Savonius rotor (generator)

"World’s first typhoon turbine could power all of Japan for 50 years"
http://inhabitat.com/worlds-first-typhoon-turbine-could-power-all-of-japan-for-50-years/



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_effect

The Magnus effect is the commonly observed effect in which a spinning ball (or cylinder) curves away from its principal flight path. It is important in many ball sports. It affects spinning missiles, and has some engineering uses, for instance in the design of rotor ships and Flettner aeroplanes.

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[youtube]e630zg3QEAw[/youtube]

https://challenergy.com/

"GE, Citigroup provide financing for first U.S. offshore wind farm"
http://seekingalpha.com/news/3213471-ge-citigroup-provide-financing-first-u-s-offshore-wind-farm

General Electric (NYSE:GE) and Citigroup (NYSE:C) provided tax equity financing to the U.S.’s first offshore wind farm, a 30 MW project recently completed off Rhode Island, the project's developer said today.

Deepwater Wind announced the financing from GE Energy Financial Services and Citi without disclosing the amount; D.E. Shaw provided ~$70M in equity financing for the project, and Societe Generale and KeyBank provided $290M in debt financing.

A separate GE unit, GE Renewable Energy, supplied the five wind turbines for the $300M project and will provide long-term maintenance service.

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Using "classic"/stone age wind generators...


http://dwwind.com/

Classic, as in wind turbines that are actually in production and putting out power on a daily basis? The Savonius and it's types has been around for a long time now. One advantage touted is "they don't need tall towers", well that's where the useful winds are, up high and also not as turbulent as near the ground. There is a finite amount of energy in X amount of wind, and the bigger the capture area, disc area, the more power that be extracted. there is a reason the several wind farms in my area use "classic" wind turbines, they work the best, and give the best bang for the buck.

What I fly, as you may have guessed is a "classic". 8)

Hehe... Thing is? With newer styles of wind turbines, I'm living currently on top of a 300 foot cliff...beside a "large" lake (Lake Ontario, stuck on the Canadian side). Gonna guess too that some "new" designs are cheaper/easier to construct also, so can compensate by putting up many. (Some designs possibly more "bird friendly" also.) And living in a "big town" (city of Toronto), plenty of "tall" buildings that could maybe support a more "light weight" generator. :wink:

Bottom line, X amount of $ spent on solar will outperform a modern bladed, efficient as it gets, small wind turbine. Even if the WT is on a 60' tower like mine is, in an area clear of obstruction. By a ratio of 3 to 1! And, solar will do it with no noise, no tower, and no maintenance, for decades. Small wind doesn't even come close, EXCEPT in a off grid situation, at night, in the winter, IF the wind is blowing.

^^ `Kay. Got ya. Can hope (`round here at least) that days of sunlight will continue to get shorter... every year. And that some days the winds will continue after the sun goes down. (Here's hoping!) So perhaps best to spread yer sources of solar? Panels, rain/water AND winds?

When I was off grid ( 28 years or so) there was nothing better then the small (.2 to 3 KW, airfoil blade type, "classic", ) wind turbines I had ( 1 at a time) on a long winter night, when it was blowing like heck. Now grid tied for 9 years, and with a 2.5 KW turbine along with lots of PV, and the ability to precisely track output production, thanks to the memory records of their respective grid tie inverters, PV is the clear winner, by a long shot. Even BEFORE considering the.no moving parts/ no tower/ no noise/ no maintenance aspects of PV. I keep track, and have written records of this for 9 years. And, solar was a much better bang for your KW buck several years ago, with the more recent drop in PV prices, its even more a no brainer, and why I go out of my way to stress it. GO SOLAR!! If my wind turbine blew up tomorrow, I'd replace it with more solar, as a practical matter, but I would miss having one around, they are kind of like a lot of my neighbors who have horses they never ride, because they have ATV's but the horses are nice to have around!

DANG. But I like horses!!! Hehe... And that Omni3D printer thingee (used to make wind vanes... and stuff) doesn't turn yer crank?
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Maybe my "problem" is I'm not into mass consumption. :wink:

My wind turbine, an A.R.E. 2.5 KW unit. It's somewhat modeled after the old Jacobs from the '30's, as in lots of rotor dia. and a low RPM, so long lasting and pretty quiet. Grid tied, and with a dump load (heater grid) to keep the thing under control when the grid goes down and there is no load against it over speeding, (very important!

The panels on the roof to the right are thermal, hot water, panels. They circulate a antifreeze mix in a sealed loop, that uses a plate heat exchanger to warm the water that is in the shops radiant floor heat system. The circ. pump for the sealed loop is powered and more importantly controlled by a DC pump wired to a 50 watt PV panel. Sun comes out, pumping starts, sun goes away, pumping stops. Or anywhere in between. Am elegantly simple and fool proof way to not let the system over heat, which creates steam (oh yeah...LOTS of steam) and then the pressure relief blows and the system is down until it's re-bled to get the air out. This system has been in operation for 9 years, with only 1 over heat/blowoff, when I parked a truck that shaded the PV panel that runs the pump, but the panels remained in the sun, not good! The rad floor circ pump has a thermo controlled switch, so that once the solar loop is up to temp, and ONLY then, (90 degrees) it then starts pumping the floor water through the flat plate heat exchanger. On a good sunny winter day, it pumps 100-120 degree water through the floors 5" concrete slab for 5 to 6 hrs a day.

If it all went away tomorrow, if the hydronic panels blew away, I'd replace them with.... PV. The water panels sit there empty all spring summer and fall, and are only "working" during the winter. A PV system is working every day, storing enough energy in the grid, to supply an electric boiler. This is how I setup my crane yard building, NO hydronics, just a 1920 watt grid tied PV system making power all year, unused until mid November when the 2 KW electric boiler goes back on, it keeps the floor slab 45 to 50 degrees, plenty warm enough for storing the crane and beating hell out of parking outside! PV has gotten that cheap, to where it out performs hydronics for making water hot, 10 years ago I would have bet money that would never happen.

How does the turbine stay in sequence with the grid hz fluctuations ? does it use a mechanical gearbox like the large ones local too me in wales that only spin up in certain wind speeds or does it use an inveter and electrically sequence up to the grid so more wind conditions are usable.

Beats me! The rpm does.vary, but the control box and inverter somehow makes sense of the varying incoming power. I see.from 0 to 2495 watts on the display, and everything in between

2.5kw max is not bad at all, I like the idea of steam with the mirrors all focused on a central point and then off to a small high pressure turbine and then a low pressure to maximize efficiency and less waste then a condenser and back to the start closed loop system.
Ive seen some nice solar panels with focus adjustment by shifting the lenses just fractional to follow the sun its genius and uses very little energy to maximize input very effective way of giving solar a boost per square meter.

^^ Oh Goody! Search of ES Bible currently "Search found 32 matches: +solar +concentrator"... though haven't figured out yet how to rule out bird flybys... Oooops

LockH said:

^^ Oh Goody! Search of ES Bible currently "Search found 32 matches: +solar +concentrator"... though haven't figured out yet how to rule out bird flybys... Oooops

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Yes I saw them towers in Spain with birds falling out of the sky I think they use a penetrating sound as a deterrent now but still not ideal,
I seen a small scale archimedes type mirror that had well over 1000°c in the focus point on in bright sunlight but keepng it all in focus for a plug and play unit be the hard bit.

I had a good laugh at eev YouTube video with the Australian solar roadway scheme what an absolute shambles.