Is it worthwhile getting a wind turbine In Joburg as a secondary power source ?

Tx

depends on how the wind is in Randburg?

Hi Clint

Hope you great. What area are you in? Websites like wind guru can give you a good indication of your sites average wind speed. Have a look on wind guru and let us know. Keen to hear more.

Regards

E

I have been doing a lot of research for a while now for a complete renewable system 5000 Watts solar panels ,10 kw inverter incl. charger ,8 200AH lead crystal batteries,solar geyser,hydronic floor heating.

I use around 12 KW hours a day in summer (efergy electricity monitor)

My main problem is when we have bad weather will a wind turbine(3000W) be sufficient enough.

 

I believe a 3000W turbine will give me on average 3kw hours a day.It is just difficult to calculate how much I will get on windy days

Hi Clint, would you have some good clean wind at your home ? Clean unobstructed air flow is always an important requirement for a successful install.

What type of turbine are you looking into? Keen to hear more so we can all run the numbers and think about what power you can get out of it.

Regards

E

I found Windfinder very helpful

It shows past days average wind and last weekend was miserable but very windy giving me some good info.

E I have been looking at a Pegasys 3000W 5 blade.  

I am in the process of selling my house and looking for vacant land to build.

Eish, you lucky to start with a new build.

There is SOOOOO much you can do in a new house to save energy!!!

Perhaps start a new thread with your plans for the house. Perhaps we can add some ideas

Eish, you lucky to start with a new build.

There is SOOOOO much you can do in a new house to save energy!!!

Perhaps start a new thread with your plans for the house. Perhaps we can add some ideas

That would be great

One idea I have is to use the fire place to heat the House(hydronic floor heating) and geyser.

1. Make sure your roof face North and also slope that way. Makes it easy to mount solar PV cells and Solar heating.

2. Floor insulation. I see the latest is to put polystyrene sheets, about 50mm thick, under the floor and then cast the concrete floor ontop of that. This should insulate your floors much better.

3. Although I would love underfloor heating, it is way too expencive. Doing it with liquid is another option, but who in SA does have the know how?

4. Windows and glass. I would love to go double glazing, but boy is that expencive. But it does work!!!

5. Grey water. See if all the drains from the shower, bath, wash basin and washing machine can go into an underground tank. This water can be used for irrigation.

6. Electrical. Make all the preperations and planning so that you can add Solar and generator power at a later stage.

7. Solar water heating. I would love to have at least a 2000L tank with hot water heated by solar. Yes, it will take long to heat up, but once heated you can use 200L without having a major effect on the overall temp in the tank!

8. Skylights - if your house is very dark, sky lights can save loads by not having to run lights 24/7.

9. Get an AGGA for a stove!!! That would sort out all your heating problems, but you sure as hell going to need a big ass AC for the summer time

Great ideas Wetkit,I hope if I find property I will be able to get a borehole.

I found a company here in Joburg that installs Hydronic floor heating.

The stoves are brilliant

E the best info I could find is on Windfinder and it looks promising 

Average wind speed at Lanseria airport

 

          Jan   Feb   Mar   Apr   May   Jun   Jul   Aug   Sep   Oct   Nov   Dec

km/h    15    13     11      11     11     13    11    15     17     17    15      15

 

If I look at it on a day to day basis it should supply me with the extra power I need

during bad weather days  

E  I still need to find someone in Joburg who has a wind generator to get there energy yield.

The important thing is to find out how often the wind is over 3 m/s.

Eish, that is dismal returns on a 3000W unit.

Looks like you can get 250W to 300W with 3-4m/s windspeed.

 

Would a smaller unit then not give you better returns?

Eish, that is dismal returns on a 3000W unit.

Looks like you can get 250W to 300W with 3-4m/s windspeed.

 

Would a smaller unit then not give you better returns?

Its very expensive for just a backup power source. I'm convinced it will work well during bad weather but I think its better

to use municipal power.At R 29000 plus the tower and controller its not economically viable.

 

Do you guys in the Cape use wind as a primary source or use both solar and wind ? 

for me i have just added the 400w turbine unit as a secondary. in the hope that in winter we do get a fair bit of wind and rain and that can boost the battery bank. Summer time with the good ol SOuth Easter should not be to bad however primary is pv panels for me.

Thanx Mike

Thanks E 

What a brilliant post ,if I could get 4950 Wh a day that could easily get me through a bad weather day and I believe if we 

get weather like we did last Friday and Saturday  with wind blowing over 20 km/h I could get over 8000 Wh per day

Today the 3000 W wind turbine would produced +- 12000 Watts,with almost no sun that in exactly what I would need.

http://www.windfinder.com/report/midrand_grand_central_airport

Pretty impressive!!

Would be a great specticle to see.

What what type of area are you located in?

E

E I currently live very high up near the center of Randburg

I'm still looking for property.

1. Clint, when you get to building your dream house, consider SANDLESS CONCRETE. It is just cement (slurry)and stone for the slab with a normal screed on top. These floors are as warm as wooden flooring. Forget underfloor heating. It is a waste of energy.

When calculating solar/PV the experts work on only 4,5 hours per day, not 6 hours. That is called `realistic'. Over estimating wind and solar can leave one stranded in the dark.

I am using mirrors (early morning and late afternoon only so as not to overheat the panels) to get another two hours full charging time into the batteries.

If you would like more info on average kilowatts available from turbines, let me know and I will post it. Keep up the good work, Windwize

Windwize thanks again,I am staying at my brothers house and he has got cement floors (Cemcrete I think) and they are as warm as wood floors.

In my old house I got my daily energy down to 7 KWH a day so  5000 Watts of solar panel might even be overkill.

 

I have been monitoring the wind on a daily basis (windfinder)and if I have the money I will definitely be installing a wind generator.

Yesterday it rained the whole day so I might have been in trouble with only solar

It will also help reduce the use of my back up generator

 

P.S. with the forum name of windwize are you involved in the wind industry.

Sorry it took so long to get back to you.