Betts Law question.

[KBwind]

No problem- I always appreciate people who share my passion for renewable energy. Thanks for letting me know of those companies - I'll check em out. I 100 percent agree with the insightful quote in that graphic - thanks for that too.

[Jerry]

When I returned to this forum a short time ago I think I said something about stirring things up abit (as in the past, 3 phase discusions).

I was just kidding, I thought. I brought attention to this product mainly to protect a Friend that could have possibly participated in the selling of the product. He has a struggling small business. I didn't want to see any public ill will come his way.

It would be good if all those companies that sell similar products with similar claims could also be held accountable. This could be a small commercial wind power house cleaning.

I think the individual DIY builder can make all the far fetched claims they want. That's just a tall tail fish story. But don't sell that crap to my neighbor or Friend or the world.

I did offer to test OWP alternator and share the results with everyone. That would have cleared things up for sure. I wouldn't even charge for the test.

What is a shame, I've seen the OWP wind generator. For a product of this type it is very well constructed of the best build quality. In my opinion it should be sold as a wind generator only and truthfully rated 200 watts max. Maybe higher after its been tested and evaluated.

The public would buy these and be happy to get the claimed performance. Stay away from the dangers of the illegal grid tie inverters.  Just say in. I could have also suggested ways to upgrade preformace as I've done with the Wind Blue.

Jerry

Jerry

[DamonHD]

Yes, I'd love to get my hands on a small, cheap, legal grid-tie for my off-grid solar in summer when my batteries are full: seems a pity to waste 100W which could be propping up the entire grid, well a few neighbours' lights left on by mistake!

But, small/cheap/legal, pick any 1 in the UK for now.

Hey, I even wrote to the guvmint about it and no one fixed it for me!

http://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-G83-lite.html

(The grid-tie standard here is G83 and a CE stamp rather than the UL stamp.)

Rgds

Damon

[SparWeb]

Jerry,
You sure did manage to stir things up a bit.  Of course, this is the internet and comments get heated quite easily.

I wonder if Gerry D will come back and read this.  If, as Jerry says, OWP had gone to the trouble of building the equipment
well, then maybe GerryD was sincere about having tests done.  If his business can hold on long enough to get that certificate,
and the results are good, and honestly reported by OWP, then maybe the joke's on us for calling him a scammer.

Speaking only for myself, regardless of what's been said or done, OWP can come back in a year and post results, good or bad, of
tests done or in progress, and I'll be interested in what they say.  Those of us who about putting a product on the market,
know it's not easy at all.  I sincerely wish them good luck if they choose to back up their claims with tests.  SWCC testing can be
gruelling.

[CaptainPatent]

I wonder if Gerry D will come back and read this.  If, as Jerry says, OWP had gone to the trouble of building the equipment
well, then maybe GerryD was sincere about having tests done.  If his business can hold on long enough to get that certificate,
and the results are good, and honestly reported by OWP, then maybe the joke's on us for calling him a scammer.

I do agree for the most part although what he is still claiming is either physically impossible given current knowledge of the
subject but there could be two explinations besides scamming:

1) There is a way to be more efficient that the Betz limit or there are factors with fluid dynamics that caused us to underestimate
the total available power (which is highly unlikely but very vaguely possible)

2) His initial test equiptment was mis-calibrated or improperly set up and made the results seem better than they were. If he was
reading wind speed at ground level and flying his test prototype above turbulence or if his anemometer was off by a factor of 2 it's
feasible that it was a poor oversight and not direct "scamming"

Case 2 would be a pretty big oversight, but he did take down the initial video and re-write the website so for now I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I would like for him to explain how he manages to be over the Betz limit (or at least show real-world data that he IS over the Betz limit and have that confirmed by someone else) at some point or admit his testing was off and correct his ouput claims in the future in order to prove he is doing this honestly though.

[Dave B]

This link has been put up several times in the past by myself and others. http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/klemen/Perfect_Turbine.htm  It is very well done and for the years I have been involved here I have never seen it contested. Send it off to any and all of these get in and get out companies stating claims that are just not possible. Crunch the numbers, draw the curves, it is also a great tool to help explain what we are asking of our turbine designs. Huge increases in power for very small wind speed increases. We are asking a lot of a mechanical furling arrangement and load control to protect our machines. Things happen very, very fast. Crunch the numbers and draw the curves, for a typical 18' machine there are (thousands !!!!) of watts increase in power with just a couple MPH increase in wind speed above 20-25 MPH. Can you detect a difference of say 22-24 MPH wind speed without an annemometer ? The turbine can and will react to this nearly instantly because it is thousands of watts increase in wind power potential. Read the small print (if printed at all) some of these small turbine ratings may be truthful. It's easy to bump up the numbers when the ratings are at 35+ MPH.  Dave B.

[ChrisOlson]

I just read this thread.  What a fiasco.  But I think maybe I got it figured out.  When they say 800 watts @ 6 mph, maybe they were really talking about how much power it makes in a year (800 watt-hours).
--
Chris

[boB]

Rover, the UL Approved inverter is from Outback they run anywhere from 1795.00 to 2100.00 depending on who you get it from. Here is a link to the people we get them from with the specs.

http://www.ecodirect.com/OutBack-GVFX3524-3500-Watts-24-Volts-p/outback-gvfx3524.htm

Outback offers different size units to fit the customers need.

Thanks
Gerryd

I just read this thread too and I think that the answer lies with this particular posting.

The OutBack GVFX3524 grid tie inverter is a battery based inverter.   It requires a battery to operate.

The turbine was probably connected directly across the battery and either charged it up with the inverter sell turned off
or maybe it was waiting 5 minutes for the grid to become stable so it could go to sell mode and sell off the battery until the
voltage drops below its sell voltage.  (I know this inverter fairly well)

That could be  800 Watts for who knows how long of time   Seconds ?  Minutes ?

 It  doesn't have to sell for very long to measure 800 Watts from a 24 Volt battery charged up to anything
above the GFX inverter's sell voltage set point.

I can see how an unskilled person may not think about this very important point.

That's most likely what happened from what I can tell here.

boB

[richhagen]

In the now removed video, it was stated:  "will on average put out about 800W consistently in about a 6mph wind"

[ChrisOlson]

In the now removed video, it was stated:  "will on average put out about 800W consistently in about a 6mph wind"

I guess I never saw that video.  I would assume that would have to be annual energy production (800 watt-hours @ 6 mph).  But boB brought up an interesting point too.  If this guy really doesn't have a clue (which appears to me to be the case) it would be pretty easy to read the Mate on the Outback and come up with 800 watts @ 6 mph just because the Outback was selling off the batteries.

I've read where some folks have called this a "scam" or "scammers".  But it think it's more likely this guy has all the best intentions and is not out to scam anybody - just that he is totally and incomprehensibly clueless when it comes to wind power.  I decided that when I read about the "stator" they got from somebody that is supposed to put out whatever watts at whatever rpm, then coming up with a grossly inflated output figure for the turbine at a certain wind speed.  He obviously don't have a single clue about how to match a rotor to a generator load.

He said he's sending a machine to the Small Wind Certification Council for testing.  So his education on what wind power really does in the real world is still a few weeks away.
--
Chris

[XeonPony]

http://www.windpoweroregon.com/1852.html?shopCountry=US&strReqMode=execStored&shopLanguage=en

2013 and same claim being made, but wait! they got a version 2.0 now! 3 blades!!!!

[ChrisOlson]

I don't see the claim there that it makes 600 watts @ 6 mph (or maybe I missed it).  They just say it produces "up to 800 watts" now.  And they got a "high wind" 3 blade version and a "low wind" 5 blader.

These are what I categorize as "hobby turbines", and believe it or not, some of these outfits sell them by the gross.  They're nothing but a car alternator with barn fan blades on it.
--
Chris

[tanner0441]

Hi

Didn't I read something like this last year with the claims of a certain red thing that was going to be delivered once it had been rewound.

Brian.

[tecker]

 Well it could happen the blades go round and the power come out . When there''s a lot of good wind at a location folks assume that you could get away with a Sucker index of 60 % .