battery-less VAWT [RE-wrenches]

[Dan Fink]

Hi Kelly -- I don't know of very many commercial small VAWT products in
the US that have enough tested installations over the years to be
confident in, much less on a rooftop where the wind speeds are slow and
turbulent. Your best bet most likely is to talk with PacWind or Ropatec
about their VAWTs. Both of these companies do at least have actual
installations you could visit, and they don't violate the majority of
the rules in Paul Gipe's famous "How to detect a wind turbine scam"
article.

The SMA WindyBoy direct grid tie inverter won't even work until you hit
150v, and the Power-One Aurora that can deal with lower voltages is not
yet available (it's what we are looking into for our turbine designs
here--it might be out this summer). Not sure if either of those above
VAWT machines can do direct grid tie with either of those inverters, but
it's worth asking them.

The difficult part of treading in the VAWT world is differentiating
between companies that actually make actual wind turbine products,
companies that might be able to make their first actual product ever
(after you pay them in advance), and those that just want you to invest
in developing a product that has never been built in larger than HO
scale and probably will never make a single watt-hour. 

If you DO finally install some VAWTs for these customers......meter the
heck out of them, individually. kwh per day, month and year, in a
spreadsheet. That will be a breath of fresh air (pun intended) for us
renewable energy journalists who labor under the weight of VAWT scam
after scam. I imagine the serious VAWT manufacturers feel the same way,
some good kwh numbers at a variety of sites would lend their business
some much-needed credibility.

DAN FINK
Technical Director
http://www.otherpower.com/





On Tue, 2008-01-08 at 10:46 -0800, Kelly Keilwitz wrote:
> Wrenches,
> An industrial customer is going for LEED certification on one of their many
> buildings. As this is a "showcase" project, the 40 KW PV proposal we've been
> asked to design/install includes bifacial module awnings and Vertical Axis
> Wind Turbines on the roof.
> 
> We've already pointed out that the VAWT's won't be cost-effective. However,
> taller towers and HAWT's have been ruled-out because of height limitations.
> And, our customer wants the wind to be a visible "beacon" of their
> green-ness. Also, our company has been singled out because of our experience
> with wind (so I don't want to push the issue too much).
> 
> Any recommendations of a VAWT mfr & model that can be grid-tied with a
> battery-less inverter? We'd rather not mess with batteries on this one.
> 
> Thanks,
> -Kelly


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