Guy-less tilt-up towers for Air turbines [RE-wrenches]

John Raynes john at raynes.com
Sun May 5 20:44:33 PDT 2002


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At 06:43 AM 5/4/02 -0600, you wrote:

>John,
>  I have used stepped large diameter schedule 40 pipe, bought cheap at steel
>salvage yards for turbine installs in the 1 KW range....
>A ladder is part of the deal, if my
>customers can't climb a 50' or so tower I tell them wind is not for them, or
>I charge them to do it.
>Tom Simko
>Skyline Solar


Tom,

I agree with you that for 1KW turbines and above, there needs to be a real 
customer understanding and commitment.  And I realize that for the most 
part these Air machines aren't taken that seriously by many of us.

On the other hand though, Air machines have great appeal to the wider 
"mainstream" market that we all want to see penetrated.  A lot of suburban 
solar pioneers can easily afford to add an Air to their PV setup, without 
needing much if any wind resource knowledge - the cost and site 
requirements aren't steep enough to bother.  (I'm talking mostly about the 
folks who are doing this to set an example, not 'cause they need 
alternative energy sources.  Many of these are the same folks who are 
buying hybrid vehicles.)  The impact these small turbines can have is 
tremendous, but not (I think) if it means ugly guyed poles in a clean 
suburban enclave.

So I guess I'm a bit befuddled as to why SWWP or some other enterprising 
outfit doesn't see fit to offer a nice, clean visually attractive tilt-up 
tower package for higher population density areas, specifically designed 
for the Air machines.  That's a no-brainer IMHO, but for now it seems that 
I'm left with adapting antenna/weather station towers on my own if I want 
an engineered solution to this.  End of rant.  Maybe the 403's were too 
noisy to bother.


Thanks to all wrenches who have responded to my original post on this 
topic, both on and off-list.  A lot of you spent good time passing on some 
interesting approaches to me, many of which will find use one way or 
another down the line.  Hope I can return the favors.

John Raynes
RE Solar
Sandy UT

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