9861 Wind turbines

Hi Marina
I have read something very recently on this in a local paper, will have a hunt around and come back to you.
Angie

Hi Marinaw
The wrong wind is all to do with the ammount. Most wind generator facts are for the UK which is the windiest nation in europe. (constant wind not strongest) What you need to do is measure the amount of wind (time) and strength (speed) this will convert directly to kW of electricity generated. eg One day a week you notice the wind is blowing a hooley. The rest of the week is calm, you may think you live in a windy place. No good for generation only generating one day a week. On the other hand you may live a place that is always breezy, but no gales. This is much better as you have a constant energy force and you can calculate the amount of electricity you can generate. Unfortunately most of Italy falls into the former case. There are details and formulae on the navitron page. The best type of home generation has to be water powered, More water in winter when you need the power.

Chris from some of the stuff we (its the other half who is the techy side of the partnership) were reading through they seemed to be making some headway in the gusty vs breezy issues so there is more hope for areas like Marche I think. Mind you the lack of any turbines of any size in the area at the moment may indicate thats not the case.
Water powered would be great but not an option for us I fear.
Think OH is digging around navitron for further info. Bit techy for me.
M

[quote=Marinaw;92022]Anyone know anything about these? Specifically whether you need planning permission from the commune to erect them? I have been told in the past that where we are in Marche there is the 'wrong sort of wind'. Looking through some of the systems which are available that does not appear to be a problem but I've never seen a wind turbine anywhere in Italy.
Prices appear to be quite reasonable and we're looking at trying to combine a solar/wind solution for the future but if there are major planning p issues we may fall at the 1st fence..
Geotherm do you have a take on wind? (ifykwim!)
Cheers

M[/quote]
As we only specialise in Geothermal applications, then I dont think I can be of much help. However there is an interesting article from 2006 on wind turbines, with a few linked articles that are well worth reading. You would probably have to apply to the Commune as well, as probably you would need at least 2-3 turbines at domestic usage level to generate the 3Kw and then only on windy days. Today there isn't any wind at all, so it would be back to good old Enel.
[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2006/11/are_domestic_wind_turbines_an_ecocon.html]BBC NEWS | Talk about Newsnight | Are domestic wind turbines an eco-con?[/url]

Large commerical windmills are pretty common down here. I can see something like 100 across the valley. I know many more are up and going up. These are the big ones that require lots of wind.

Small consumer windmills need much less wind. They also cost much less so you don't need them turning 24/7 365 days to pay for the unit.

[url=http://www.etaengineering.com/windpower/air_x_vs_403.shtml]Air 403 vs. Air X[/url]

Those little things are less then $1K.

Wind seems to be pretty site specific. I drove past a couple in the lower valle d'Aosta this pm on the way to the airport and they were merrily whirring away in one of the breezes we get in the valley - adiabatic winds if I remember my O level geography!
On the coast you might also benefit from the onshore/offshore breezes, but any med sailor will tell you they die away at inconvenient times.:-)

On the water front we actually get more in spring/summer due to the snow melt.

I notice one of the wind turbines mentioned switches off when the battery is full, but wouldn't it be better to dump excess load into a hot water heat store?

[quote=NickZ;92034]Large commerical windmills are pretty common down here. I can see something like 100 across the valley. I know many more are up and going up. These are the big ones that require lots of wind.

Small consumer windmills need much less wind. They also cost much less so you don't need them turning 24/7 365 days to pay for the unit.

[url=http://www.etaengineering.com/windpower/air_x_vs_403.shtml]Air 403 vs. Air X[/url]

Those little things are less then $1K.[/quote]
From the ratings you would need at least 7-8 to generate 3KW, so $ 649 x 7 = $4500. You also only get a 3 year warranty, which seems to say a lot for the life expectancy of the product.

If you needed that much power you'd move up to something like the Whisper 80. Those little things are just aimed at charging the odd battery. A weekend cottage or other light use.

[url]http://www.kyocerasolar.com/pdf/specsheets/80_h80.pdf[/url]

Of course you can go even bigger. But usually better to minimize electrical use first.

For all your input. I've been doing lots of research and will have a surveyor on the case re planning permission soon I hope.
The maths looks attractive these days - on average it's about £1000/kW Bearing in mind we only get 4-5KW max and our bills are large (about 1.5K/annum+) it's not going to take long to pull it back.. especially with gas being the major electricity generator in italy. Also we can switch between mains and battery inverted fairly easily.
Also looking at solar thermal.. will update you on the results if we get any! Cheers for the input.

Pete

Wind power at best marginal under all circumstances and they really don't look very pretty. I would like them to work well but so far a bit of a dead loss. This is my own personal opinion!