Hello from Aberdeenshire

[BillBirch]

Just registered with the Forum - so Hello everyone. I'm a Mechanical Engineer with a reasonable amount of electrical knowledge which I would like to keep up to date. Also, I am having some fun building a new extension and installling a 20kW wind turbine (rather like everyone else in North East Scotland !!) I have few questions to ask regarding the split phase supply that SSE is insisting I upgrade to ..........

 

[a1]

Hello Bill,

Welcome to the forum. It's good to have you on-board.

 

[Apache]

Hello and welcome.

 

[batty]

Welcome to the forum thats some turbine tell us a bit more about it please.

 

[steptoe]

wind turbine,

I assume you have done your homework on the cost Vs payback Vs maintenance issues of this,

plus your insurance.

I have actually decommissioned some of these in the past few years due to the HIGH upkeep costs and people deciding to simply take the hit now rather than keep paying to keep them running.

 

[BillBirch]

Thank you to everyone for the welcome. As far as the turbine is concerned, I am in the last phase of obtaining planning consent - installation is planned for October/November. I still have the SSE LV line upgrade to complete which is why I joined the Forum - the implications of a split phase supply needs more understanding. The turbine is very much a baby version as far as this part of the country is concerned. 800kW - 2mW is far more common. Like all things though it comes down to the cost - if you are farming 2000 acres and have a suitable site then the big turbines are the obvious choice. For me, with a small but equally suitable site then 20 - 50kW is definitely the way to go - the FIT payment makes it an excellent investment - outlay is the price of a good car but with the advantage of getting your money back in 4 or 5 years. I would say (reference Steptoes remark) that turbine technology has moved on from the early days and I have spent significant time going through the pro's and con's of the many vendors and the cash flow. My particular choice is manufactured to be a small version of the big boys. It (the system, not just the turbine) is fully guaranteed for 10 years, GSM controlled for real time adjustment and planned maintenance........I have been monitoring the wind speed at this location for over a year and we average 6m/s which will produce even at a very conservative 50/50 prediction something in the order of

 

[steptoe]

no worries Bill ,

Im not knocking it as I no longer do them,

in fact I still dont know why people are putting them up,

even the ones the gov are doing dont cut the mustard,

is there any guarantee on the FITs for wind?

as without that they will cost a lot of cash, right now the gov are subsidising wind farms to the tune of billions, they are just NOT sustainable,

and that is actual scientific fact.

as a general rule of thumb, once your wind is <4m/s it starts to cost money,

as long as you have researched it a lot more than the ground source heat pump scenario that now has peoples houses falling down.!

good luck with it anyway.

 

[a1]

I was watching the news a week or two back and the deadline is fast looming for "Solar" installs to be COMPLETED, in order to receive the FIT payment. There are going to be a lot of very p'd off people.

 

[steptoe]

its just changing Admin,

once they review how many people are on it then they will change the tariffs etc.

they have set targets to meet as agreed worldwide by most countries,

'kyoto' summit or something the gov have signed up to, so they cant simply withdraw all future tariffs.

if they do change by any substantial amount they will be sued for endless amounts by a lot of very angry people.

 

[BillBirch]

We will have to see how long it all lasts, the wind FIT is guaranteed for 20 years.......but then so was Solar PV (but the small producer is still OK). You are dead right about ground source.....too many Grand Designs !

I suppose I had better put any more turbine chat in the appropriate Forum section - see you there.

 

[batty]

They would work well in my house if you know what i mean.

:slap :C