energy. Using old oil and gas wells and the like to store compressed air.

Not being at all technically minded, I am sure that there are a lot of problems that I haven't thought of, such as storing the compressed air itself, but I am sure that there must be a more efficient way of using a wind turbine, so that instead of there being lots of NIMBYs, everyone will want one!

I have come to the conclusion that NYMBYs will be negative whatever you do. Using natural renewable energy is beautiful for me regardless of the problems, but some people will not be happy until it is totally cheap and reliable and convenient, and free of any possible downside. Until then they will go on burning up the resources of the planet and leaving nothing for future generations. And they will laugh at the idea of using 'ugly, inefficient' wind turbines. I don't understand their logic.

Until 100 years ago we used the wind to power a lot of things, but since then we have burned a lot of stuff because it is easier to get energy fast that way. However this is not sustainable. A lot of people don't seem to get this obvious fact.

My own little dream is to have a wind turbine to compress the air, then to have a car that runs on compressed air. Just pipe dreams or not?

It's feasible. But I would recommend batteries if you want something practical. Lithium batteries for that actually. It's not just a dream. But it does need people to believe in it or it may continue to appear to be one.

Also you need a proper wind turbine on a tall tower or pole to catch a proper wind and not just a toy on the roof. There is no real wind at the rooftop level.

have fun

News from Ti'eole in France

2010-01-08T08:11:00.003Z

La société TI’EOLE vous souhaite une heureuse année ventée pour 2010.

En 2009, quatorze stages d'auto-construction ont eu lieu aux quatre coins de France. Une quarantaine d’éoliennes de type Piggott ont été réalisées au cours de l'année. On remercie la région Rhône Alpes et l’ADEME pour la reconnaissance de notre travail à travers le prix éco-innovations. En 2009 a également eu lieu la première installation en France d’une éolienne ARE110. Installée sur un mât de 18m, elle produit en moyenne 15kWh/jour depuis son installation dans le sud Ardèche. En 2009, les membres de Ti’éole ont encadré de nombreuses formations : Ecole de Mines, CAPEB, GRETA, ASDER, Lycée St Louis, LPCOMESA, Espaces Info Energie (Pays de Loire, Languedoc Roussillon, et Rhône-Alpes). Une éolienne Bergey XL1 a été installée au centre de formation GRETA/GENR de Roanne pour renforcer leur plateforme pédagogique. Durant le mois de septembre, la société s’est agrandie avec l’embauche d’Hugues Cottineau. Étudiant issu de la licence STER, il s’occupe du pôle électricité et électronique. Il a réalisé un manuel d’une quarantaine de pages sur le petit éolien raccordé au réseau. Ce document est disponible sur le site internet http://reseau.tieole.com. Vos remarques sont les bienvenues pour continuer à améliorer ce document. En 2010 nous souhaitons renforcer le réseau d’auto-constructeurs en collaboration avec l’association Tripalium. Des stages sont prévus dans la Drôme, le Maine et Loire, en Bretagne, en Normandie… Pour faciliter l'accès au matériel pour les auto-constructeurs, l'achat en ligne sur le site internet sera bientôt possible. 2010 est une année prometteuse pour la éolienne Colibri, conduit en partenariat avec la société Hélioscop. Le prototype existant de 1,8kW va être installé prochainement dans la Drôme. Une seconde version de 3,3 kW sera réalisée puis testée au cours de l'année. En juin, Ti’éole, en association avec le CLER et la région Rhone-Alpes, va proposer une conférence nationale sur le petit éolien. Deux jours de conférence sont prévus autour des toutes les problématiques rencontrées par la filière. Les acteurs nationaux du petit éolien seront invités a venir débattre des aspects techniques, financiers et politiques. Que le vent vous apporte plein d'énergie pour l’année 2010 ! Meilleurs Vœux, Cordialement, Jay W Hudnall Ti'eole - énergies éoliennes 4, Côte des Chapeliers 26000 Valence Tél: +33 (0)6 67 74 21 21 Fax: +33 (0) 9 53 07 55 97 Mail: jay@tieole.com

Course in Leitrim, Ireland soon

2010-01-04T13:04:00.005Z

Eirbyte are holding their own 'build your own wind turbine' course in Ballinamore on the 1st of February.

PS THIS HAS BEEN MOVED DUE TO WEATHER AND IS NOW 15th - 19th FEBRUARY.

Booking details are here

More about the scam mongers

2009-12-30T21:50:00.003Z

At the risk of getting boring about this...

I thought it would be a good time to publish this email that I received earlier in the year about Earth4energy and the other bogus products being marketed by the same dreary individuals. Now that I find they are using my name to further their sales I will do whatever I can to warn people to avoid these scams.

To:
Subject: Scam - Home Energy Renewable Energy Plans in USA
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 17:03:59 +1100

Hi

Saw your website and just wanted to let you know about some company selling "plans" and instructions on building wind turbines and DIY PV modules.

I paid $75 for an eBook and downloaded it from http://www.homemadeenergy.org/ I have attached a copy for your evaluation.

It is of very poor quality, and after several emails, he is refusing to reply for requests for a refund.

The company has many paid adds with Google, and are connected. There are many sites that appear to be different entities, but closer scrutiny reveals they are part of the same scam. Some of the sites even claim misleadingly to "investigate" this company and provide "reviews".

Examples:

homemadeenergy.org
BuildSolarPanels.net/
HomeEnergyReviews.com
www.Earth4Energy.com
www.ScamReviewTeam.com [this one has now gone - Hugh]
www.Inside-Opinion.com [So has this but others are apearing as I have found]

The address that I have been given in emails from this company (could be false):

Texzus Capital Ventures Inc
10708 Pedigree Cv, Austin, TX 78748-2565 USA
President, Steve Grey

Maybe you could warn your colleagues around the world about this scam.

Kind regards,

Dale Stewart

I have withheld Dale's email address to protect him, but if anyone wants to contact him then I am happy to pass a message. The stuff he then forwarded to me was indeed a load of worthless burbling.

Oh and wait there is more. When I put some warnings on my web page I unbelievably got the following message from the very perpetrators suggesting I help them!

Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 12:14:59 -0800
Subject: Re: This Is What Super Affiliates Promote...
From: HomeMadeEnergy Affiliates
To: hugh@scoraigwind.co.uk

Hello,

I sent you the email below and I haven’t heard back. Are you the right
person I should speak with about promoting HomeMadeEnergy.org?

If so, please go here to learn more: http://homemadeenergy.org/aff/

We are eager to have you begin promoting us. Please don’t hesitate to
let me know if you have any questions or comments. Even if you’ve
decided not to participate, you’re reason(s) why would be very helpful
to us. Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Jim Gribble affiliates@homemadeenergy.com
Partnership Manager
HomeMadeEnergy.org
Phone: (301) 916-3900

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 8:40 AM, HomeMadeEnergy Affiliates
wrote:
> It's no secret among super-affiliates...
>
> Here are the 3 simple reasons why super-affiliates promote HomeMadeEnergy.org:
>
> 1. Biggest payout
>
> You get 75% on the initial $47 product AND on the popular $67 up-sell!
>
> Plus, you can get an additional bonus of $5 for each sale.
>
> And many super-affiliates confess we have the best conversion in the
> marketplace.
>
> This make HME is an offer worth promoting – but that’s not all...
>
> 2. Best product
>
> The HomeMadeEnergy now consists of a detailed eBook PLUS hours of
> user-friendly, step-by-step videos.
>
> These videos were produced by a NABCEP (North American Board of
> Certified Energy Practitioners) certified individual. This means your
> referred customers will get the best and SAFEST information. It’s no
> wonder why our refund rates are so low – buyers love this product!
>
> 3. Nurturing partner support
>
> We reach out and establish personal relationships with our affiliates.
> You can discuss special customizations with us because we are willing
> to listen and implement what you suggest.
>
> I gave you THREE great reasons why HME is probably the best "renewable
> energy" offer that you can promote right now. It's the top choice
> among super-affiliates.
>
> I urge you to at least test this offer now and see how it does for you.
>
> To find more details go to:
> http://www.homemadeenergy.org/aff/
>
> If you have any questions or comments, please reply to this email and
> I’ll get back to you right away.
>
> Warmest regards,
>
> Jim Gribble affiliates@homemadeenergy.com
> Partnership Manager
> HomeMadeEnergy.org
> Phone: (301) 916-3900
>
> HomeMadeEnergy.org
> 10708 Pedigree Cove
> Austin, TX 78748
> Phone: (512) 280-9331
>

Make of it what you will, but you won't be making a wind turbine, that's for sure :-) You could however be making 75% of $67...

Boston trials data

2009-12-30T18:42:00.005Z

Wind Turbines at the Boston Museum of Science: Production Data

I am indebted to Paul Gipe for this link. Here we have real world data for some of the big players including Skystream, Swift, Proven and some of the vertical oddities.

The project apparently got started on October 9, or at least the display indicated that the cumulative production was taken starting from that date. Since inception, the Proven has produced 538 kWh, the Skystream 344 kWh, the Aerovironment machines 67 kWh, the Windspire 57 kWh, and the Swift brings up the rear at 2.4kWh. The MOS display also calculates capacity factor, which ranges from a high of 9.2% for the Skystream to 4.6% for the Proven, to 2.4% for the Windspire, 0.68% for the Aerovironment machines, and 0.08% for the Swift. Capacity factor is the amount of energy actually produced in a given site, as compared to what the turbine would produce if it operated continuously at its nameplate power rating – values of 20-40% are the norm for commercial installations, with many homeowner installations lower than that. The MOS also calculates a “relative production” for each turbine, which I gather to be the actual production as a percentage of manufacturer’s claimed energy production for a site with the average windspeed at the Boston MOS. This ranges from 61% for the Skystream down to 0.5% for the Swift.

This is a very poor site for a small wind turbine (as usual) but the data is real enough. Reality is in short supply in this industry. Of course there are many arguments for caution in using this sort of data. But beggars can't be choosers as they say, and the installation was done on a rooftop, where many of (the worst of) these machines are supposed to be sited!

Identity theft

2009-12-30T14:46:00.007Z

Try putting your own name into Google some time. I have just found a site called http://hughpiggott.com/ . It started with Amazon adverts for windpower books (I didn't see them at first because of my adblocking program) but then lead on to marketing all sorts of stuff including my least favourite windpower scam stuff like 'Earth4energy'.

I just hope that nobody thinks that it has anything to do with me! I am glad it wasn't the top of the page at Google. But it's very annoying to see one's name being hijacked.

PS..... This matter has now been dealt with by exposing the site's owner to public criticism and negotiating with him to stop doing that. Thanks for the support I had with doing that.

Understanding the windspeed widget

2009-12-30T07:58:00.006Z

The wind widget on my front page was given me free by Logic Energy. It is fed with data from my house by a device called the LeNet. (I can access the data and make lots of interesting charts and csv files on a management site. ) You will probably have to pay to get your LeNet.

The widget shows both the windspeed and the power produced by my AWP wind turbine charging my 48 volt battery. Lately the windspeeds have been terrible (average 1-2m/s), but this morning the wind is picking up at last, and you can also see the power production picking up (in red). Power depends on the cube of the windspeed. When the wind gets stronger, (around 10 m/s) the AWP turbine starts to furl away from the wind speed and the power doesn't increase any more. In fact it may go down (a bit) in very strong winds.

Click on the link called 'Energy' to see another chart - this time showing kWh of energy produced each day.

We use about 6 kWh of energy each day, and most of this is usually provided by the AWP. We also have a PV array (640 watts peak) that provides over 2 kWh per day on average, but at this time of year it hardly does anything because the sun just gets up and goes down in one swift movement (if it bothers to show up at all). This morning we have already had 4.8 kWh of wind energy before breakfast, which is great news after all the calm days.

If we don't get enough energy to keep the battery healthy then we have to run a generator. If we get more energy than the battery can absorb then the surplus gets used to heat water.

We run the generator for about 150 hours each year. That produces 2-300kWh of energy per year. We dump about 4-500 kWh into hot water. If we had a big enough (huge!) battery then we would not need to run the generator, but batteries are not very environmentally friendly things, so this is a good compromise. I am building a bigger windmill so that we can use more electricity (dishwasher?) and not have to run the generator so much.

Click on the word 'Battery' to see our battery voltage. We often glance at the battery voltmeter. If it gets low then I go around turning stuff off to save energy. If it gets high then we make an effort to use more electricity by washing clothes and stuff like that. If it gets down close to 48 volts then I start to make plans to run the generator. You can see a generator run yesterday on 29th and also on the day before when we got home from Edinburgh. The battery voltage goes up pretty fast when the generator is on but when it stops the voltage drops back down to around 50 volts again.

Today the wind is blowing, so the battery voltage is rising more gently, but because the wind puts in a lot more hours than the generator it does a much better job of charging the battery. If it gets up to 60 volts then the charge controller will kick in and start to make hot water, but I don't expect a lot of that for a few days because the battery needs to get charged up first.

The calibration of my battery voltage sensing is not exactly perfect but near enough plus/minus 0.5 volts or less. In this cold weather the charge controller may well push the voltage up above 61 volts and it may drop down to 47 due to sluggish performance.

I hope this helps you make sense of the windspeed widget. I have plans to add wind direction when I get around to that. Meantime it must be breakfast time soon.

Eliminate your electricity bill now!

2009-12-29T21:50:00.004Z

Jimmy showed me a link and it lead to another link, and before long I found myself looking at the same old stuff again. Earth4energy and the rest of that stuff! Oh no.

Expletives evade my tired brain. We live in a free world where people are free to rip each other off cheerfully and brazenly. All I can do is to suggest to you that you save your money and ignore this stuff. Or by all means try it... You are free to do so after all. I have looked into it and it's all as vacuous as the marketing drivel that sucks you in. There's nothing useful there (except the chance to become a reseller and cash in at the expense of some other poor sucker!)

But try leaving the site once you are there! This is what they tell you:

Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>> WAIT WAIT WAIT <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>

My marketing techniques leave a lot to be desired. I suppose these are the sort of advertisements that I would be paid to carry on my site if I chose to do so. I bet they would earn me a few quid. But I couldn't do it.

:-)

Survey results etc

2009-12-29T10:50:00.003Z

I did a survey recently:

What do you think of the new navigation column on my site?

Only ten people responded out of the many thousands that visited my site over those few days so I did not learn very much. In the end the result is evenly split on the new navigation bar that I have made. Anyway it's optional - you don't have to use it unless it helps!

It could do with more links	1 (10%)
I prefer the old way you did your site	4 (40%)
I found some things I had never seen before.	2 (20%)
It's a big improvement.	5 (50%)
You ought to get your whle site re-written by a proper web designer.	1 (10%)

The windspeed widget was out of action for a few days over Christmas while I was away and the broadband connection to the leNet device went down. Hopefully that is back to normal now.

The web counter I put on the site for a few days amazed me. It seems that there are over a thousand visits per day and about 700 of them are fresh ones (as opposed to people returning). They come from all over the world - the USA being the most common country. It's quite tempting to put advertisements on the site but I suspect that they would irritate me intensely by promoting completely unsuitable products! Anyway I think people do appreciate the non-commercial atmosphere on the site. I do already provide links to people and products that I think are of interest, but I am not paid to do this.

More from Pedro

2009-12-22T21:42:00.001Z

nice photos of new project in Portugal

2009-12-22T10:03:00.005Z

I am sorry the order is a bit random. Many thanks to Pedro Bernardo for the nice photos.

2400 diameter blades, 12 magnets in each steel disk, the magnets are N40 50 mm x 25 mm x 10 mm.

12-volt system, 80 turns of 1.6 mm wire per coil with rectifier on the machine.

Lessons of burned out stators

2009-12-20T18:27:00.002Z

The Otherpower discussion board is a great place to chew over the reasons why sh*t happens. Building your own wind turbine often does not end at the point where you erect it. You could say that is the end of the beginning.

The Powerbike

2009-12-19T11:57:00.002Z

Here's a link to a similar project with a lot of information and some links of its own.

Pedal and light up 100 huts

2009-12-19T08:00:00.003Z

Vivek is in the news again with a project based on one of my alternators. Quite a few people use them like this to charge batteries with human power, but I do have to wonder where the hours come from in the equation:

Energy (watt hours) = Power (watts) x Time (hours).

A good way to keep fit anyway.

New navigation column on left of window

2009-12-18T07:42:00.003Z

As part of my tidy-up drive I have made a navigation frame version of the site that you can access from this link. It needs a bit more work but it's useful enough already to be worth making it available as an option. Later I might build it in a bit more, so that everybody uses it automatically.

Over the years a lot of people have pleaded with me to allow them to rewrite my whole site in proper posh web designer format but I have resisted because I like things simple and I want to be in control and it's my site.

Anyway there are a lot of corners to the site, and I may have a go at tidying some of them up and doing newer versions here and there. It's actually quite a big site when you get into stuff like the web diaries of past courses. There are dozens of web pages in this section and I have not bothered (yet) to do a navigation frame for them, but I could do if it helps. Or maybe find a way to link to the more interesting bits of content that are buried in there.

I have put a survey on this blog so you can leave feedback for my efforts and please feel free to comment on them too if you have time and stuff to say. You can also email me privately - loads of people do so every day so don't be shy.

My next project is to start breaking down the huge great old front page and adding bits of it to the other pages such as homebrew, international, developing world, rooftop nonsense etc...

But I will try to always put any new stuff on this blog first so as to make it easier to find out what is happening.

Carbon trust windspeed estimator tool has moved

2009-12-15T12:25:00.002Z

The Carbon trust have moved the link for their windspeed estimator tool to here

This tool is streets ahead of the old NOABL windspeed estimator that was never intended to be used without great care (due to its lack of knowledge of obstructions of any kind).

The Microgeneration Certification (MCS) people will of course only accept NOABL data, seeing as they are omniscient, and their word is law.

BWEA / EST agree to share field trial data

2009-12-13T21:46:00.003Z

From: BWEA Alex Murley [mailto:A.Murley@bwea.com]
Sent: 09 December 2009 17:45
Subject: BWEA / EST agree to share field trial data

Good afternoon,

BWEA has entered into agreement with EST to advise on the release of EST small wind field trial data.

Any parties interested to access the windspeed data will be requested to provide a related paper to the BWEA small systems technical sub group for considerations. If the group considers the application to fulfil the following criteria, BWEA can agree with EST to release the data:

(1) The purpose of the project will benefit the wider small wind industry;
(2) The applicant demonstrates a track record in line with the proposed project brief;
(3) The applicant is competent to meet contractual requirements governing the release of the data;
(4) Project findings are published in the public domain post project conclusion.

EST windspeed data include covers over 50 sites with 5 minutes averages, and 2 sites (one suburban, one rural) with 1 second averages.

Do let me know if you have any questions, or comment.

===
BWEA has released EST windspeed data to support the revision of IEC61400-2 - See attached industry statement. News link
===
BWEA is still in negotiation with EST to provide industrial access to field trial monitoring equipment - I will let you know more when an agreement is reached.
===

Best regards,

Alex Murley
Head of Small-Systems | BWEA

27/28 April 2010 | Glasgow, UK | International Small Wind Conference

Jimmy an Miriam have got a windmill up!

2009-12-13T15:54:00.000Z

Here is their web site with photos of the new windmill at their place

2009-12-13T11:25:00.000Z

Now for some content:

I get a lot of nice photos by email.

Here are some photos I got from Michael Jones.

Interesting hybrid designs.

Welcome

2009-12-13T10:42:00.000Z

This is part of a belated and half-hearted attempt to bring order to the chaos of my web pages. My web page has been going for over ten years now, building up organically and I do plan a bit of a clean up with improved navigation. The idea of this blog is to provide a home for new material as I add it, so that you can see what it new without searching through the old stuff and so that I can keep thing organised more easily. I may decide to move material from this blog onto other pages as it disappears into obscurity at the bottom end. We'll see - I will give it a try. I am also playing with other new features on my page, including the amazing web widget from Logic Energy, and I have put a counter back up for the first time in about 7 years. That could be interesting.

Anyway welcome to my blog, and stop me if I ramble too much.