My Bergey turbine experience 7 years on ...

Government and are working with Consumer Focus to conduct a survey into the experiences customers have when purchasing small scale renewable energy systems for their home, such as solar panels or wind turbines. Feedback will help inform the standard of sales practice and installation of these products, and ultimately may assist in ensuring consumers are better protected.

Some time ago, I put up an article covering our turbine Inverter and Wind Anenometer data logging system.

We recently updated the logger to enable us to view the data in real-time over the internet.

This post deals with the upgraded logging system.

Looking for advice on connecting a rain guage collector to an existing data logging system please.

A useful document - prepared by the Green Company.

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Peter

The attached short article explains why short towers are bad for small wind turbines.

Attached is the latest Wind Turbine Buyer's Guide from the June/July 2010 edition, issue 137, of Home Power Magazine. I recommend this guide as a starting point for people who are considering the purchase of a wind turbine.

At last, Bergey have a partner in the UK & Ireland who appear to have the capability to make this manufacturer a significant player in the UK and Irish markets.

Recently published Table of Generator Tariffs to 2020 (or 2027 for existing accredited installations), from the Feed-in Tariffs
Government’s Response to the
Summer 2009 Consultation, published February 2010.

I have just reached the end of my current 3 year Power Purchase Agreement with edf and they are now offering a new rolling agreement which can be terminated at 28 days notice.

I am therefore seeking advice that anyone feels able to offer.

The week commencing Monday 16 November 2009, turns out to have been our 'best' week for generation, since the installation of our Bergey Excel turbine in November 2006.

Righthand Engineering are offering a beta test version of their software (WinVerter-Monitor GT) for monitoring the Xantrex Gridtek inverter, used with the Bergey Excel 10kW wind turbine.

In addition to the GridTek inverter, the software also has the ability to interface with the APRS World Wind Data Logger anemometer. Righthand Engineering claim this makes WinVerter-Monitor GT capable of being a complete wind system monitoring solution.

The Department of Energy & Climate Change has launched a Consultation on electricity and gas smart metering. Government had already announced that they will mandate smart meters in all households. This may now be extended to all businesses premises with annual consumption of less than 723 MWh. This will result in the installation of about 3.7m SME & 47m domestic smart meters by 2020.

In March 2009 the Carbon Trust launched their new Wind Yield Estimator Tool which enables you to estimate the local annual mean wind speed at your chosen location in the UK and the annual yield and carbon savings of small wind turbines. It can be found on the CT web site.

The site requires you register, but results can then be saved.

I have now received confirmation from the RoCs aggregator I use (Tradelink Solutions), that the double RoCs proposal previously discussed at this forum, will be effective from today.

Please find below the details from their email.

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Peter

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Current Cost real time display energy monitor to assist in identifying waste and reducing bills & carbon emissions, looks like a useful bit of kit.

This is a link to a (19Mb) Windows Media Video file showing air traffic movements for large civil aircraft over a 24 hour period (4/1/09).

Pretty scary stuff.

http://radar.zhaw.ch/resources/airtraffic.wmv

The five largest mobile phone manufacturers last week launched a common energy rating system to grade their chargers, supposedly making it easier for consumers to compare and choose the ones consuming the least energy.

Last month (Jan 08) Friends of the Earth called on the UK Government to institute a major boost in UK renewables to meet EU targets. The press release can be found at http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/major_boost_in_uk_renewabl_23012008.html#PDF

The Times ran a report on 20 Feb 08 entitled "Forget biofuel, try a car that runs on air" - see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article3399532.ece

Does anyone have any further insight?

I have recently come across this spreadsheet calculator, which may be a helpful tool to compare the costs of a number of alternative forms of heating. Unfortunately, the numbers are calculated in $ and US gallons etc, but I guess (for someone who is conversant with Excel), it should not be too hard to convert the spreadsheet for use in the UK?

1st ROC payment received (Nov 06 > Mar 07)

The attached article appeared in Home Power Magazine April/May 2004 edition and provides a useful review of the African Wind Power (AWP) 3.6 grid-tied small wind turbine & SMA Windy Boy Inverter. It was written by Dr Bernd Geisler in a US context.

Home Power Magazine, the US journal for hands-on enthusiasts, has a useful article on wind turbines in the June/July 2007 edition. Written by Mick Sagrillo & Ian Woofenden, guru's of small wind systems, it provides an update of previous buyer’s guides produced by Mick Sagrillo.

A report from the US National Research Council suggests that Wind farms could generate as much as 7 percent of U.S. electricity in 15 years, but scientists want to spend more time studying the threat spinning turbine blades pose to birds and bats.

(N.B. I have not witnessed any bird or bat strike from my relatively small 10kW Bergey turbine. Mike Bergey tells me that, in over 20 years, Bergey have not had a single turbine returned for repair as a result of this issue. Likewise, this 22 ft diameter turbine has had no effect on local radio & TV signals. A combined Orange & Vodafone base station is located within 150m of the turbine).