Hello Everyone 

We have started a wind turbine project to Illustrate that wind power in the right area and with the right equipment is a feasible solution and worth the money time and effort.

Product Choice is very important meaning that you must understand the technology that is available for wind turbines.

We have been involved in the Wind Turbine industry for some time and just as with solar there are many pitfalls to look out for unfortunately there are an excess of inferior quality products in the market and a lot of people that do not understand the technology and how to correctly integrate it with existing systems. 

We are documenting this process from start to finish and will provide access to data real-time monitoring photos videos and guidance on how to successfully implement wind turbine technology onto a full hybrid system that is running off grid. 

Fortunately, the location we have available has decent average wind speeds between 6 and 10 meter per second with an average of 7 meter per second throughout the year. 

Average wind speed is the most important factor for the success or failure of a wind turbine application. 

We are very fortunate in South Africa to have reasonable feasible wind speeds in the majority of the country however there are some areas that are just not feasible, and a wind turbine would be a waste of money and time.

So here we go with a little info on the base system that we will integrate the wind turbines with.

The System

2 X Solis S6 Advanced 6KW Hybrid Inverters in parallel single phase in off grid mode. 

20 x 365 Watt Ja Solar all black solar panels mounted in a east northeast and west southwest orientation (side note this configuration performs surprisingly well) giving you a total of 7.3 KW of solar power. 

Panels are mounted to the corrugated iron roof with Renusol Metasole mounting structures with black mid and end clamps. 

7 x Hubble Lithium AM-2 Batteries of various ages the oldest heading to 4 years giving a theoretical total capacity of 38.5 KWH storage the batteries are on a common DC bus to alleviate balancing between the batteries. 

Ryobi 2.5 KVA Petrol Generator for Emergency backup purposes. (produces enough energy to run base loads and slowly charge the batteries) 

The system has a full COC for insurance purposes. 

Additional equipment that will be installed on to the system. 

Solis 5KW offgrid inverter with 1 x Humless 5KWH battery for long term review. Sponsored by Solis South Africa and Humless. 

HYE 1.5 KW Grid tied wind turbine controller integrated solid state dump load with comms and CT Clamps. (Not NRS Certified) Sponsored by Powerforum Store (PTY) LTD Thanks Jason

HYE 1KW Wind turbine Fixed blade rated @12MS weight 28KG 5 blades 2M blade diameter high rpm generator with SKF bearings 110V 3 phase AC Sponsored by Powerforum Store (PTY) LTD Thanks Jason

ODIN 2KW Constant Voltage Controller with 4KW Dump load and Comms and remote monitoring platform. Sponsored by Powerforum Store (PTY) LTD

ODIN 2KW Mechanical Variable Pitch Wind turbine rated @9MS weight 130KG 3 blade 4M blade diameter low rpm generator 380V 3 phase AC Sponsored by Powerforum Store (PTY) LTD

12 Meter monopole guyed wire tower hot dipped galvanized engineer certified for the 2KW Odin turbine comes with all documentation and a 3-year Guarantee Sponsored by Coastal Towers Thanks Derek. 

12 Meter lightweight monopole guyed wire tower hot dipped galvanized engineer certified for the 1KW HYE turbine. Sponsored by Powerforum Store (PTY) LTD

Custom 3.5 Meter powder coated portable turbine stand for the 1KW HYE turbine. (for experimentation) 

Miscellaneous DC and AC Switchgear for AC and DC protection boxes cable etc.  

More Info to follow .....

 

 

 

 

Edited November 28, 20241 yr by Powerforum Store
updated info

Hey Everyone 

So I have done the installation of the 2 KW Variable Pitch turbine and I will be posting some pictures and videos of the process.

The current configuration is connected to one of the MPPT's on the Solis S6 Advanced 6KW Hybrid inverter.

Power Generation when I have good wind seems to be acceptable however there are some small issues that I am troubleshooting with Solis for additional functionality on the Solis Hybrid MPPT.

To allow for more efficient production and more fine tune settings on the MPPT.

Settings like Stop and Start the genport at battery % this will allow the use of grid tied inverters that do not support frequency shifting.

Possibly other fancy communication features that allow comms between the inverter and the turbine controller however this process will take time to finalize. 

In the Meantime while they are working on that I am changing the controller to one of our own grid tied wind turbine controllers where the turbine connects directly to the controller and outputs 230VAC at 50HZ. This I will AC Couple to the Solis Inverter backup port, Generator Port and test it on the Utility port by deactivating anti Islanding... this is not recommended we are doing it for testing purposes to see if we can create a micro grid scenario.

There is no GRID and the system is OFF GRID so no risk of hurting anyone.  

The controller is very advanced it allows for frequency shifting and had modbus with RS485 comms we can also program the power curve of the turbine into the controller and the voltage range is very wide so we can make it work with various voltage wind turbine generators low RPM and High RPM Generators will work on the controller as long as we have an accurate power curve for the generator. 

 

2 hours ago, Powerforum Store said:

So I have done the installation of the 2 KW Variable Pitch turbine and I will be posting some pictures and videos of the process.

Times up, lets see all those pictures. 😂

Suspect the install is somewhere in the eastern Cape?

 

13 hours ago, TimCam said:

Times up, lets see all those pictures. 😂

Suspect the install is somewhere in the eastern Cape?

 

Seconded  
Keen to see the install

@Powerforum Store ;D 

Let's see those pics!

Let's see the numbers. Because this system will generate power at night. How much? How often? Enough so that we can (for EG) run the pool pump at night?

Let's see as well please the data about where domestic wind power is and isn't feasible.

And noise data. How loud are these units? If I lay in bed at night listening to my neighbour's turbine whirring I might get grumpy.

16 hours ago, TimCam said:

Times up, lets see all those pictures. 😂

Suspect the install is somewhere in the eastern Cape?

 

😁 nope it's Actually in KZN Somewhere!

I hear we getting a bucket load of images tomorrow. From install to end!

J

9 hours ago, Powerforum Store said:

nope it's Actually in KZN Somewhere!

Aha! That's interesting. Somewhere in my province. 😎

Hi Guys so here are some pictures from start to finish of the installation of the turbine tower and turbine. 

 

Central Base 

 

 

 

Ok so the above pictures are for the Central base rebar and layout 

 

The Next batch are for the Guy Wire bases.

Note all Welding was done from my Off Grid Solar system this includes the electric cement mixer no petrol generators were used.

Here are more pictures on the progress of the bases. Pouring Concrete and then the Final results. 

Here are more of the same process and completed bases. 

We had to wait a couple of weeks for the concrete to set then we assembled the 12 meter pole.

The Guy Wire bases are 120 Degrees appart and 6 meters from the central base each Guy wire base is 1000 x 1000 x 800 and the central base is 1000 x 1000 x 410 mm 

One Guy base diagonal with the direction of swivel on the base this allowed us to assemble the turbine and tower on the ground. 

Total estimated 27 Mpa Concrete used was close to 3 Cubes in total all the rebar and steel mesh we had to supply the manufacturer supplied the base plate and threaded rod and the eyelet rods for the Guy bases.

More to follow...

Edited February 4, 20251 yr by Powerforum Store

Here are some Pics of the Generator and guy wires fixed to the pole.

There is some information that is not show I used standard 6mm2 PV Cable connected to the output on the Turbine Generator there are 3 phases we joined each cable with a 6mm ferrule and insulated this with heat shrink and silicone insulation tape to ensure a waterproof insulation. It is crucial for this connection to remain dry and very secure we also used some cable ties to tie the cable to the cable hook inside the pole. 

The cable hook carries the weight of the cable. 

The three cables run down the pipe underground in LDP pipe into the house up to the point where it attaches to the controller for experimentation purposes I have a 3 phase changeover Switch to change the output from te turbine to two different controllers. 

This makes things a lot easier when running experiments. 

One controller is a 360 VDC output the other one is a grid tied wind turbine controller that outputs 230VAC @ 50HZ

@Powerforum Store

Very nice pics and project  👍

 

On 2024/11/28 at 12:35 PM, Powerforum Store said:

worth the money

care to quote some numbers here?

On 2025/02/06 at 9:03 AM, Powerforum Store said:

underground in LDP pipe into the house

I'm assuming this is plastic pipe? Probably not the greatest way of doing it, lightning induced currents could be a costly by-product here, KZN, usually has plenty of this, I remember '87-88 in Vryheid and during December/January, when I was visiting, there hardly was a day that there wasn't lightning and plenty of water coming down with it...

Hey Guys 

Sadly I don't have videos or pictures of us raising the 12 meter tower we just did not have enough hands its a very critical part of the process and one does not want to drop an expensive turbine on the ground. 

I will post more pictures of the controllers etc.

Currently i have the wind turbine coupled to a wind turbine grid tied inverter ac coupled to the back up port of my 2 x Solis S6 6KW advanced inverters and the turbine is constantly pushing a little power into the system I still have two trees to trim down. 

My windy season starts just before winter so then the turbine will have nice constant 30 to 40 KPH Winds 

Peak production that i have so far from the machine was 1.7 KW on the DC controller and 900 Watt on the WInd turbine inverter. 

I also still have to install the HYE 1KW at a later stage and we are also looking at testing a more advanced Grid tied Wind turbine inverter. 

later this week I will move the current Grid tied wind turbine inverter to the generator port of the Solis Hybrid setup and do some tests with that configuration and the week after I will recieve my Solis 4.6 Grid tied inverter Supplied by Solis South Africa thanks James Frank.

With the solis grid tied we will then use the 360VDC DC Controller and couple to the solis 4.6 MPPT and Ac couple to the Solis hybrids.

I also have the Solis 5KW Off Grid inverter that I will be testing the 360VDC DC Controller on its MPPT the inverter will have a 5KW Humless battery I am just waiting on some components to finalize the commissioning of that little system which I will also integrate onto my hybrid system. 

4 minutes ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

care to quote some numbers here?

I'm assuming this is plastic pipe? Probably not the greatest way of doing it, lightning induced currents could be a costly by-product here, KZN, usually has plenty of this, I remember '87-88 in Vryheid and during December/January, when I was visiting, there hardly was a day that there wasn't lightning and plenty of water coming down with it...

Cost of the 2KW Variable Pitch Turbine for the generator variable pitch hub and blades R31616.00 Ex Vat Shipping and Delivery.

2 KW MPPT Based Constant Voltage controller with 4 KW Dump load Set at 360 VDC and Dump Load set at Max 380VDC R10991.05 Ex Vat Shipping and Delivery.

12 Meter Monopole Guyed wire Wind turbine tower swivel base hot dip galv including guy wires turnbuckles D shackles and thimbles excluding concrete and rebar R32185.55 Ex Vat Shipping and Delivery.

CTW -2KVA-BI 2KW MPPT Wind Grid Tie inverter 20 Point Power Profile IP54 5 Year warranty 80V to 450V Voltage Range R18 427,5 Ex Vat Shipping and Delivery.

WG-CTW -2KVA-BI 2KW MPPT Grid tied wind turbine inverter with 25 Point Power profile IP54 5 Year warranty 60V to 600V Voltage Range R21908.90 Ex Vat Shipping and Delivery.

WGI -2KVA-BI 2KW MPPT Grid tied Wind turbine inverter with 32 Point Power profile IP54 Ultra wide input voltage range from 20V up to 850V  R23 341,5 

Ex Vat Shipping and Delivery.

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We used class 12 LDPE 25mm Plastic pipe to run the 3 lengths of standard 6mm2 Solar cable without joins from the base of the turbine to the controller in the ground there is no risk of water getting into the pipe both ends are covered and protected from moisture.

The Wind turbine tower has earth spikes in carbon enriched soil with 35mm2 cable and the earth from the Turbine tower is linked to the common earth with 6mm2 cable to prevent earth potential differential. 

My Solar system has earth spikes in carbon enriched soil with 16mm2 earth cable each panels' frame is connected to this earth which is also linked to the common earth for the house the house has 3 sets of earth spikes all on common earth.

I do not have a municipal power connection.

I do have a generator connection and the generator is also earthed on the common earth with a hardwired neutral earth bond at the generator. 

All the wind turbine Controllers all have very effective lighting surge protection built in which protects the internal circuits from lighting and isolates the DC or Ac outputs from Lighting on top of that I have Type 1 /2 Surge protection between the DC controller and the inverter MPPT and also on the AC output of the wind turbine inverter also on the input and output side of the Parallel hybrid inverters. 

We have experienced a lot of thunderstorms with heavy lighting and rain and so far things have been holding up. 

It is almost impossible to have 100% Protection against lightning however we have done as much as possible to mitigate possible damage. 

@Kalahari Meerkat Worth the Money yes just like a solar installation you have a relatively high outlay cost especially if you use quality product and not cheap and nasty. 

If you understand how the tech works then it is relatively easy to work out what the ROI would be on a wind turbine. 

An decent quality wind turbine like these turbines we sell are very efficient machines.

• Low RPM Generators this allows for high energy output at low revolutions.
• Large Surface area to capture as much kinetic energy as possible from the wind. The 1KW turbine has just over 3 square meter of surface area with the wind with a cut in wind speed of 2MS meaning the blades start turning at that wind speed. 
• Variable Pitch Technology allowing the turbine to maintain constant RPM when it reaches its nominal capacity as an example the 1KW turbine produces 1KW @ 8 Meter per second @360 RPM or 28.8 KPH wind speed and will produce 1.2 to 1.3 KW constantly from 8ms to 25ms or 90 KPH Wind speed this allows the turbine to have a much flatter power curve and even power production and voltage output. Additionally because of the fact that the turbine can never exceed its nominal rotational speeds limited by the variable pitch technology that acts much like a governor on a diesel engine means that you have far less wear and tear on the generator bearings.  
• These turbines are down wind turbines eliminating the need for a tail vane advantages of this is the turbine does not get thrown around by gusty wind and much as conventional upwind turbines with tail vanes does. The direction change is a lot smoother reducing load on the wear and tear components on the neck bearings brush kit and slip rings that transfer the energy from the generator to the power cable. 
• The Turbine has Large Brushes that transfer the power from the slip rings that are connected to the generator to the power cable that couples to the controller. Benefit of this is you don't have a cable that will twist in the tower the cable stays static and there is no risk of the cable breaking due to twisting. 

Some of the downsides to the machines are that they are Large 4 Meter Blade diameter for the 1 and 2 KW units they are heavy 110Kg for the generator and HUB and due to the large surface area of the blades the horizontal loading on these machines are considerable. 

The 2KW can produce up to 2500 KN horizontal load on the top of the tower in a wind of 25ms or 90KPH meaning the towers or mountings for these turbines need to be very robust and strong. So no slapped together poles with the hope that it won't turn into a fishing rod or fall over.

The towers have to be built by a engineer with all the forces taken into consideration to make sure it will keep the turbine perfectly level on the top of the tower at all times this is crucial for the turbine to work at its best efficiency and ensure that it will not fall over or break in heavy storm winds. 

Some advantages of this turbine over the conventional turbines in the market are. 

• Low wind speed efficiency 99% of turbines in the market require anything from 12 to 13 Meter per second or 43.2 KPH to 46.8 KPH wind to produce their rated capacity. Our 1 KW turbine produces its rated capacity at 8ms or 28.8 KPH with a nice linear power curve from 2ms at 9ms the 1KW will produce 1.2KW. We also sell the Fixed Blade Light weight high revolution 750 RPM HYE Wind turbine this machine makes 1KW at 12ms or 43.2 KPH wind. In comparison to the Variable pitch turbine this turbine is almost 60% less efficient as an example in a low wind speed of 6ms or 21.6 KPH wind the HYE 1 KW will produce 200 Watt and at 8ms or 28.8 KPH 400 Watt per hour the Odin Variable Pitch 1KW will produce 450 Watt per hour at 6MS or 21.6 KPH and 1KW at 8ms or 28.8 KPH. This is a vast difference and justifies the additional cost of the ODIN turbine at R33592 vs the HYE at R27 664.00 for the turbine and its MPPT controller tower costs would also be less on the HYE because its very light at 28 KG and 2 Meter blade diameter.
• The variable pitch turbine also does not have issues when the wind speed becomes very high. Fixed blade turbines have to use different methods to slow the rotational speed of the generator down otherwize the Voltage and Amps would become to high and either cause cables and windings to overheat and burn off or cause the machine to throw a blade or get a bearing failure and potentially damaging the controller due to over voltage and amperage. The fixed blade machines will the first apply electromechanical braking then it will turn its head out of the wind with the tail vane to turn the machine out of the wind this is not a even process and very violent causing excessive wear and tear on the bearings of the generator and the neck bearing also causing the machine to effectively stop producing power. The Variable pitch machine simply changes the pitch of the blades based on the wind pressure and continues to produce constant power never overstressing bearings nor risking throwing a blade due to excessive RPM and never producing more voltage and amps than it was designed for the dump loads' function on these machines are then used for stopping the machine and to buffer out gusty winds allowing the machine to produce smooth power. 

All of our turbines were tested by NERL in America at 1500 meter above sea level.

All of the data sheets are very accurate and we also have very accurate power curve data available on each size and voltage range.

If we integrate with an MPPT that can handle 500 VDC max we do the turbine configured 360 VDC output  if the MPPT is a 1000VDC we do the controller at 600 VDC output.

If we want to couple to LV Lithium Batteries we use the MPPT Buck Boost controller at 51.2 or 48 VDC. 

For the Wind turbine inverters we produce the turbines with the highest voltage range possible that would work in conjunction with the chosen controllers voltage range.

High voltage thinner cable less loss more efficiency. 

How we calculate the ROI of the Odin variable pitch turbines are quite simple. 

We know the turbine will produce a certain amount of power at a certain wind speed.

We know what the annual energy prediction of each turbine is with losses added to the calculation for gusty winds and turbulence.

We then need to know what the yearly average wind speed where the turbine would be implemented is. 

We have tools and online applications at our disposal that can give us accurate localised information. 

Best method is a weather station with an anemometer at the height the turbine will be installed for a couple of months to give us accurate data on the average wind speeds. 

Once we have this data the calculation would be easy.

Let us use the ODIN 1 KW with a 6 meter tower as an Example that would give the worst ROI because the tower cost and accessories cost would be similar for larger machines

Let's assume the cost of electricity is estimated on the country average of R3.85 per KWH 

Then the ODIN 1KW would produce with an AEP of 3900 KWH Per year 10,7 KWH per day on average throughout the year equaling R41.19 per Day the cost of the turbine is R75000.00 ex vat your ROI would be 5 Years @7ms

However the 2KW with double the capacity with an estimated Cost of R82000 ex vat at the same wind speed of 7ms the 2KW would have an AEP of 7900 KWH per year and 21.6 KWH per day production producing R83.32 per day reducing the ROI to 2.6 Years instead of 5 Years as for the 1KW 

Additional benefit would be vastly reduces cycles on the battery system because the turbine can and will produce power at night and also a reduction on the base load potentially reducing the size of the battery requirement for a site.