B&Q to stock chocolate teapots!

[Martin]

will he ever speak to me again?

[PurpleDragon]

This has been a great thread. My Mum was talking to me about this yesterday and she was all enthusiastic, but I was able to quote some of the figures and opinions from here, and she was astonished.

[Martin]

and by the look of it - induces hiccups too!

[PurpleDragon]

This is the second time my one post has appeared three times. I have no idea why. Sorry folks.

[Andy Hamilton]

will he ever speak to me again?

yeah why not

Just deleted those multiple posts as well.

[Stonehead]

It is good to walk into these debates with nothing but a headfull of ideals, rather like the people walking into B&Q at the moment.

Hmm, I think if you walked into B&Q with nothing but a head full of ideals, you'd probably find yourself in a spot of bother....

[nathanbriggs]

quick disclaimer - I work for windsave

OK lets talk turkey, post any calculation you like for the windsave payback and I will point out why the windsave payback calculation is different.

First things first £1498 is the cost and the low carbon building programme is up to £500 grant, so the windsave payback is based on £1000 ie the end cost to the consumer, you can argue the point but that is perfectly valid from a marketing point of view.

Second lets be really clear, NO opinions if you have maths or facts I will discuss, but if you just want to say that the average wind speed on a house top is 2.5m/s like the "experts" in your above posts say then let me point out that they have measured precisely ONE house and are not prepared to share their data.

Third can we all agree that the difference between wether a turbine pays for itself has nothing to do with anything other than the actual windspeed at the blades and turbulence. i.e. it is subject to mathematical modelling??

[Martin]

cracks knuckles!
For a start, we try to be an ethical company, and will tell the truth about products!
Let's demolish the arguments one by one!
Windsave seem to suggest that the fact that the turbine is relatively small, that it can respond swiftly to "gusts" - certainly it may well be able to do so, but as you and I know, a swift momentary "peak" of generated electricity is of no use whatsoever - and how swiftly does it connect to the mains?
EVERY expert in the world says that there is not enough USEABLE wind over a roof - do you have a new discovery in physics to which we are not party?
I have a friend whose home overlooks the sea at Weymouth, he's a keen sailor, and keeps his wind data - his figures are remarkably similar to Hugh's - an average of 1.9m/s - yet again, in a position that both the Noabl database and "common sense" would suggest is a really windy spot - yet again, I reiterate, there is not enough power in that amount of wind to have useable amounts of energy removed from it!
Then we have the claim that you have some "unique mains conditioning unit" - pish, tosh and rhubarb! - its a mains grid-tie inverter!, I can sell you a selection from several different companies!
Windsave carefully don't mention that they are "use it or lose it" - to use anything generated, you have to have a "base load" to soak it up, or it toddles off into the grid - AND YOU ARE NOT PAID FOR IT! - if you have any greenness about you, you will have minimised that load anyway!
"Silent mountings" - more rhubarb, no such thing! - it WILL transmit considerable noise into the structure!
As for "not sharing data" - ROFLMAO! - where are the verifiable figures of 30% that are claimed for the "average home"............
I sincerely doubt that ANYONE could achieve that figure in the UK - I'd love to see your data to suggest otherwise!
As for "grants" paying for them, and "ROCS" - these are wholly artificial, and totally irrelevant to any discussion on ethical renewables - I will sell products that have a realistic chance of "repaying" the cost of manufacture during it's lifetime - to my mind, no roof mounted turbine can do that, let alone generate a "profit"!!!
To design a REAL turbine, you start with a "clean sheet of paper", and you very carefully design each aspect of the turbine, and the matching of the various parts - the stator/blade design and matching being of particular importance - not by taking domestic goods spares, and adding an off-the-shelf set of blades!
Sorry chum, lovely idea, can't work! (not really work, "do something for the planet "work)

[Martin]

ps, these are my "experts", to whom I would look for guidance
Hugh Piggott - been designing and building turbines for over 30 years, wrote many of the textbooks - untainted by commerce - spends lots of time helping the poor in undeveloped countries build their own from scrap - http://www.scoraigwind.com/

And Paul Gipe - here's a bit about him -
"PAUL GIPE has written extensively about wind energy for both the popular and trade press. He has lectured widely in Europe, North America and the South Pacific on wind energy and how to minimize its impact on the environment and the communities of which it is a part. For his efforts the World Renewable Energy Congress honored Gipe as a "pioneer" in 1998 and the American Wind Energy Association named him as the industry's "person of the year" in 1988. His book Wind Energy Comes of Age was selected by the (American) Association of College and Research Libraries for its list of outstanding academic books in 1995. His Wind Energy Basics has been translated into Spanish and Italian. Gipe was one of the lead authors and he co-edited Wind Power in View: Energy Landscapes in a Crowded World published by Academic Press in 2002. Wind Power in View is an authoritative international collaboration on wind energy and its place on the landscape. His new book, Wind Power: Renewable Energy for Home, Farm, & Business is available in both hardback and paperback. Wind Power is published in French as Le Grand Livre de l'Eolien by les éditions du Moniteur. In 2004, Gipe served as the acting executive director of the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association where he created, managed, and implemented a provincial campaign for Advanced Renewable Tariffs. The campaign sought to adapt electricity feed laws to the North American market and was instrumental in placing the European concept on the political agenda in Ontario. The Premier of Ontario announced implementation of the program on March 20, 2006. Ontario's feed law is being hailed as the most progressive renewable energy policy in North America in two decades"
http://www.wind-works.org/index.html

these guys are TRUE experts - who would I sooner believe, them, or an entrepreneur?

[Martin]

if we account for the £500 grant, that brings my estimated REAL payback down to an entirely sensible 105 years to 400 years!
I'll rush out and buy one! - ohhhhh dear, my sides are hurting!

[Martin]

I really have confidence in a company that sells such visibly excellent machinery - here's one of their earlier models from 2002!

[Martin]

rumour has it that a certain company is already diversifying into other fields - they have applied the same philosophy and design expertise!
Their new eco friendly cross-channel ferries - available soon near you!
-taken at their secret test site!

[nathanbriggs]

Ok have to admit some of that made me smile, its good to have a sense of humour. I particularly like the 2002 literature from Windsave, long before they had a working prototype, just an artists impression of an entrepreneurs dream.

For a start, we try to be an ethical company, and will tell the truth about products!

So do I, and few who don't last long in business. However lets seperate truth from opinion fair enough?

Windsave seem to suggest that the fact that the turbine is relatively small, that it can respond swiftly to "gusts" - certainly it may well be able to do so, but as you and I know, a swift momentary "peak" of generated electricity is of no use whatsoever - and how swiftly does it connect to the mains?

ANY electricity is valuable, your meter at home is a moving galvanometer the faster it spins the more you pay, even 50W for 1 second will slow it down a little

EVERY expert in the world says that there is not enough USEABLE wind over a roof - do you have a new discovery in physics to which we are not party?

So your argument is that EVERY roof top in the world has something like 2m/s wind. There is no variation, they are all the same?? Do you open your mind to the possibility that 1 in 100 or even 1 in 1000 might be better than that? What is the "best rooftop" in the UKs average windspeed?

I have a friend whose home overlooks the sea at Weymouth, he's a keen sailor, and keeps his wind data - his figures are remarkably similar to Hugh's - an average of 1.9m/s.

What is his anemometer and his sampling rate? what height over the rooftop? And if I had the data from 1000 roofs and 3 had a speed of 5m/s would you let me sell them a turbine???

Then we have the claim that you have some "unique mains conditioning unit" - pish, tosh and rhubarb! - its a mains grid-tie inverter!, I can sell you a selection from several different companies!

It is in the family of a mains grid tie inverter. However we took a look at every single competitor, most have 3kW inverters scaled down to 2 or 1.5kW, most are not mass production cost reduced designs, Windsave has designed from the ground up for wind at 1-1.5kW, the cost reduction is self evident, our entire system costs less than our competitors grid tie inverter

Windsave carefully don't mention that they are "use it or lose it" - to use anything generated, you have to have a "base load" to soak it up, or it toddles off into the grid - AND YOU ARE NOT PAID FOR IT! - if you have any greenness about you, you will have minimised that load anyway!

This seems to be contradictory, first you say I will never generate ANY useable power and then you say everything I generate won't be used in the house baseload? Not sure how to respond probably best to say make your mind up which side you prefer??

"Silent mountings" - more rhubarb, no such thing! - it WILL transmit considerable noise into the structure!

And yet the Building Research Establisment has approved the fixing technique for most housing wall types in the UK. Silent is relative but the independantly verified dBA figures are there for anyone to read

As for "grants" paying for them, and "ROCS" - these are wholly artificial, and totally irrelevant to any discussion on ethical renewables - I will sell products that have a realistic chance of "repaying" the cost of manufacture during it's lifetime - to my mind, no roof mounted turbine can do that, let alone generate a "profit"!!!

Ethics are great but we are trying to change a consumer mindset and "be more ethical" is about as effective a rallying charge as "use less power". So as I understand it you won't be telling your customers to claim grants or ROCs when they become available??

To design a REAL turbine, you start with a "clean sheet of paper", and you very carefully design each aspect of the turbine, and the matching of the various parts - the stator/blade design and matching being of particular importance - not by taking domestic goods spares, and adding an off-the-shelf set of blades!

So our blade design is from Multiwing, the same people who design about 80% of the worlds blades and not a bent bit of plastic and you criticise our component sources? And if you think our generator is in ANYWAY standard you are in for some surprises. Yes it uses the single most commonly used motor/generator lamination in the world, why? because that keeps the cost down.

[red]

Also if enought people buy them the combined power that they will take away from the grid must count for something. It it means that in the long run people are paying more for their electricity but it is much cleaner then won't this mean less nuclear power stations are needed?

obviously walking into an ambush an all that, but I think there is a valid point in there. It's not all about financial return - and like the thread on wind farms vs nuclear power.. its not about which is more efficient.. its about not wanting nuclear power IMO I see this again and again 'you wont get your money back' well its not all about money, alot of it is about environment etc. i want to see the figures for how much energy it takes to make vs how much energy it will create.Now that would interest me.

haviing said that, i cannot afford to not take financial into consideration and agreed, alot of the figures don't seem to add up.

of course B&Q are trying to make money - thats what businesses do, including wind turbine and alternative energy companies etc etc cos if they dont they go bust. Yes B&Q is jumping on a bandwagon - but I'm glad there is a bandwagon regarding saving energy

the worries are that A people will think they can continue to have their lifestyle if they do something green rahter than saving energy as SH said, and B if this product really is no good, then people will become disillusioned with green energy products.

[Martin]

You'l find that if you read into wind power and inverters, that there is a "time lag" before the inverter can "export" - it has to synchronise with the mains before it can do so - some systems take 3 minutes - how long does yours take?
Gusts are of no practical use, particularly with a grid-tie inverter!

I do not suggest that windspeeds over a roof are the same the world over - but the suggestion is made that the "average home" will generate 30% of its needs -the "average home" has a windspeed (in clear air) of 4.5m/s - ALL of the work that has been done over many years shows that at roof top level, we are talking VERY low speeds - in two cases of my acquaintance, in what you'd reasonably expect were "good spots" in fact have only 4mph average - which is not enough to have the power in it to be removed!
If one in ten thousand did have the windspeed, they'd also have the turbulence, which as I've said precludes any realistic amounts of power being generated - I would still advise them against one, because it still won't "pay back", and the noise transmission into a building structure has to be heard to be believed - it may "pass" some standard or another, but is not acceptable (if you want to sleep)!
And why no mention of the fact that as a very crude design, it relies on "furling"? - the blades turn out of the wind with an almighty "clonk"!

So, its a grid-tie inverter! - well we knew that! - nothing "special or unique" at all (check out SMA, SWEA and Mastervolt for a kick-off!)
A real turbine company designs and builds it's own blades, specifically matched to the stator - an "off the shelf" design is at best a compromise - we deal with a company who'll sell you a spare set of blades for its titchy turbine for around £20 - expensive???????? (and they are PROPER blades, designed for that machine!)

The literature has obviously been carefully "legalled", but the fact remains that it suggests that this is an "environmentally sound" machine, which is using every loophole and getout clause in the book to hide the fact that they can NEVER repay their original cost within 10 years, let alone generate a surplus! (if roof mounted)- it is a heartless con, designed to make money out of ignorant and gullible people!

Thankfully, the tide is now turning - ALL of the net forums for the REAL turbine suppliers are hopping mad - complaints are being made wholesale to trading standards, the ASA, and planning authorities are being made aware of the problems (my prediction is that in some areas, they have a snowball's chance in hell of receiving consent due to worries about blade noise, transmission of noise into the structure, and the high likelihood of structural damage!). Nearly every real turbine website now carries a disclaimer about roof-mounting -f or the entirely pragmatic reason that we're heartily cheesed off with the total waste of our time in debunking the myths!

One £1.99 energy saving bulb will probably save three times the amount of electricity that a Windsave can generate in a year - me, I'll have one of those, trouser the other £1498, and put it towards a renewable technology that DOES pay back!