WINDMILL EXPERIMENTAL PATTERNS AND PLANS TO SIZE
Private worksheets for prototype experiments.
Plans are sideways in inches. June 29th., 2001by Ray Auxillou, TRUSTEE and Project Director, the BELIZE DEVELOPMENT TRUST.
SIDE VIEW OF WINDMILL WITH CORRECT HEIGHT for a small battery charger d.c. motor
Construction using aluminum.
This windmill on location in the Tyrol of Europe is a bigger one than the plan here, which is intended for the back stern rail of a 30 ft sailboat as a small battery charger.
(a) On the motor. A.C. is better than D.C. because you can run a longer distance with A.C. The higher the A.C. voltage the further you can go in distance with a line.
(b) The number of poles in a generator indicate the number of rpm necessary. For example: a 2 pole is 3600 rpm, a 4 pole is 1800 rpm, and a 6 pole a.c. generator would be 1200 rpm.
(c) The higher the cycles, the smaller the wire. A high cycles would mean a smaller generator. But the rpm would go up also. Necessitating a bigger reduction gear.
(d) Tax Incentives Florida provides a variety of tax incentives including: No sales and use tax on co-generation of electricity. Use tax exemption for research and development labor costs.
(e) One gallon of diesel fuel is saved for each 14 kwh produced by wind.
(f) 10 turbines of 66kw will produce about 1.2 million kwh a year.
(g) One 50 kw turbine will produce about 120,000 kwh each year. Or $6000 at .05 cents USA per kwh. One 10 KW windmill turbine did 32,000 kwh's in Wisconsin one year to earn $1600 USA. You need a windmill that is self regulating and needs no people intervention maintainance to make it pay.
(h) Generator motors are usually 480 volt, 60 cycle, 3 phase. Some people use 240 volt, 60 cycle, single phase motors.
(i) COSTS & FINANCES of windmills. Operating costs average 5 cents US per kwh. To be profitable, a windmill has to earn 3.5 cents to 5 cents above the operating cost. Or get paid for the electricity produced or substituted at 8.5 cents to 10 cents per kwh. This is for small windmill systems under 300 KW. New technology now being financed by the US Government is expected to reduce windmill electrical producing costs to 3 cents to 4 cents per kwh by the year 2003.
(j) Wind and speed control for horizontal axis propeller windmills can be done with small boat, trim tab modifications to the wind vane. Tilt the rotor up, or sideways by wind vane secondary trim tabs.
(k) The Fortis wind turbines were low speed permanent magnet alternators. Maintainance free system.
(l) PRICING CO-GENERATED ELECTRICITY for government regulators. Because utility monopolies have the expense of maintaining the transmission lines and losses of electricity along them; wind farms and pv solar farms cannot expect to receive the same price as production cost of utility monopolies. About half the price of the utility monopoly production cost, can be expected to be the price paid to co-generator electrical farm remote distant producers. In a system of co-generation within a village however, line losses and transmission line maintance may only be worth 10% less than production cost of the monopoly diesel generator utility system. Where co-generation is desired by local governments for a variety of reasons, such as; diversification, saving of foreign exchange, competition, etc. If this makes co-generation uneconomic, but the advantages are perceived by local governments to be high, then co-generation suppliers to the grid will get higher prices for their electricity, adjusted by tax free status, rebates, and other imaginative methods of raising the price for co-generator small suppliers to make additional producing systems cost effective.
(m) Windmills usually produce a.c. voltage around 480 volts a.c.. Transformers are used to raise the voltage to match the transmission line grid voltage. e.g.: from 480 volts a.c. to 7200 volts a.c. D.C. systems use synchronous inverters to match the cycles and phase to the transmission grid. Household 500 watt to 2 k.w home windmill, or pv solar systems use synchronous inverters. The price of home systems electricity is usually half the cost of the utility monopoly production cost. There is no advantage from utility monopolies to buy electricity back at the same retail price they sell it to the customer. A two bedroom house, with one bathroom can save 75% of the monthly utility bill with a 500 watt windmill. Bigger houses require bigger systems to achieve the same. The major utility however, must make a profit off the household co-generation savings also, as they have the major constant investment.
(n) Third world countries have a problem and must import. This increases cost for alternative energy systems by 70 % on average, due to freight, customs duties, bank fees, foreign exchange conversion commissions, and other hidden costs. This additional cost can push an imported system from Denmark, or the USA over feasability. By the time you install the system, amortization costs would take too many years. For an investment, a windmill should be paid off in one to two years, at least the cash outlay. A 10 KW windmill should cost no more than $2,500 USA for cash outlay in manufactured parts. The manufacturing labor may be as high as $30,000 USA. The labor however, should be input as investment capital and issued stock in the enterprise. So, the cash outlay stays below $2,500 USA. A windmill can earn back the cash materials outlay in two years. But not the manufacturing labor costs. This makes buying refurbished old windmills, or new windmills uneconomic, as the imported cost losses and labor costs with retail purchase markup from industrialized nations, makes the number of years necessary to be profitable as an investment unrealistic. Home manufacture, or foreign purchase of parts and local manufacture with labor costs being paid in stock certificates in the enterprise can make a marginal operation into a solid investment in co-generation.
(o) Improvements in windmill cost efficiencies are coming in the shape of better designed airfoils for horizontal axis types. More solid state electronics in inverters and better designed generators/alternator motors.
(p) The major problems with windmills is over speed. Controlling rotation of the blades. Several mechanical, hydraulic and electrical braking systems are required for redundancy to shut down a malfunctioning, or overspeeding in high winds of a windmill. Regulating the speed of the windmill for voltage and cycle control and being able to stop the windmill are the major concerns in windmill co-generation designs. Murphys Law says if things can go wrong, they will. In windmills this is too true. Having several speed control and braking/stopping systems is imperative.
(q) NET METERING LEGISLATIVE REGULATIONS: There is a lot of controversy over net metering. Usually, net metering is passed in the USA in states where there are problems with brownouts, blackouts, or high electricity prices. As I understand the term, net metering is where a home, or business owner runs a windmill, solar panel, etc. d.c. voltage system in conjunction with using the regular utility. The d.c. goes through a SYNCHRONOUS inverter, to produce a matching 115 volt a.c., 60 cycle. Due to non-production of electricity from the Mollejon Hydro Dam in Belize during the dry season, with blackouts and brownouts, Belize would be a net metering type country. The connection is made from the small business, or house to the house side of the regular utility meter. You then supplement your utility electricity with what you produce. Presume you have a 500 watt, or 1 kw d.c. windmill, and your daily consumption of electricity ran around 3 kwh a.c.. You would produce 500 watts from your small home windmill unit, that much and cut your electric bill at the end of the month. During the day, when everything was drawing, like air-conditioning, ironing, lights, stove, refrigerator, you would simply burn your 500 watts alongside the extra you needed from the utility. But at night, when everything was turned off, but perhaps an intermittent refrigerator, your home 500 watt windmill would turn the utility meter backward as it fed street light demand. Utilities do not like this, because they are in effect buying back electricity at retail prices which includes their profit. But the amounts are so small usually, that separate utility meters are impractical, nor cost effective for a separate buy-back pricing structure. The nature of rural Belize and the need for backup and supplementry systems argues for household co-generation systems and net metering. In theory, if every house in the country of Belize had a supplementry co-generating system alongside the grid supply they use, the government foreign exchange savings could be more than 50%. There are many arguments for co-generation and household net metering, but all electricity in Belize is expensive scarce foreign exchange. This makes the issue of net metering and co-generation a top priority policy issue. For a larger windmill, or hybrid solar farm, as an entrepreneurial investment company, then net metering would not apply, but be calculated more on the distance your supply is from nearby consumers at some comfort negotiable level below the utility production cost. In either case, whether house systems, or co-generation companies, you need an automatic fuse breaker, to shut down the system if the primary utility goes off line, or has a downed powerline.
(r) In the convoluted world of high government finance, it is strange to note that while electricity in Belize sells for 21 cents USA per kwh roughly speaking, the production of electricity by private entrepreneurial alternative energy producers, actually saves the Government of Belize $3.50 USA per kwh in foreign exchange exports, to pay fuel suppliers and Fortis the foreign electrical utility owner for each kwh that independent small operator co-generators produce. Without any other arguments and there are a few very viable reasonable ones, the foreign exchange savings for the Government of Belize is alone sufficient to warrant privately owned co-generation electricity projects, by law. These may annoy any government sponsored quasi-government private monopoly, electrical management, but in reality in the long run, any co-generation projects probably would never exceed 10% of the overall electrical needs of the country of Belize. At the moment, 1 % electrical co-generation would be a big improvement for a variety of reasons.
(s) As of July 5th, 2001, we have entered the Florida Government merry-go-round of pass the buck for responsibility and information. Jim Tatum of the Florida State Energy Program, kindly answered my query and referred me to Public Service Commission, Lee Colson. ( e-mail: Jim.Tatum@dca.state.fl.us State Energy Program and Lee Colson, e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org ) Let's see where the reality check goes? The difference between rhetoric and application? Jim says, that they don't see enough wind in Florida to make wind turbines pay. I never considered the wind a problem, but am concerned about FPL controlling the government process and wondering what kind of price FPL would pay on co-generation? Presuming one could actually get that far, that is?
REFERENCE URL LINKS ON THE SUBJECT OF CO-GENERATION ELECTRICITY PROJECTS
(Click here! ) THE PROBLEMS WITH DIFFERENT LEVEL GOVERNMENTS AND BUREAUCRATS IN DOING BUSINESS IN FLORIDA! THESE ARE EXTENSIVE & EXPECT EXPENSIVE TIME CONSUMING DELAYS FROM BUREAUCRACIES. On average, a small business ( less than four people ) can expect an outlay in man hour labor and financial costs, of anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 a year. (Licenses & Taxes, etc.)
COSTS OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT THIS PROJECT(Click)
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How about electricity for 2 cents per kilowatt hour?