Posted by Scott Haneda on August 17, 2004, 3:33 am
Total newb to all this, 100% new to this group as well :-)
I have some very general questions about home power and calculations.
I am having a hard time googling links that are basic, and a lot of
them reference items that I simply am not familiar with, any help is
appreciated. Mainly I am after general knowledge...
If I install a windmill in my backyard, the idea being to generate
power for my home from it, where is a good place to start gathering
info about this subject.
I know there is a lot to deal with in re: to the utility and getting
them to allow you to send excess power back to them, but for the
moment, lets say I will just shove the excess, if any, to batteries,
when those are full, I will simply not accept any more power from the
mill.
What determines how much power I can generate, I know the RPM's of the
windmill itslelf play a role, but I assume there is a lot more to it,
like the actual mechanism that is converting the motion to energy. Do
various manufacturers make better means to accept this power, or is it
pretty much the same across the board so to speak. I am going to make
a guess here that RPM's is one aspect, but the size of the "armature"
is the other. The larger the "armature" the more power you can
generate, but the harder it is to spin? How do you calculate output
across a certain RPM?
Any really general links and articles are appreciated.
Posted by Ron Rosenfeld on August 17, 2004, 7:03 am
On 17 Aug 2004 00:33:17 -0700, scott@newgeo.com (Scott Haneda) wrote:
>Total newb to all this, 100% new to this group as well :-)
>I have some very general questions about home power and calculations.
>I am having a hard time googling links that are basic, and a lot of
>them reference items that I simply am not familiar with, any help is
>appreciated. Mainly I am after general knowledge...
>If I install a windmill in my backyard, the idea being to generate
>power for my home from it, where is a good place to start gathering
>info about this subject.
>I know there is a lot to deal with in re: to the utility and getting
>them to allow you to send excess power back to them, but for the
>moment, lets say I will just shove the excess, if any, to batteries,
>when those are full, I will simply not accept any more power from the
>mill.
>What determines how much power I can generate, I know the RPM's of the
>windmill itslelf play a role, but I assume there is a lot more to it,
>like the actual mechanism that is converting the motion to energy. Do
>various manufacturers make better means to accept this power, or is it
>pretty much the same across the board so to speak. I am going to make
>a guess here that RPM's is one aspect, but the size of the "armature"
>is the other. The larger the "armature" the more power you can
>generate, but the harder it is to spin? How do you calculate output
>across a certain RPM?
>Any really general links and articles are appreciated.
Scott,
I would recommend strongly that you start off with Paul Gipe's book "Wind
Power for Home and Business".
--ron
Posted by SQLit on August 17, 2004, 11:40 am
> Total newb to all this, 100% new to this group as well :-)
> I have some very general questions about home power and calculations.
> I am having a hard time googling links that are basic, and a lot of
> them reference items that I simply am not familiar with, any help is
> appreciated. Mainly I am after general knowledge...
> If I install a windmill in my backyard, the idea being to generate
> power for my home from it, where is a good place to start gathering
> info about this subject.
> I know there is a lot to deal with in re: to the utility and getting
> them to allow you to send excess power back to them, but for the
> moment, lets say I will just shove the excess, if any, to batteries,
> when those are full, I will simply not accept any more power from the
> mill.
> What determines how much power I can generate, I know the RPM's of the
> windmill itslelf play a role, but I assume there is a lot more to it,
> like the actual mechanism that is converting the motion to energy. Do
> various manufacturers make better means to accept this power, or is it
> pretty much the same across the board so to speak. I am going to make
> a guess here that RPM's is one aspect, but the size of the "armature"
> is the other. The larger the "armature" the more power you can
> generate, but the harder it is to spin? How do you calculate output
> across a certain RPM?
> Any really general links and articles are appreciated.
I would suggest that you forget about selling power back to the utility. Yes
they have to accept it. But not at the same as you pay for it. You get to
buy and maintain all of the equipment and they get to snivel at every step.
Unless you have 20-30kw that you can put into the grid it will never be
worth it. Even then the payback will be 10 or more years
Posted by Dave Hinz on August 17, 2004, 11:50 am
>
> I would suggest that you forget about selling power back to the utility. Yes
> they have to accept it. But not at the same as you pay for it.
Well, that depends on your state's laws on this topic.
Posted by Anthony Matonak on August 17, 2004, 11:52 am
Scott Haneda wrote:
> What determines how much power I can generate, I know the RPM's of the
> windmill itslelf play a role, but I assume there is a lot more to it,
> like the actual mechanism that is converting the motion to energy. Do
> various manufacturers make better means to accept this power, or is it
> pretty much the same across the board so to speak. I am going to make
> a guess here that RPM's is one aspect, but the size of the "armature"
> is the other. The larger the "armature" the more power you can
> generate, but the harder it is to spin? How do you calculate output
> across a certain RPM?
You can try the homepower and AWEA websites. They have a lot of basic
information.
http://www.homepower.com/
http://www.awea.org/
The number one thing which will determine how much power you can
generate is the wind. The faster the wind blows, the more energy
it contains. The next thing is how big your wind turbine is.
The bigger the swept area (the area the blades cover) the more
power. Everything else relates to how well a particular turbine
matches your wind speeds.
You could start here...
http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets.html
Anthony
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>I have some very general questions about home power and calculations.
>I am having a hard time googling links that are basic, and a lot of
>them reference items that I simply am not familiar with, any help is
>appreciated. Mainly I am after general knowledge...
>If I install a windmill in my backyard, the idea being to generate
>power for my home from it, where is a good place to start gathering
>info about this subject.
>I know there is a lot to deal with in re: to the utility and getting
>them to allow you to send excess power back to them, but for the
>moment, lets say I will just shove the excess, if any, to batteries,
>when those are full, I will simply not accept any more power from the
>mill.
>What determines how much power I can generate, I know the RPM's of the
>windmill itslelf play a role, but I assume there is a lot more to it,
>like the actual mechanism that is converting the motion to energy. Do
>various manufacturers make better means to accept this power, or is it
>pretty much the same across the board so to speak. I am going to make
>a guess here that RPM's is one aspect, but the size of the "armature"
>is the other. The larger the "armature" the more power you can
>generate, but the harder it is to spin? How do you calculate output
>across a certain RPM?
>Any really general links and articles are appreciated.
Scott,