Category Archives: performance

Jon Leary’s performance study of Scoraig wind turbines published

The long awaited final version of Jon’s study based on data he collected here in 2012-2014 has finally been published and is free to read or download here courtesy of Wind Engineering. An important conclusion is the the table in … Continue reading

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Optimising solar array orientation for lead acid battery charging

I have been thinking a bit about how best to orient solar arrays lately. I know that the optimum angle (for maximum total energy generation per year) is quite low, because most of the energy arrives in the summer, but … Continue reading

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Scoraig wind turbines performance measurement summary

Between 2012 and 2014 Jon Sumanik-Leary and I did some performance measurements on wind turbines here at Scoraig, using Logic Energy mobile logging systems.  Jon has finally completed the processing of the results and sent me some exciting curves. There is a … Continue reading

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2.4m machine on test in Greece

Kostas sent me a power curve and a video of a 2.4m machine constructed from my 2005 publication “How to Build a Wind turbine”from the NTUA test site in Rafina . It’s similar to the same size model in my Recipe … Continue reading

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Performance data for two Recipe turbines

New performance data is available from field tests in Holland showing the 1.8 metre diameter turbine producing close to the predicted energy at a 4.8 m/s average windspeed. This turbine is grid-tied using a Mastervolt inverter protected by LDR circuits.   … Continue reading

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Measuring the Power Curve of a Small-scale Wind Turbine

Here is a paper describing how they measured the power curve of one of my early-design turbines in Nicaragua.  They clarify the impact of various parameters such as generator heating, battery voltage, controller settings, furling system and anemometer position. The … Continue reading

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