Will this study prove that roof mounted systems do not do what they say?

[acmetowers]

We had an energy efficiency group over to do presentations about energy saving, and one of their studies is to prove out the roof top grid tie in systems. Talking to the people they were very dismissive about them saying that they will produce a fraction of the stated Kw namely Windsave (I think a statement regarded as true here as well!). Anyway they have started a website to monitor the progress, its at www.warwickwindtrials.org.uk/ the systems are Ampair, FuturEnergy and Windsave, installation starts this month.

[Bargeman]

Hello,

'I come to bury ..... not to praise ....'

Whilst it is always useful to have rigorous data to cite I suspect the game has probably moved on, at least as far as Windsave is concerned, and that any results will merely add further substance to what is already quite well understood.  What most of us predicted would be a brief flash in the pan once some hands on experience was gained, seems to have fizzled out even more promptly than we might have expected.

We are left with the frustrating sense that with a small amount of research and common sense in the corridors of power, joe public would not have been led into this cul-de-sac. Unfortunately it does little to inspire confidence that our greaters and betters are going to be able to provide the leadership we desperately need to avoid the calamities of climate change.

Perhaps a community such as this forum should now be focusing on damage limitation. Microgeneration using properly sited, reliable and robust small scale wind turbines does have a role to play in the progressive shift to a more diverse and sustainable energy mix. It is now important to ensure that the negative perception of onshore wind as an energy resource held in some rather vocal quarters is not further fuelled by the Wiindsave debacle.

Rather than putting up turbines in locations where it is already known that they will perform dismally, I would suggest that your 'energy efficiency group' would do better to spend their time selecting sites and turbines that have a prospect of generating economically feasible quantities of energy, or else finding other more constructive ways to demonstrate the positive possibilities of renewable energy technologies.

regards

[martin]

Anyone in any of the companies concerned with the slightest scintilla of brain power is probably furiously back pedalling, and trying to get out of the Warwick thing..........
I notice that the only "results"  - from Lillington Road are showing something like 1.4m/s average, and strangely enough, it is now listed as waiting for an Ampair - it was down for a Windsave..........who are themselves doing an almost daily rewrite of their website!
I must confess that the idea that Encraft was a similar setup to the Micropower Council crossed my mind!
I think the saviour of proper wind utilisation could well be an internet network of turbines all shovelling their data onto the net in realtime, along with details of the installation to enable people to make sane, performance-based decisions! (how's it coming lads?)

[wyleu]

I think the saviour of proper wind utilisation could well be an internet network of turbines all shovelling their data onto the net in realtime, along with details of the installation to enable people to make sane, performance-based decisions! (how's it coming lads?)

Things are happening, we've got one-wire data into a database with a pretty flexible admin front end (django) and I'm also monitoring X-10 signals on the same machine which I will bash into the same format as the one-wire data. I'm doing graphs, and I'm working at the display end. After that comes the comms module for chatting to other systems.
Most of my stuff is solar based so it's slow and leisurely, it would be great if the turbine group ( sounds so much better than wind ) colud produce a list of what they would want to measure, how often and any cheap and readily available ways that they think it might be done. One-wire is great, but as we're looking at tracking any form of data into a standard format anything else shouldn't be too much of a trial. This is the wacky idea stage so anything and everything would be useful. We would probably prefer agregates over minutes rather than instantaneous but that's probably my solar side speaking again. So fire away !

[insolare]

So fire away !

Fires are bad....unless of course they are zero carbon cycle. 

[martin]

well.........in my position of some ignorance on the subject, the nearest available off the shelf would appear to be the cheapie all-in-one wireless weather stations - they can give real-time internet data using "Weather Display" - to be able to add a channel to give turbine output figures as well could possibly be sufficient?
I'd like it to be something than virtually anyone can take part in, so it needs to be inexpensive, and not too "geeky" to set up. The other piece of kit that caught my eye was the Hobbyboards wind unit - the only problem with that being that it doesn't have the wireless link!

[wyleu]

The weather station idea is probably a given, I've got one of Ivans on my roof as we speak, althou' I think it's battery might need changing...
It would probably be more relevent ( for this read the ability to counter the 'well what do you get from the actual installation? arguments') if we could start to measure real characteristics of installs, revs current out, voltage, directions, sound levels, temperatures and humidity have all been mentioned but quite how these vary second by second and how we might extract data from them is something that I can only really imagine in a sort of hobby electronics fashion. I notice that the turbine community are very keen on modelling and prediction so tiny weather station AND actual installs side by side would be an ideal combination. Given the distances involved it would seem to be sensible to keep the cable/wireless links short and simple. We do have people involved that aren't intimidated by constructing and programming wireless devices. The discussion that has taken place so far has been about quite what sensor interfaces are required. It's no good constructing a cheap simple box if the cost of putting a particular interface on it doubles the cost for what might be an un-required connection.