A couple weeks ago some serious wind, 40+ MPH, blew through the Rochester area.  This was strong enough to pull one of the 10″ plastic stakes out of the ground causing the tower to collapse. Luckily, the only damage to the turbine was two of the blades which can be easily replaced. After learning my lesson, I drove 6FT stakes 4FT into the ground to prevent an issue like this from happening again.

The turbine has been back up for a couple of weeks and running well. The generator needs a great deal of torque to start spinning, something the 3 blades can’t provide except in 15+ MPH winds. With the 6 blades, the generator would have no problem getting the blades spinning with winds less than 10MPH. I have two replacement blades coming, so this problem should be rectified soon.

Since my last update, I installed the wireless network repeater and 10dBi omni directional antenna. I am using a Linksys WRT54GS with the DDWRT v24 firmware. The v24 firmware allows for network repeating with a multiple SSID support, so I can repeat the RIT wireless signal under my SSID. The range with the omni directional antenna is pretty good as those in the nearby apartments are using it. The repeater is doing about a .5GB of bandwidth a day, but I expect this number to significantly increase as more people start utilizing the repeater.

To see the status of the repeater click here: http://windturbine.rh.rit.edu

Producing some Power!

The VOIP element of the turbine is ready to be installed. The turbine will have a remote phone connected via VOIP so those can make calls to and from the turbine. I am using a D-link VTA VOIP adapter which connects back to my Asterix server. While some might view this as pointless in the age of cell phones, this project is a proof of concept for deploying inexpensive communication networks in developing countries.

In the ski business, opening first is a big deal. People will flock to your mountain just so they can get the first tracks for the season. The issue with opening first is that it usually consists of a large and extreme costly snow making operation. If you make snow and then the weather warms, the investment washes away. Many resorts can’t make this bet due to the high cost of electricity to run the pump to provide water all the way up the mountain.

One resort, Jiminy Peak in western Massachusetts, has found a way to beat the odds. Two summers ago Jiminy Peak installed a GE 1.5MW wind turbine midway up its 2000FT peak. During the winter the turbine can produce up to half of the resort’s power and annually provides a third of the power for Jiminy Peak. The wind turbine greatly reduces Jiminy Peak’s electric cost and allows it to make a bet on snowmaking without the large economic impact of other ski resorts in the area. This has allowed Jiminy Peak to open two to four weeks earlier than other resorts in the area. This has paid off and the resort just recently announced that the 08-09 season has had a record number of skier up until this point in the year. This is an amazing feat given the dire status of the economy, and shows that being green pays off in multiple ways.

The wind turbine is back up at RIT!  The turbine is now located on a small hill in a unobstructed area which should greatly help.  While the turbine was down, I completely rebuilt it and improved on some design elements.  The old turbine was built out of two pieces of wood, one for the generator and one for the tail, screwed together.  The two pieces could flex under stress, so I built the new turbine out of one piece of wood to prevent this from occurring.  I also sanded down many pieces of the tower as the sharp edges where rubbing against the wires connecting the turbine.

As I wrote earlier I replaced the blades as the old ones had a hard time spinning over 400RPM’s.  The new ones are designed to spin over 1000RPM’s and earlier tests show the new blades have greatly improved the performance.  I also replaced the batteries as the old ones where undersized for the turbine and only had a 14Ah capacity.  The new ones are Trojan T105′s and they provide a much larger 440Ah.

[flv]http://media.csh.rit.edu/public/Turbine%20Up.flv[/flv]

Today there was a good 15-20MPH wind in Rochester.  The turbine was working great and the amp meter was hoovering between 2-4A (24W to 48W), and would hit over 8A during a gust (96W).  Now it is time to hook up some gear for the turbine to power!

A solar hot water system was recently installed at my family’s house. The government incentives which accounts for about 30% of the system and the fact that the old hot water heater was broken were the main drivers of the project. The system is designed to provide hot water for four to six individuals which equates to 75 square feet of solar panels on the roof. We are using a dual tank solution since this is more efficient, but more expensive than just using a single tank. With the dual tank solution, one tank acts as a preheat tank which preheats the cold water from the street while the other tank is the hot water tank which keeps the water at a constant 120F. Since the water from the street is between 40-60F, a great deal of energy is required to heat this to 120F. n With the preheat tank, the solar panels heat the water from the street before it enters the hot water tank so less energy is needed to heat the water to 120F. The hot water tank has two backup sources in case the preheat tank is feeding water colder than 120F. During the winter the backup is a tankless coil in the boiler and during the summer it is electric which allows the boiler to be turned off.

We have only had a couple days of sun and the rest has been snowstorms. On a 30F sunny day, the preheat tank started at 58F in the morning and at the end of the day was 82F which isn’t bad considering it is 105 gallons (double the size of an average tank). The glycol (water freezes) which flows through the panels was a constant 140F which is incredible if you think of the low UV radiation that the sun produces during the winter months. Hopefully there will be a couple sunny days in a row to get the big preheat tank over 100F.