VAWT Recommendations

[Crockel]

Hi Everyone,
I'm looking into building a grid tied VAWT for my acreage in Southern Alberta.
I was wondering if anyone has recommendations for a 1000 Watt inverter and generator/alternator. There seems to be a lack of availability when it comes to grid tied inverters and alternators for wind turbines.
Thanks,

[joestue]

why would you want to put the power back into the grid?

if you are getting paid a higher rate for the electricity you put back i can understand it.. in which case you could run a power cord to your neighbors house and pull power out of the grid and then push it back up the grid through your system.. i'm sure someone has thought of this before but i've never seen a headline for someone getting caught lol.

anyhow assuming you can get a system approved and built, you can add additional capacity later.
here is a product that might work for you, but it may not meet the code to be installed.
https://windandsolar.com/skymax-wind-grid-tie-inverter/


anyhow i would recommend just buy a 500 watt grid tie inverter and power it from a battery bank. use the wind turbine to charge the batteries. once you get such a system working mess with it later. the power loss from charging and discharging the batteries will be fairly minor depending on the frequency of charge and discharge. you may be able to find creative ways to limit the outflow of the grid tie inverter to match the wind turbine production, without turning it on and off and thus save the life of the batteries and minimize their degradation.

vertical axis wind turbines are usually less efficient, larger than horizontal wind turbines.

however depending on many other details you may find them easier to construct and work on.

if you're located near any large towns, call up hvac companies and ask them for their broken inverter fan motors. they are typically 1/3rd to 1 hp motors, at 1250 rpm, 10 or 12 poles, 56 C frame, and they have a 4" long 1/2" diameter shaft sticking out of them. most common failure is the magnets debonding (glue them back on). inverters failing (don't need them anyways) and the bearings failing (they use 6202 bearings)

they are relatively low sticking torque and can easily be re-wired for delta which means at 1200 rpm they will only produce about 100 vac.
Depending on your windspeed profile available and how big you want to build some turbines, you might use a belt drive to spin the generators, or just direct drive them. 

[Bruce S]

joestue;
I would be careful with "Wind&solar" people, they used to be MissouriWind&Solar (As well as a few "other" named sellers), they've had a long history of NOT being very customer friendly.
They at one time created a login here to try and fix their horrible rating, to no avail. Since I live in Missouri, I even tried to help them fix their long standing horrible rating by explaining in great detail what they were posting and what the real world was seeing--- again to no avail---.

There are other Grid-tie inverters that have been talked about here.
IF you have a system that is based on their stuff and it's working as it should, I would love to see it posted here!

Respectfully submitted
Bruce S

[Bruce S]

Crockel;
Perhaps if you give us a bit more information of what you are attempting, we can give you a better route.
There are both grid-tie inverters and even large VAWTs that are available ready-built. I've not tested any of the higher priced ones. Others on here have and continue to build and use VAWTs.
Do a search on this forum for VAWTs and have a long read , it may help with your designs.

I live in the "city" so mine are the little ones I purchased from Ed Lenz a full decade ago! Full little buggers.

I have an ECM motor given to me by GHURD that is still awaiting my LENZ2 wing builds.  (CAN U say retirement honey-do  )
 
Cheers
Bruce S

[bigrockcandymountain]

I'm east of medicine hat on the saskatchewan side of the border.  Welcome to fieldlines. 

Are you sure you want a vawt? They almost always underperform compared to a horizontal. 

For a generator, build your own.  That is my suggestion anyway.  The ones on the market tend to be cheap chinese crap.  If you do get one of these, make sure it is rated 3kw or higher if you hope for 1 kw. 

There aren't too many grid tied turbines on here.  Makenzie71 had a few charging a small battery and then backfeeding through a gti.  It worked ok.  That is by far the simplest. 

I don't know about alberta, but sask charges 14c / kwh and pays you 7c so you are twice as far ahead if you can just use what you produce and not backfeed.

[Mary B]

why would you want to put the power back into the grid?

if you are getting paid a higher rate for the electricity you put back i can understand it.. in which case you could run a power cord to your neighbors house and pull power out of the grid and then push it back up the grid through your system.. i'm sure someone has thought of this before but i've never seen a headline for someone getting caught lol.

anyhow assuming you can get a system approved and built, you can add additional capacity later.
here is a product that might work for you, but it may not meet the code to be installed.
https://windandsolar.com/skymax-wind-grid-tie-inverter/


anyhow i would recommend just buy a 500 watt grid tie inverter and power it from a battery bank. use the wind turbine to charge the batteries. once you get such a system working mess with it later. the power loss from charging and discharging the batteries will be fairly minor depending on the frequency of charge and discharge. you may be able to find creative ways to limit the outflow of the grid tie inverter to match the wind turbine production, without turning it on and off and thus save the life of the batteries and minimize their degradation.

vertical axis wind turbines are usually less efficient, larger than horizontal wind turbines.

however depending on many other details you may find them easier to construct and work on.

if you're located near any large towns, call up hvac companies and ask them for their broken inverter fan motors. they are typically 1/3rd to 1 hp motors, at 1250 rpm, 10 or 12 poles, 56 C frame, and they have a 4" long 1/2" diameter shaft sticking out of them. most common failure is the magnets debonding (glue them back on). inverters failing (don't need them anyways) and the bearings failing (they use 6202 bearings)

they are relatively low sticking torque and can easily be re-wired for delta which means at 1200 rpm they will only produce about 100 vac.
Depending on your windspeed profile available and how big you want to build some turbines, you might use a belt drive to spin the generators, or just direct drive them.

I wouldn't touch that inverter with a ten foot pole!  "This is NOT UL1741 Certified/Approved" aka it is garbage Chinese junk that could hurt  somebody or burn your house down...

[Mary B]

In MN I am lucky! They pay me retail.... AFTER a $30 mo fee, a yearly $500,000 liability insurance package... yeah, losing proposition to grid tie unless you are going to be producing 3 times what you use...

I have 2400 watts of solar, I use it to power my ham radio gear, 2 freezers, the TV/Stereo in summer, winter production I don't have enough power, need a smaller wind machine of some sort, probably a VAWT because I don't want anything that can produce interference at the same height as my ham radio antennas.

[Crockel]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

From what I understand, in Alberta, I can get paid out for the excess electricity I generate at the same cost per kWh as I'm charged (currently about $.10/kWh) or more possibly more if I'm part of a green power co-op (I still need to look into it). I would like to source out an inverter and generator and see if it's cost effective or how long it would take to pay for itself at $.10/kWh.

I've been also getting quotes on solar panels but that's another story. I'm surprised at how few wind power installers there are as compared to solar installers.

I also have two outbuildings on my property with water lines that I need to keep heated electrically. A power outage during winter could be bad. I was thinking that maybe the bypass load resistor on the inverter could help with that (as long as the wind is blowing). Feeding my turbine(s) into a battery bank that powers the electric heaters might be better though.

As for the turbines, I prefer the VAWT to the HAWT because I find the slower rotational speed to be less intrusive if it's within sight of the house. The Buffalo Plains Wind Farm will be putting up a bunch of 6.2 MW  turbines in my area that has the rest of the neighbors mad. This has inspired me to see what I can do with a VAWT design.

I would like to build a four bladed savonius style turbine but with a hinged feature to limit the losses on the advancing blades. My cardboard model was spinning nicely until the horses ate it.

I'm pretty knowledgeable on the aerodynamic side of the turbines but am rather lacking on the electrical. Ideally I'd like to get something that I could pretty much just plug in (wired into my breaker box by a qualified electrician) and then mess around with the turbine itself.

That's my rant.

[SparWeb]

Hi Crockel,
Welcome to Fieldlines!

As a fellow Albertan, I'll warn you to keep reading your electricity bill, carefully.  You will be paid the 10 cents/kWhr for the energy you produce, and you will continue PAYING the 20 cents/kWhr for distribution, administration, transmission, and a host of other charges.  I'm on Fortis lines.  I know a bunch of other folks who, like you, would love to put up wind and make it economical, but Fortis has the rules set up so that can't happen.  And you have to pay them to have this privilege.  (roll eyes)

That said, there is a LOT that you can do to make your system more robust, make use of wind power for the things you need, and contribute less to the utility company's bottom line.

I'm not really against VAWT's myself, but for the effort, you get less out of them.  But if you can't argue with the aesthetics, then go with that.  Today I clocked 3.5 kWhrs from my 10 footer HAWT and it wasn't particularly windy.  That would keep a water trough for horses thawed all day if I had it hooked up that way.  Even last night at -20C.  I've done a bunch of miscellaneous projects to deal with watering horses in the winter that might help you, too.  Tell me what you need to improve and maybe I've got something that will help.

[Crockel]

Hi SparWeb,
Here's what I have for a horse waterer now. It's just a tub with a bucket warmer at the bottom. I need to keep it through the fence to keep one of the horses from pulling it out and chewing on the extension cord. I do have an automatic waterer but the wire for the heater goes to a barn that has long since been torn down.
Now let's see if my picture attaches.

[MattM]

Talk to JW or Bruce S.  You don't have enough posts for uploading pics.

[SparWeb]

Hi Crockel,

As Matt said, new members don't have photo privileges (it's an anti-spam measure, and it works).  Don't be discouraged, after a few more posts the board the feature will unlock.  Tell me more about it, and in the meantime, you can take a look at this.  One of mine is featured, but all of them work:

https://builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterHeating/water_heating.htm#Animals

[Crockel]

As Matt said, new members don't have photo privileges

Ah, that explains it. I thought that the file size might have been too big. I guess I won't be able to post links to videos either for awhile. I was going to try posting a video of the horse waterer instead.

Using a bucket warmer for the horse waterer tends to heat it up too much causing it to evaporate so I only use it on the coldest days and just break the ice the rest of the time. So far this winter, I only had to use the bucket warmer for a couple weeks.

There seems to be a lot of good ideas in the link. I should try building an insulated box around my waterer (last winter, I just piled snow around it). A clear panel on the south side would help too as long as the horses don't damage it. I don't have a good spot to place it though where the horses can't get to the south side.

I'll have to look at some of the cold frames on there. Extending the growing season for the garden could be useful.

[Astro]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

From what I understand, in Alberta, I can get paid out for the excess electricity I generate at the same cost per kWh as I'm charged (currently about $.10/kWh) or more possibly more if I'm part of a green power co-op (I still need to look into it). I would like to source out an inverter and generator and see if it's cost effective or how long it would take to pay for itself at $.10/kWh.

I've been also getting quotes on solar panels but that's another story. I'm surprised at how few wind power installers there are as compared to solar installers.

I also have two outbuildings on my property with water lines that I need to keep heated electrically. A power outage during winter could be bad. I was thinking that maybe the bypass load resistor on the inverter could help with that (as long as the wind is blowing). Feeding my turbine(s) into a battery bank that powers the electric heaters might be better though.

As for the turbines, I prefer the VAWT to the HAWT because I find the slower rotational speed to be less intrusive if it's within sight of the house. The Buffalo Plains Wind Farm will be putting up a bunch of 6.2 MW  turbines in my area that has the rest of the neighbors mad. This has inspired me to see what I can do with a VAWT design.

I would like to build a four bladed savonius style turbine but with a hinged feature to limit the losses on the advancing blades. My cardboard model was spinning nicely until the horses ate it.

I'm pretty knowledgeable on the aerodynamic side of the turbines but am rather lacking on the electrical. Ideally I'd like to get something that I could pretty much just plug in (wired into my breaker box by a qualified electrician) and then mess around with the turbine itself.

That's my rant.

 This is much the same reason I am building a vawt. I live in town and do not want to put it up 80ft, so a vawt made sense.
 I have a far better grasp of electrical then anything else, as I spent my entire life in the electrical field. Granted I may be a little rusty on some things now. I have ok fab skills. I say ok because people like my brother who welded his whole life can surely weld better then I.
 I am hoping to get mine flying this summer and see how she performs. At that time I would be happy to tell you my experience and things I would change or do different right away.
 These guys are right, if you want a vawt, plan on it being bigger then a hawt. I thought I could squeeze my stator down to 14in and ended up a full 2in above that. It may not sound like much, but that pushes my mag plates out to 17in min 18 might be better, depending on thickness of steel. When you start adding inches to big chunks off spinning steel, you need to think about that, if for no other reason, weight on bearings and balancing. So a vawt can get bigger on you in a hurry.

[Crockel]

I'm not sure what to use for a generator, but I was thinking of having it belt driven so the weight of the turbine is not on the generator bearings. The VAWTs also spin at a low RPM so I might need a pulley to speed it up.