B&Q Wind Turbines (Merged Thread)

Cardew

Running_ot_of_time wrote: »

Just to upset you all I have a windsave turbine and now quite happy with it. It’s taken about seven months of updates and renews of the device but I think they have nearly got a good product.
Because of the following points I live at on a south Pennine hill side at 800 feet and the house faces North West catching all wind directions (except due east and as a locations we get very few day wind from that direction) It generates around 2 k on windy days down to zero on a calm day it produces very little noise and vibration (but they are coming round this week to fit a anti vibration device) the house well built 1920 with nice thick walls made with proper bricks and cavity wall insulation to deaden the sound/vibration.
The amount of electric it generates is slightly a disappointment but with its early days just think of the progress of computers and we have to start somewhere.
If I lived in a valley or didn’t have the conditions I have I would not recommend it but for me £1000 is ok, I would be quite happy to spend that on an energy efficient car over the standard price.

Welcome to the forum.

Just so we get what you are happy with - for the benefit of anyone contemplating buying one.

Living in what sounds to be an ideal location you can generate 2kWh on an ideal day - say saving 16 pence.

So you are in line to save what? £30 a year if you are lucky. Most people will save much less; as you indicated.

If you said to somebody, you can borrow £1,000 and pay £60 a year in interest(or lose interest on savings) to save £30 a year at max I don't think you would get many takers. Especially as these devices will need maintenance and have a finite life. They are after all mechanical devices stuck up on a pole and exposed to the elements.


I am afraid that your analogy to computers isn't really relevant.

All any water/wind turbine can do is turn mechanical force into electrical energy. Unlike computers that have increased in computing power by huge amounts, there is no prospect of a small wind generators doing the same. Sure they might get cheaper to manufacture(but not to install) but there is no dramatic increase in output envisaged by anyone.

Nobody is criticising anyone for spending their money as they see fit, either on this or solar energy.

The criticism is directed at those, mainly salesmen, who make outrageous claims of potential savings.

magyar

Cardew wrote: »

I am afraid that your analogy to computers isn't really relevant.


All any water/wind turbine can do is turn mechanical force into electrical energy. Unlike computers that have increased in computing power by huge amounts, there is no prospect of a small wind generators doing the same. Sure they might get cheaper to manufacture(but not to install) but there is no dramatic increase in output envisaged by anyone.

I take your point, but we're a country mile away from being at the point where a small wind generator is producing its maximum output. A 1 kW machine should be capable of generating at least 2 MW h per year (which is only a capacity factor of just over 20%), which should be worth approx. £150-160 if we had a supply system which could cope with it. So if we got costs down to, say, £300 then it's entirely feasible.

Running_ot_of_time

Thanks for the not to damming comments and I will keep this forum up to date with my wind turbine good bad or indifferent,

I think the analogy to computers is ok I used to have a BBC A computer the very cutting edge at the time with 16 bits of ram and 20 years later I have a computer with a storage capacity of the average black hole. Technology moves on and so will the wind, solar and energy conservation it has to.

Has for knocking the sales person they are nature’s way of keeping the stupid from getting rich.

Cardew

I doubt personally if any 1kW generator will produce 2MW in the future except in the most ideal location.


If the increase in RAM from the BBC A to the gigabytes in a PC today was replicated in wind turbines over the next 20 years, you would only need a few [STRIKE]Windsaves[/STRIKE] small wind generators to power London.;) .

One could even be fitted to each of Al Gore's mansions and it might just cope!

As said above, everyone seems to ignore the working life of these devices. To try to reduce their costs, will not make them more durable. Does anyone seriously think a Windsave will be still operating after 10 years, unless it has major refurbishment.

Running_ot_of_time

A Wind turbine will need the same servicing as my gas boiler or my car if I left it for 10 years without a service it also would be struggling to perform.

The product it now sells has been transformed in the last seven months (that said it wasn’t up to the job on launch) the performance in high winds was dodgy to say the least now its seems great nice smooth breaking and electricity generation ( I am hoping for better generation figures in autumn and winter.

colinS

Running out of time, just a few things. First, thank you for posting and agreeing to keep us informed; without imput from Windsave customers we have only the false claims of Windsave and B&Q for info. Could you please tell us what the improvements to your turbine were. Have they put a new tail on it so that it can furl properly, or does it just wag about like I have seen in videos? Or has the update been all electronic?

On the computer side, I also went for Acorn; although at a later time. I still have an Archemides 320 and an A3020, on which I designed my turbine blade using Draw. But I picked the wrong technology, even though it was the best at the time, and Microsoft came out top, while Acorn use has shrunk to almost nothing. You also have picked the wrong technology, probably because it is the cheapest around. Like my computers, which still work fine, but are seldom used, your turbine in years to come, and if it still works - which I sincerly doubt - will have fallen by the wayside.

The simple truth is that small wind turbines have been around for a long time, and if they could reach the expectations of their keenest supporters, they would have done so by now. The greatest advancements in turbines has come with the large utility sized machines, and that has taken a lot of effort and the installation of a lot of machines in hostile environments. Small wind turbines can only be worth while in an off grid situation. Their only other use. is for enthusiasts like me, in recreational DIY - I just get fun from playing about with them. You get your pleasure from just having the turbine on your house, which is just as valid - we are not here to tell people how they must spend their money to get enjoyment- but, as it has been pointed out to you, your purchase of a Windsave turbine can hardly be claimed as "moneysaving" ; but that is what is being claimed by Windsave and B&Q that the turbine will be, which is what annoys us anti-Windsavers.

Would there be any chance of some pics of the turbine, they would be greatly appreciated.

colinS

Could this be another urban wind turbine scam looming here? http://www.quietrevolution.co.uk/

The reason I ask is that I was reading the Saturday Times Magazine this Saturday, and there was an article about the two architects that did up David Cameron's house, including the idea of putting a wind turbine on the roof. I now know where old DC gets all the cobblers he talks from - it's these two so, so, trendy chappies, who have decided to save the environment. The rot they talked about turbines included the need to concentrate on VAWTs, but these didn't use that term.

I think this is the turbine they are talking about, and it is following the Windsave course; lots of promises but no independent data, as far as I can see. We have to watch these architect types; already a firm has designed a multi-turbine installation, and are talking about need to get thousands sited before the 2012 olympic games comes round. What a lovely honey pot of tax payers' money is sitting there just waiting to be plundered.

Cardew

colinS wrote: »

Could this be another urban wind turbine scam looming here? http://www.quietrevolution.co.uk/

What a lovely honey pot of tax payers' money is sitting there just waiting to be plundered.

Couldn’t agree more.

So if you have a premises that uses 415V 3 phase power and is sited where the average wind speed is 5.0m/sec(which is pretty windy - 11+mph average ) and have a demand for electricity 24/7 the claimed output is 6,000kWh per year.

6,000kWh supplied from the grid costs approx £450-£500.

The cost of this generator is £25,000 + installation costs + feasibility study, say £30,000.

So a business would borrow £30,000 at, say, 7% = £2,100pa. No doubt on top of this the machine would require servicing – not cheap for something stuck 30ft to 50ft in the air I suspect.

So a business borrows £30,000 spends £2,100pa in interest to service that loan + servicing costs to save £450-500pa.

Remind me not to invest in that business!

magyar

Cardew wrote: »

Couldn’t agree more.

So if you have a premises that uses 415V 3 phase power and is sited where the average wind speed is 5.0m/sec(which is pretty windy - 11+mph average ) and have a demand for electricity 24/7 the claimed output is 6,000kWh per year.

6,000kWh supplied from the grid costs approx £450-£500.

The cost of this generator is £25,000 + installation costs + feasibility study, say £30,000.

So a business would borrow £30,000 at, say, 7% = £2,100pa. No doubt on top of this the machine would require servicing – not cheap for something stuck 30ft to 50ft in the air I suspect.

So a business borrows £30,000 spends £2,100pa in interest to service that loan + servicing costs to save £450-500pa.

Remind me not to invest in that business!

To be pedantic, you need to add 6 ROCs at ~£40 each, so another £240, and 6 LECs at about £5, so another £30. In addition businesses pay full VAT on fuel so you can add about 12.5% on top, so it's more like £1000 per year.

In addition, most businesses will make some PR value from this, which is intangible.

Doesn't make it cost effective, but it's slightly better a picture than you're painting.

colinS

What about this too: http://www.yes2wind.com/news2007/20_06_07_news_story.html

I am running out of time on this public library computer and have alread lost one post on this thread today, so I will let you pick out the, quite frankly, lies in this article. One is that the Victorians sited their power stations in town because they were more efficient there and only moved them because they were dirty. I think a mention of DC and AC and Nicola Tessla is in order.