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Forum Index : Windmills : the idea
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makourain Senior Member  Joined: 19/04/2006 Location: Posts: 111 |
this is my idea. a sort of "company" where i measure windspeed in different suburbs and places. places where there is strong wind or strong enough for a smart drive windmill i would advertise the windmills for a specified amount of money. neo magnets are fairly easy obtain on ebay and other places, and depending on windstrength i can make the blade angle more steep for really strong wind areas. the windmill would be put on top of the persons home roof. as far as i know, you cant put anything higher than the tv antenna without the councils permission so that could be a problem. i cant see why people wouldnt go for it, because having it hooked up to the power meter it would offset the power bill and make the thing pay for itself many times over. if it cost too much then no one would buy one obviously. what is all your opinions, suggestions, comments? |
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| KiwiJohn Guru  Joined: 01/12/2005 Location: New ZealandPosts: 691 |
Maybe not a perfect idea but a great place to start from! How about this as a suggestion for your idea, depending on where you live many houses pay more for heating their hot water than anything else electric. So.. build your system to just help them heat the water in their existing cylinder. That way you dont need to get into all sorts of complications hooking up to the electrics etc. |
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| makourain Senior Member Joined: 19/04/2006 Location: Posts: 111 |
winter heating bills and summer airconditioning bills are the 2 worst. the windmill would offset the cost of the winter heating bills but there isnt much wind in summer. hooking it up to the electrics is something that youd need to get the power company to do. as far as i know i cant legally do it myself. |
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| KiwiJohn Guru Joined: 01/12/2005 Location: New ZealandPosts: 691 |
No no no, you dont hook it to the mains electrics at all! You just need to arrange your wind generator to drive another electric element. Heating elements are resistive so you dont worry about frequency (i.e Hertz), the faster the generator turns the more heat you get for the water but even at low wind you still get some heating. OK, there are some issues to sort out but its your idea so you work on it, I just wanted to give you another angle to think of.  |
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Chris Senior Member Joined: 12/09/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 146 |
First problem, You cannot install windmills especially one with neo magnets on a roof or attached to a building. They vibrate to much. Could do structual damage maybe with the constant vibrations. Second, I think it would cost to much to finance. You would need electricians to wire it in and a bunch of other people. Not to mention ongoing maintence of the systems you install. You would need engineers for all the electronics and structual systems etc. Third, I dont think people would go for it unless they can see real cost savings. A 300W wind generator isnt going to save you much on your power bill. |
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| RossW Guru Joined: 25/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 495 |
I have a 1000W (1500W peak) unit with a 3m dia prop. I live on the top of a hill, 150-200m above the rest of the town and get 2-3 times the wind run per day they do in town (although the gusts are much the same). Over the last week, I've been lucky to get 3 KWH/day out of it. It't take the edge off the hot water heater, but thats about it. |
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| KiwiJohn Guru Joined: 01/12/2005 Location: New ZealandPosts: 691 |
Well thats the problem anyone is up against trying to figure a way of using an alternative energy source in an effective way. While you are paying for electric heating everything else is just diddling about! Nonetheless, the most effective way to use alternative electricity is for heating, firstly heating is most tolerant of voltage and frequency stabilization issues and secondly heating is 100% usage of the available energy for the intended purpose. Now if someone was to devise a wind driven heat pump for heating and cooling the house I might think about looking for investors. All above not withstanding, the young man has an innovative idea and I will not be the one to naysay it, some good ideas do need a lot of working on though. |
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| makourain Senior Member Joined: 19/04/2006 Location: Posts: 111 |
my whole idea was based on mounting the smart drive on the persons home roof, with careful adjustments of weights of the blades and such making it perfectly balanced would reduce a lot of the vibration (i think) attaching the hoist that the windmill sits on to the structural supports in the roof (id have to move some tiles out the way while i attached it) i would have thought that would make it strong enough. i could attach aluminium to the wooden frames holding the roof up to add strength. other than that i cant see how the windmill would need any sort of maintanance, since i can just spray the coils with varnish and put other stuff around the rotor to keep it protected. the 2 main reasons i had for doing this was; the power output would run in sequence with the power coming from the mains, this would offset the amount of power youd use because the power you generate yourself would make the meter run backwards a little (if you know what i mean). the power being generated from the windmill offsetting how much power you use from the mains would save people money which would be the main reason they would have for buying the windmill, and it would help the environment at the same time. but, if hooking this thing up to run in sequence with the mains is not possible then it kinda throws the idea out the window. having someone hook the windmill up to the mains isnt a problem since the power company would have to do it anyway. there would have to be a way of making the whole thing is maintanance and bullet proof as possible. |
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Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5116 |
The general public can be a fussy bunch. There are a couple of problems with using the F&P. First up is the noise, they growl as they rotate. On my F&P windmill I can feel the vibration in the mast and ground around the base, and if I put my ear to the mast its quite loud. For this reason you could never get away with a roof mounted system, trust me, you would never be able to tune the noise out. The other problem is supply of the parts. A new F&P stator and hub will set you back a couple of hundred $. You could use 2nd hand units, but trying to sell something built with "used" parts would be difficult. I would suggest you start small. How about a garden ornament windmill that actually works! A low power windmill that can generate a few watts based on a stepper motor ( $80 will buy a good sized one new ), connected to a Gell-Cell battery. Then a series of garden lights run off the battery that switch on at night. Not those pathetic cheap LED garden lights, but lights using 1 watt LED's that are bright enough to see where you are going. The whole thing could be controlled by a picaxe chip. This would at least give the customer a decent garden lighting system, and at the same time get them thinking about alternative power systems. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| Chris Senior Member Joined: 12/09/2005 Location: AustraliaPosts: 146 |
The problem makourian is that the windmill would save you almost no power. As ross said, he is getting 3kwh/day out of his gen, and it only takes the edge off the water heater. I think a good system would be putting up some small wind generators, and running some low voltage CFL lighting off them. Sort of light backyard lighting. With a low voltage system you will have alot less drama's, it will cost you less to develop, and you wont need a sparky to wire it up. You could get a oatley 300w motor, and gear it right so it produces usefull power. At least then your selling people new products. When i enquired about getting F&P smart drives last new, they wanted close to $300 or more i think. |
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| makourain Senior Member Joined: 19/04/2006 Location: Posts: 111 |
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| RossW Guru Joined: 25/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 495 |
1. Yes, 3KWH/day at the moment. That said, on a good day I get MUCH more than that. A few weeks back, I got nearly 5KWH overnight alone. I was really happy about that. It was breezy, but not a howling gale. To put that in context: my current daily power demand is about 15KWH(e), so 5KWH from 9pm to 6am (10 hours) (if it had kept up) was almost exactly enough to make my total electrical needs. 2. I said (or meant to say) that "it'd barely take the edge off", meaning "it would". I don't actually use any primary power to make hot water. Because I'm off-grid, the LPG-powered generator (which is a modified car engine) heats two 2000-litre storage tanks, so our total domestic hot water needs (including the in-floor heating for the whole 880 square metres of house) comes from "waste" heat. RossW |
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| makourain Senior Member Joined: 19/04/2006 Location: Posts: 111 |
on the power bill, my house uses approx 15 units per day, and around 900 units per bill. how many watts is in a unit? |
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| KiwiJohn Guru Joined: 01/12/2005 Location: New ZealandPosts: 691 |
A unit is one kilowatt for one hour. |
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| makourain Senior Member Joined: 19/04/2006 Location: Posts: 111 |
well in that case a smart drive windmill produces about a quarter of a unit. that double stator thing of matt lyons, he gives the impression that by doubling the amount of stators, he has about 10 times the amount of output. this true? |
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| woofnumber0 Newbie  Joined: 26/04/2008 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10 |
Wind to heat water,buy a woodburner,and a chain saw.  |
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