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Freephone 0800 825 0 625
(If you are outside the UK Please call +44 1994 448270
/ +44 7978 806360)
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why wind as my source of energy ?
A: There is little doubt that global CO2 emissions have to be greatly
reduced if we are to halt global warming. Wind energy produces more
watts per euro invested than any other type of renewable energy.
Admittedly if there is no wind you will not be generating...BUT...when
there is wind (above 3.2 m per second) you will be generating 24/7, day
or night. Emissions are virtually nil.
Q: Can I connect my generator to my home electrical circuit ?
A: To connect directly to your household circuit you will need a G83
approved Grid-Tie Inverter which is intelligent enough to isolate itself
from the Grid in the event of a Grid Power Failure. We now offer WindMaster
and SMA Windy/Sunny Boy Grid Tie Inverters which work with our turbines. There are no batteries involved in this type
of setup.
Q: What power can expect, and what can I use it
for ?
A: In reality, a 1KW wind turbine will only give you 1KW of power if the
wind is blowing at a constant 12.5m/s speed. In practice you should
expect to get 20% of this on a good site, with good average wind
conditions. This will represent anything from 0 to 4KW of power per day.
To most people this figure means nothing much, and so, to put this in
laymen's terms, if you produce 3KW of power over a 24 hour period, this
is the equivalent of boiling your kettle for a full hour constantly in
any one day. Similarly, if you produce 1KW of power, you could
operate your toaster for 1 hour constantly over a single day. This
demonstrates how much power you can expect to receive from your turbine.
You can use this power to store into batteries, for use with an inverter
for powering outbuildings or a remote office, or just to power the
lighting in your house. Alternatively, you can connect the turbine
to a grid-tied inverter and share the turbine power with the "mains"
power in your house/office. This will simply reduce your bills by
varying amounts each day depending on the wind conditions, and you
should notice a drop in your monthly electricity bills of a few percent
to 30% at most, depending on how windy your site really is.
Q: Do I need planning permission ?
A: If your turbine tower is classed as a temporary structure, we
believe, provided the tower is less than 6 metres in height, will
probably not need specific planning approval. There is very little
precedent but before you install you should check with your Local
Authority planning department.
Q: What power can I expect to generate at different wind speeds
?
A: pdf downloads are available in the Products
section of this site in graph and numerical formats.
Q: What noise can I expect to hear from the turbine at different
wind speeds ?
A: The noise figures shown on our Products Page will mean very little to
most people. Your Planning Department may be more interested in
these figures than anyone else. In reality, the sound that the turbine
makes is 'drowned out' by the noise of the wind, in speeds over 7m/s.
The best way to describe the sound of the turbine is that it sounds
similar to the noise that the wind makes when blowing through trees.
In reality, on a windy day, your ears will be able to distinguish the
unique sound of the turbine from the noise of the wind, but it will
sound no loader.
Q: Can I connect several turbines in parallel to one large
battery bank to get much higher powers ?
A: Yes, as long as you use one Charge Controller and Dump Load for each
turbine you connect together. You should also ensure that your battery
bank capacity is greater than 200Ah per turbine, so if you intend to
connect 5 of our FE1024 turbines to one 24V battery bank, you will
require 5 Charge Controllers, 5 Dump Loads and a battery bank with a
capacity of at least 1000Ah @ 24V. The cabling which connects all your
charge controllers to the battery bank should be the same length in
order to properly share the power that's being dumped. We suggest that a
maximum of 6 wind turbines are connected in this manner, since the
wiring and complexity of larger turbine numbers will be unreasonable.
Q: Can I convert 24 and 48 volt DC to 240 volts AC ?
A: Our Turbines all generate DC electricity at 12, 24, 36 or 48 volts
(see specifications) You can convert this to 240 volts AC to power
lighting circuits, and very light domestic appliances by using a DC to
AC Inverter. These are fairly inexpensive, compact, portable and readily
available. Please contact us for more information
Q: Would your Permanent Magnet Generators be
suitable for a bicycle power generator? At a cadence of 100 and a
gearing ratio of 52:11 I can generate about 473 RPMs but I think I can
only sustain about 200 watts for a reasonable period of time. I'm
looking to put in a solar and wind power plant with an additional
bicycle charger, to run lighting and small appliances. This type of
generator seems ideally suited but I'm wondering if you have a smaller
version?
A: In reply to the question, the answer is yes. The
potential buyer hasn't indicated what voltage of batteries he intends to
use the generators to charge. If it's 24V then he would only require a
52:20 ratio to get the 200W output or so he desires. It would be easy to
change the ratio to suit the desired output power requirements. It's not
practical to expect to use a 'person' powered generator to produce any
more than 100W or so. Even a pro' cyclist could only produce 400W peak
power for a short burst, so he is being practical in his calculations.
Any of the 4 PMG's would be an ideal generator for this type of
application, as it has a large 'flywheel' effect when in use, which
would feel smoother than a smaller generator, which may be very
difficult to obtain.
Q: Have your generators ever been used with the Savonius or
Darrieus models of ( vertical axis) wind turbine?
A: The two types of vertical turbine you mention are normally used for
smaller applications.
Q: We were asked a few days ago if our PMG would work with a
Forgen (vertical axis) turbine.
A: I guess the simple answer is yes but at this point in time we have no
idea how big the blades should be. We will be addressing this in the
near future and will almost certainly develop a smaller PMG which should
lend itself better to this sort of application.
Q: I want to charge 12/24v batteries or dump the voltage. You say
its just a case of adjusting the RPM, but isn't RPM just the force of
the wind ?
A: In the case of using the generators to build a wind turbine, then the
RPM is related to the wind, that is correct. These PMG's can in fact be
used for all kinds of generator builds though, such as petrol/diesel or
water powered systems, where the RPM can be altered accurately. If the
user wants to use the generators to make their own wind turbines, then
the power curves for each generator can be downloaded from the Products
Page from which the user can select the correct generator for their
intended wind turbine blades etc.
Q: I would buy this if I could source engineering components,
eg. bearings, pulleys, belts, etc. to build my complete generator, can
you recommend a catalogue supplier?
A: We buy from many Industrial Supply Catalogues and it's hard to
understand why but simple pulley wheels are really expensive (about
£20.00 each). You can pick up all sort of pulleys (and belts) from motor
scrap dealers, new belts from car part suppliers and bearings from
companies like Seager Bearings who have depots uk-wide.
Q: Do your PMG's need a gearbox?
A: These PMG's don't require a gearbox since they have been
designed to produce a high power output at very low RPM's. The rectifier
is used to convert the 3-Phase AC output from the generators into DC,
for battery charging or any other application you feel would suit the
output.
Q: What is the winding configuration of this generator?
A: The generators are all Delta wound.
Q: The PMG we received seems to take a lot of effort to rotate the
unit when turning by hand?
A: If there's nothing connected to the output wires, and they're not
shorted together, then the motor should be able to be turned by hand. It
will 'cog' between poles as you rotate it. If you connect a 10W or 20W
halogen bulb between any 2 of the 3 output wires and grip the axle in a
vice, it should be possible to rotate the generator by hand to light the
bulb. The generators have 16 poles and powerful magnets which do take a
bit of a shove to move from pole to pole when just holding in the hand.
This is perfectly normal and in fact when you have blades or a water
wheel attached the extra leverage spins it really easily. If you cannot
rotate the generator by hand at all, or it requires a lot of effort to
even rotate it through only a few degrees, check that the output wires
are not touching together, thus shorting out the output, thus acting as
a massive electrical brake. If you have a digital multimeter, set it to
measure 0 to 10 Ohms and measure the resistance between all pairs of
output connections, ie. between any 2 of the 3 connections, then between
the odd connection and each of the other 2. The reading should be
between 1 and 2 ohms. If your meter reads a short circuit, then there
may be an internal short between the wires inside the generator, and it
should be returned for replacement.
Q: What is the IP rating of the generator? Will it need extra
weather proofing? Can I charge 12v batteries and how do I drop the
voltage. Is this covered in the circuit diagram?
A: The generators have no IP rating at present, and as such, you
may want to add a protective spray coating on the outer face of the
generator from time to time to limit the chances of degradation from a
cosmetic point of view. They are suitable for continued use outdoors,
but their outer paint finish will degrade through years of harsh
exposure. To charge 12V batteries, simply connect the output of the
3-phase bridge rectifier to the batteries. As the RPM increases above
around 200 rpm, the batteries will begin charging, further increases in
the rpm will increase the charge current up to a maximum of 25 to 30A.
Use a charge controller to limit the voltage of the batteries, to avoid
overcharging.
Q: Do you think that a site 80 feet from the nearest neighbour
will be ok for noise?
A: 80 feet should be fine. The only noise is that produced by the blades
which is more of a whirring than anything else, louder in very high
winds, but then the wind is noisy through trees anyway.
Q: I was hoping to use whatever energy I generate to heat water.
Could you advise on the best way to proceed? I would also like some
information on DC to AC inverters.
A: Beewind sell a 300 watt water heater which farmers seem to
use, mainly for stopping troughs freezing in winter. They have a 1''
thread and can be screwed into your domestic immersion heater draincock
hole. 300 watts however isn't going to heat very much water. We have
found a USA made 1kw heater but it's expensive at around £90.00. We are
currently testing a full blown Grid Tie Inverter which would enable you
to connect directly to the mains. Should complete testing in the near
future. It's not going to be cheap however at around £1100.00. There are
lots of inexpensive 240 volt AC inverters around. CPC are as cheap as
anyone and sell over the web. Prices vary according to wattage.
Q: Does it matter which way the PMG spins?
A: All our PMG's operate identically in both directions.
Q: We are running a micro-hydro system using a pelton wheel.
I am unsure of the exact RPM of the system but I'm sure its too high to
charge 12v direct using your generator and anyway higher voltage is
better because it has to travel! I was wondering if it is
possible (do you have the technology (ie. a 3 phase transformer) ) to
drop the voltage before rectifying it and charging a 12v battery?
A: Sounds like an interesting project, but unfortunately we don't have a
3 phase transformer that we'd suggest you could use. If you try RS
components, they supply all kinds of transformers so you may be able to
get one from there. If you connect our PMG's to 12V and try to rotate
them fast (above 600RPM) the power output will be over 1kW, which is a
lot of current. A suitable transformer may therefore be hard to find.
Q. Our intention is to use a wind powered generator output to
supplement the heating of an existing circulated hot water heating
system. The site is an open rural location. We would like to avoid
having to have banks of lead acid batteries and would like to feed the
heater element directly with the output from the wind generator. From
our researches we know that there are heater elements and associated
pipework that can be incorporated into existing circulated hot water
circuits and this is what we would like to power from the wind
generator. The problem will be locating a low voltage heating element.
The 3 phase output of the generator will probably necessitate doing a DC
conversion and feeding this to the heater element.|
A. If your intention is to make the in-line heating tank with
associate paperwork, then you could use 12V 300W elements from eBay and
connect them in series to give 36V or 48V worth of heaters. These
heaters cannot however be driven directly form the turbine, which will
impose a load of around 1200W at 48V, when using 4 x 300W 12V heaters.
The heavy load that these elements present to the turbine will prevent
it from starting up, and as such you will require to use batteries and a
"Load Controller" to connect the power from the turbine to your heaters.
Q.Can you recommend a 3 phase rectifier and if you have its
cost. Also the only inverters I can find are rated up to 600w do you
know of any of higher power and not too expensive. What are your
thoughts on direct connection to a conventional 240v heating appliance,
e.g. some form of immersion water heater or do you know of any low
voltage equivalents?
A. The 3 phase rectifier kit we use consists of 3 single phase
rectifiers. This is the lowest cost way of rectifying 3 phase to our
knowledge. The kits are £16.20 each. There are inverters rated up to 8kW
available, of which you'll find most of them on eBay. We currently do
not sell inverters but aim to do so in the near future. There are low
voltage immersion heater elements available which are designed to
operate on 12V or 48V. These fit into the drain plug of a standard
heating tank. You could connect the turbine to an immersion heater
element, but a 3kW element will only produce around 130W, so would not
act as a suitable load. A 9kW shower element will give you about 400W at
48V and this is slightly better than using an immersion heater.
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