This is in addition to the 10c top-up that microgenerators get for the first 3,000 units exported each year. The top up is due to expire at the end of February.

This sort of drip-feed compares very poorly with other countries where the feed in tariff is guaranteed at a multiple of this value for 20 years or more. A long term investment such as a wind turbine or solar PV array need more secure financial supports than this I’m afraid…

We have now decided to extend our range of solar PV products to include 235W, 150W and 85W PV modules, bought directly from the factory. You can read more about our modules by clicking here.

We are also conducting tests on various controllers which can optimise the amount of energy harvested from a PV panel by what is called Maximum Power Point Tracking. You can read more about this here. When we have concluded these tests, we will be in a position to provide optimum solutions for producing electricity using photovoltaic panels and battery systems for off-grid living, leisure use (yachts, camper vans etc) and off-grid industrial sites such as remote broadband installations.

As worldwide mass production of photovoltaic modules increaess, it is now possible to buy solar PVs for about 1/3rd of their cost three years ago. We are able to buy directly from the factory to offer unbeatable quality, with full TUV and MCS certification, 25 year production warranties insured by Chubb for prices that are very competitive. Please contact us for details.

A turbine which was one of the first in the UK to pass this safety, performance and noise test, has now been recalled because it has emerged that a failure in the shaft may cause blades to fly off.

Owners of Proven Wind Energy’s flagship 15kw turbine have been told to stop their turbines as soon as it is safe to do so, and the company has now gone into receivership.This is a sad day for a company that was a pioneer in domestic wind turbine production for many decades, and a bad day for the industry.

But questions also have to be asked about how this turbine could have passed the MCS safety test under EN61400 and then show signs of failure within months from the issue of the test certificate. The industry has protested at the cost of the test procedure, the most expensive aspect of which is performance testing rather than safety.

From the Scottish Herald newspaper on 17th Sept;

A WIND turbine manufacturer has gone into receivership following reports of a fault in one of its machines which could result in blades flying off.

Scottish firm Proven Energy is being wound up after sales of its flagship P35-2 turbine were halted amid serious safety concerns. The company has been forced to cease trading and make 55 members of staff redundant with immediate effect.

Machine owners throughout the country have also been told to stop the rotor blades from turning as soon as possible due to “acute” technical problems.

A statement posted on the company’s website said: “Proven Energy has become aware of a potential manufacturing defect in its Proven 35-2 wind turbine.

“We are investigating this. However, our work to date has now shown that a significant number of shafts may be affected across multiple manufacturing batches. With that in mind we are now advising all Proven 35-2 owners to place their wind turbines on brake as soon as it is safe to do so.”

We are now advising all Proven 35-2 owners to place their wind turbines on brake as soon as it is safe to do so

The firm, which has its manufacturing facility in Ayrshire and its administration office in East Kilbride, has been forced to cease trading as a result of the defect and an inability to obtain necessary additional funding.

Blair Nimmo and Tony Friar, of KPMG, have now been appointed joint receivers of the company. Mr Nimmo, head of restructuring for KPMG in Scotland, said: “Proven Energy is a well-known brand in the small-wind sector having been established for more than 30 years.

“Although Proven has achieved substantial turnover growth in recent years, the company has made significant losses as it focused on product development, making it difficult for the business to cope financially with the cost of the product failure.

“Unfortunately, with limited manufacturing taking place, 55 staff have been made redundant with immediate effect. We have retained 20 employees to assist us and prepare the business for sale. We are working with Government agencies to ensure the redundant employees obtain as much assistance as possible.”

Proven Energy was largely backed by renewable energy fund Low Carbon Accelerator Ltd (LCA), which had invested more than £11 million in the firm.

LCA shares suffered their biggest drop in the London trading markets earlier this week when the defects were announced. The shares fell by 43% to 14.5p – the largest reduction in price since the fund was listed in October 2006.

A statement by LCA said: “We have been informed by the board of Proven that due to a recent and acute technical defect discovered on three turbines they have resolved to advise all users of their P35-2 turbine to temporarily brake these systems and to suspend sales of this model.

“As a result of this acute technical defect and the sus-pension of sales of the P35-2 model, exacerbated by the current difficult planning environment, Proven is now incurring losses that it cannot sustain without a further injection of cash.”

An NFU Scotland spokesman said: “We are urging all those who have installed Proven 35-2 wind turbines to heed the manufacturer’s advice and place their wind turbines on brake as soon as it is safe to do so. The 35-2 is a popular model and we understand that as many as 500 of these are in use across the country.”

This has resulted in court challenges to turbines after they have been erected. Something you want to avoid at all costs (see our earlier post about a used 6kw Proven being for sale.

Although the planning process allows a 6m rotor, (or 8m for farms and businesses), you need to consider whether this is going to be contentious for near neighbours. Our own view is that a 3m to 4m rotor is adequte for most households, and with a cap on the amount of electricity you can export at the 19c rate, it may also be the most cost effective.

Lastly, while Autoproduction is a great idea, where factories can put up a larger turbine to produce power, again they have to be careful about offending neighbours. One case in point is a small West-Cork company which has raised more than the eyebrows of neighbouring residents. See here.

The turbine is grid-tied and in perfect condition and has had almost no use. At time of writing, it is advertised here. If that ad has gone off line, you can contact us and I can give you phone contact details.

While there is a planning exemption for wind turbines, this is the second time I know of where a turbine has had to be taken down. The first, in Louth, was because the Council had deemed the site to be in an area of special scenic amenity (you should always check this with the council).

On this occasion, there was concern that the turbine would cause shadow flicker on a neighbouring dwelling. This aspect has not been tested in the courts. Shadow flicker happens if the turbine comes between the sun and somebody’s window.

Our own turbine has a controller which can close the turbine down for the brief periods when and if this happens – it is usually only a matter of a few minutes each day for about 20 to 30 days of the year. However, shadow flicker does cause a strobing effect in the affected house, and would be a problem for anyone with epilepsy.

Turbotricity Turbine Farrenfore

Though windmills are usually associated with Holland, harnessing the energy of the wind is nothing new in Ireland. The Blenerville windmill remains a prized tourist attraction in Tralee, and there are dozens of old windmill sites around the country. The first recorded windmill in Ireland was in 1281 in Kilscanlon, Wexford, and in the 19th century, there were some 250 windmills dotted around the country.

In the ever-changing energy scenario, steam replaced wind as a source of power and today grain is milled using electricity, which in turn is largely produced from steam, using gas, oil, coal or peat to boil the water.

Thankfully, an increasing share of that electricity now comes from the wind, and things have gone full circle, with electricity replacing belts and pulleys as a means of using wind energy to turn grain into flour and flakes.

Of course, putting up a windmill in the 19th century required considerable engineering skills, and a steady supply of grain to be milled. Today, because Ireland has some of the best wind resources in Europe, a small modern turbine costing as little as €13,500 can produce enough electricity to mill thousands of tons of wheat per year.

Wind turbines, whether large or small, can be used to export to the grid, while powering household appliances from washing machines to iPods – even flour mills.

Below is a screenclip of our Turbotricity turbine monitor recording output (Pout centre near bottom) over 4kw – from a 3m rotor machine!

A cure for winter depression? My prescription – one micro-hydro and one wind-turbine. No home should be without ‘em!

Our new 6 blade design.

We are happy to announce that after many delays, we have completed our testing and are ready to launch our 2.5kw domestic wind turbine.
A lot of has happened since we first went public with our Wind Turbine project. There are many new entrants offering wind turbines, and as renewable energy enthusiasts we welcome the fact that Irish companies are seeing openings for domestic wind turbines. We are confident that after extensive testing we have a robust Domestic Wind Turbine suitable for most one-off rural houses that have a suitable site.
We are also very conscious of the current economic difficulties facing Ireland today, so we kept our Wind Turbine as affordable as possible.
On industrial, and many domestic wind turbines, the optimum number of blades is considered to be three. This is because of a number of factors including the cost of producing blades. Because our blades are injection moulded, the cost of the blade is less significant than for GRP blades that are more labour intensive. We are also able to experiment with different blade pitches to establish the optimum number of blades and pitch for our system.

In low wind speeds, turbines do not spin fast enough to capture all the wind passing between their blades, but you can increase the percentage captured by increasing the number of blades.

Extensive work in this area has been conducted at Clarkson University where studies at Potsdam Airport, NY have shown that increasing blade number increases power output, particularly at lower wind speeds.

However, most small wind turbines continue to utilize 3 blades, and according to researchers at Clarkson, it is thought that this is because the smaller turbines are still based on the economic philosophy carried down from the larger utility scale turbines

Clarkson also experimented with modifying other turbines, and in general it is believed that a higher number of blades can significantly improve performance at low wind speeds, and a lower cut in wind speed (the wind speed at which the turbine starts to produce usable power).

We have been experimenting with six blades on our own machine, and have found that by being able to reduce the operating speed, we have a quiet turbine, and greatly increased output. We’ve been so pleased with this performance that we have decided to use this 6-blade design on our wind turbines particularly for the improvements of output at lower wind speeds, which happen for a much higher percentage of the time.

To download our latest newsletter click here.

Regards

Turbotricity Team….

We expected teething troubles and got more than we expected, but occasionally, you have to have a bit of a laugh and admit that you made some mistakes.

Timber…. We got a new hydraulic power pack for raising and lowering the turbine, but it didn’t have a flow-control valve, so once the turbine started to come down, it just crashed to earth. On that occasion, the only damage done was to the pitch pins that control the pitch of the blades, and the turbine is running still.

Handbrake turns – Another fault quite early on happened with the resistive loads that we use to put the brakes on the turbine. This is a two-stage process – we first apply a resistive load of about 6kw to slow the turbine down, and five seconds later, we short out the windings to bring it to a halt. The test machines were a bit Heath Robinson and the resistive load was wired wrong, meaning that when the brakes were applied, the turbine was brought to a shuddering halt from full speed. We only noticed this when we heard it one day, but at that stage, it had used its brakes during feirce winds earlier in the week. We fixed the brake issue and though we would have expected the turbine to pull its magnets out of place with the force, the turbine has been running fine ever since. Only last week when we took the turbine down for other modifications did we notice that an 8mm steel plate which is over 25cm wide had bent with the force. Again, the remarkable thing was that nothing had happened to the turbine assembly, which is still running happily.

Open Circuit Running – We had intended testing the turbine in open circuit – in other words, what would happen if all the wires were disconnected and the turbine was allowed to spin freely. This is the ultimate test of how robust the blade and hub system is – if the system should fail in this situation, it could be catastrophic. Many cheap turbines have shed their blades when running off-load with potentially dangerous consequences.

However, we had been experimenting with a dump load which didn’t work, and as a result the turbine spent one night in force 9 winds in open circuit. We never noticed it from our house, but neighbours who went out that night thought a helicopter was going to land in the next field. Again, in the morning there was no sign of any damage, and we have used the turbine happily ever since.

Conclusion – We had intended at some stage to carry out destructive testing of the turbine and blade system. This would have involved staying up nervously watching a turbine half-expecting it to blow to smithereens. Well, most of our testing has been done while we were peacefully asleep, and the system came through with flying colours!