The students from the Yombo Vocational Training Center, Tanzania have to live with a disability. But this doesn’t mean that they are disabled in general, or even worse: ‘un-able’ in general. In the past two weeks students, teachers and instructors from ‘I Love Windpower’ have built and erected a wind turbine.
Read the full story from Roland here: http://www.i-love-windpower.com/cms/news/125-news-6-october-2011-disabled-build-and-install-a-piggott-turbine-world-premiere-.html
Solarmad have a new web site in French language
Solarmad ont créé un nouveau site web http://www.solarmad-nrj.com/
Eoliennes, panneaux solaires, comment franchir le pas avec succès !
the latest wind turbine from solarmad in Madagascar.
Criss and Madis who joined my workshop here at Scoraig last year have done a workshop at home is Estonia. Here they are installing the 3 metre turbine on an existing wind site:
You can see photos of the course here
And a map of ‘Piggott’ wind turbines in Estonia here
I got this email from Bruno with some lovely photos of his blades made from birch plywood. I am not sure that plywood is the best thing to use for blades (where the stresses are longitudinal) but it seems to work well in this case.
Hi Hugh,
It’s been a few months now since I was fighting with my 2400mm wind turbine. I had a problem with reaching high current. The peak power was 625w.
Since then, I’ve rewound a new stator (to your book specs), I’ve played with air gaps, I’ve put some lead inside the tail boom pipe to make it heavier. Nothing made a significant difference. I then decided to make proper blades (to your book specs) instead of the plastic ones I had (I know, I should be ashamed) . Since then, no drag anymore, and peak power during Katia’s visit last month was 1523w.(usualy peaks at 1200w)I’ve learned that when somebody’s been working on designing a thing for the last 30 years and is generous enough to share it, the least you should do is to do what he says.
I made the blades from the 2005 recipe book instead of the latest (I prefer them), and I made them out of old birch ply I already had in the workshop. I attach some pics of the new blades.
I now want to build a 3600mm wind turbine, but I’m hopping that you will come out with a ferrite magnet design soon enough before I start it. Is that something you’re still thinking of doing? I just like the “no rust” and reliable no high current etc… about ferrite. The price difference isn’t that big in proportion with the total cost of an installation but I hate rust and I think it would benefit to a lot of the poorer regions of the world.
Thank you again for this wonderful book,
take care,Bruno
Here is a video of the Powerspout hydro turbine from New Zealand. I have long been a fan of the Ecoinnovation hydro turbines, and we have a couple here on Scoraig but there isn’t really a reliable enough flow for most people who live here on Scoraig due to the lack of catchment.
The video is a bit slick, but it does show how the turbine is put together and it summarises the options and introduces you to the web based calculator that makes site assessment easy.
The Powerspout is not MCS certified, so you would not get Feed in Tariffs in the UK with this turbine, but it is very cost-effective and can be used without all of the paperwork associated with the MCS circus. Click on the link to download the Powerspout Price list Jan 2014. Note that these prices include shipping.
I am always happy to answer practical enquiries and am also available to install if required.
See below for a set of useful documents and manuals, full of good advice for setting up small renewable energy systems.
How to order a PowerSpout
Ecoinnovation suggest this simple process to avoid frustration or disappointment.
1. Select a dealer to work with
2. Submit complete site data to your dealer using this calculator, and sharing the results
http://www.powerspout.com/advanced-calculator/ There is a “Save and Share” function at the end to allow you to do this easily. No hydro turbine orders will be accepted until all site data is supplied.
3. Pay promptly
4. Enjoy using low impact renewable energy
5. Send us your feedback and an install picture
All dealers should all offer the same retail price for PowerSpout, although price differences may lie in other ‘system’ components.
USEFUL DOCUMENTS:
PS Technical Specifications Jan 2014
Powerspout installation manual 2 February-2014
How to set up an Powerspout PLT100C with a FM60-2 controller
How to get UK FITs for Powerspout
PS Advance Calculator-Jan 2014
Here are some photos from Madagascar. The installations are by Solarmad, built to my plans. Looks as if they have gone beyond those plans in places!
See the full gallery on Facebook.
I cam across this rather nice guide to fibreglass blade production that was produced by Andrew Corbyn & Matthew Little, of Engineers Without Borders and SIBAT – Philippines in 2008.
It is based on using wooden blades from my older 2005 book “how to build a wind turbine” but I see no reason why it should not also work with my newer “Recipes” although the quantities would have to be scaled up or down to suit the diameter. The wooden blade is used as a plug for making two moulds that are used many times over for producing blade halves. The halves are stuck together and strengthened by a central stringer that looks a bit tricky to join onto the second half but the process is described.
None of it looks as much fun as making wooden blades – lots of nasty smells and toxic dust – but it’s good to have options, and it can be hard to find large stocks of decent quality wood for batch production of blades.
Download the guide from this link http://www.ewb-uk.org/system/files/WT_Blade_Manufacture_Guide.pdf
Siverford blog is always quite an interesting site for perspective on the small wind industry with an emphasis on the merits of the Gaia wind turbine (of which I have been a big fan for many years).
In a recent post the subject is how to protect yourself when buying a wind turbine (given the recent collapse of Proven (the biggest in the UK?).
Modular Build is the answer! – So what does “Modular Build” mean? – The Gaia133 is the only MCS & Danish HB approved small scale wind turbine in the world, built utilising “Off The Shelf” parts – like the generator/gearbox/brake/controllers etc – the key statement in that sentance was ” Off The Shelf “.
Many, if not all, small scale turbine manufactures build/spec one-off parts exculsively for use in their turbines, meaning if they go burst – you cannot get any parts!
The idea is that “if you have a Gaia133 (or Endurance E3120 for that matter!)- you ring the manufacture of the part, and get one sent to you!” So there is no problem with spares. Now let us hope that their MCS certification is not withdrawn.
There’s something to be said for building your own turbine so that you become your own supplier, and you are immune to MCS nonsense, because the big Feed in Tariff gravy train will pass you by in any case.
A lot of people ask me if it’s a good idea to stack the axial flux alternator with 3 magnet disks and two stators. I have done a page comparing the costs and performance of two alternators built using my recipe.
If you are quick then you can get an Iskra windpower system for £7,500. Iskra is the old name for Evance and the machine is similar to the Evance R9000
But you will not get Feed in Tariffs, and you need to be aware this turbine was banned by the local council for being too noisy. See also this article in the Telegraph.
It’s worrying because a turbine which apparently satisfied the technical noise limits for planning approval still got banned by the council, effectively losing the owners £25,000 including their legal costs!
The council admitted the noise fell short of the government limits but still deemed it to constitute a nuisance.
Patrick Legge, team leader of the council’s Environmental Protection team, said: “We accept that the noise did not breach the conditions in the planning application but it was decided that the character of the noise was a nuisance.
“There are no strict noise limits but each case is examined by their independent circumstances.”
