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#201
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Highland Ham wrote:
Last month I went to Palm springs for the Faire, and there was no noticeable difference in the numbers of windmills in operation. ===================== Having seen these machines near Palm Springs ,they seem to be rather small and of an older design. Rather small?!!!! You call 350kW or more with blades 150 Feet (45m) long *SMALL*???? Modern machines are much bigger (up to 2 MW rated capacity) and more reliable. Even bigger! In the Netherlands they are now planning a number of 2MW machines offshore ,approx 8 kms off the coast placed on seabed based stuctures. Their designers are focussing on minimum maintenance ( only once every 3 years) . To date land based machines produce on average only 16% of their rated capacity ,due to periods without adequate wind and to technical outage / maintenance. Yet they seem profitable. In the Netherlands many farmers have them on their land ,especially in the northern provinces. I'd like to know what has to be done to get the generated power back into the grid. Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH |
#202
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Winfield Hill wrote:
Highland Ham wrote... Having seen these machines near Palm Springs, they seem to be rather small and of an older design. I wonder if they shouldn't be replaced, that's prime wind territory. Well, you know that the coops or companies that built them had to invest heavily and borrow money to finance their construction. What makes you think they can just tear down the old ones before they've paid off their loans, and borrow even more heavily to finance new ones?? In the Netherlands many farmers have them on their land, especially in the northern provinces. Do they rent the space to the wind-generator owners, or do they each install and maintain them themselves? Is there a subsidized rate for the sale of electricity to the grid? Thanks, - Win whill_at_picovolt-dot-com |
#203
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Winfield Hill wrote:
Highland Ham wrote... Having seen these machines near Palm Springs, they seem to be rather small and of an older design. I wonder if they shouldn't be replaced, that's prime wind territory. Well, you know that the coops or companies that built them had to invest heavily and borrow money to finance their construction. What makes you think they can just tear down the old ones before they've paid off their loans, and borrow even more heavily to finance new ones?? In the Netherlands many farmers have them on their land, especially in the northern provinces. Do they rent the space to the wind-generator owners, or do they each install and maintain them themselves? Is there a subsidized rate for the sale of electricity to the grid? Thanks, - Win whill_at_picovolt-dot-com |
#204
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![]() "Roger Gt" wrote in message . com... READ, it will inform you! That's pretty funny. |
#207
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In article , box
says... KR Williams wrote: In article , says... On a sunny day (Thu, 15 Apr 2004 05:57:18 GMT) it happened wrote in : ...snip... Add that in, and the cost of a $15000 system is much worse - over 30,000 in a 25 year, 7% mortgage. You have to take into account that the cost of a kWh from the grid in 25 years will be a LOT higher too, if there still is a grid during and after WW3 that is. That's silly economics. I do not have to take into account the cost of electricity in 25 years. I can wait. Solar cells are becoming cheaper too. When the cost of the solar cell is less than the cost of power from the grid I can switch, saving all of the negative amortization inbetween, and have a *new* system in 25 years, just as you're in need of replacing yours. ;-) My guess though, is that solar cells for the individual will never become cheaper than power from the grid, since the power company has access to the same technology and a *lot* better financing possibilities. ...and they don't have to have the pay- back in my lifetime. They have access to the tech, BUT, they also have to maintain the distribution system. Since my electricity has been unbundled, roughly half of my cost per Kwh goes to the distribution co., not the producer. Ice storms, drunk drivers, blown line fuses all cost money. As well as the personel and associated benefits packages, transportation costs of materials, etc. for maintaining the lines. All this is avoided cost on home solar. There is still a huge advantage of scale. Without the grid you'll have to store your own energy, which is certainly not free. Peak energy usage is not near peak insolation. And... www.solaraccess.com/news/story?storyid=6482 talking about a new discovery: "A solar cell with the simplest possible physical structure could achieve 50 percent efficiency or better, far higher than any yet demonstrated in the laboratory." Irrelevant. The large producers will have any technology you will, first and on a much more massive scale. It isn't cost effective for most of us yet, but the tipping point is coming. So is the end of the oil reserves. It's been coming twenty years from now, for about a hundred years. The tipping point will certainly come, but the large generators will make it there before your ****-ant house will. -- Keith |
#208
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KR Williams wrote:
In article , box says... It isn't cost effective for most of us yet, but the tipping point is coming. So is the end of the oil reserves. It's been coming twenty years from now, for about a hundred years. The tipping point will certainly come, but the large generators will make it there before your ****-ant house will. I think the main point is that solar PV is a technology that does not require massive infrastructure. It's something that can be done on an individual and distributed basis. The big power companies really don't have that much advantage over individuals. Anthony |
#209
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KR Williams wrote:
In article , box says... It isn't cost effective for most of us yet, but the tipping point is coming. So is the end of the oil reserves. It's been coming twenty years from now, for about a hundred years. The tipping point will certainly come, but the large generators will make it there before your ****-ant house will. I think the main point is that solar PV is a technology that does not require massive infrastructure. It's something that can be done on an individual and distributed basis. The big power companies really don't have that much advantage over individuals. Anthony |
#210
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On Mon, 19 Apr 2004 00:11:09 +0100, "Highland Ham"
wrote: To date land based machines produce on average only 16% of their rated capacity ,due to periods without adequate wind and to technical outage / maintenance. Yet they seem profitable. In the Netherlands many farmers have them on their land ,especially in the northern provinces. Those 16 % rated capacity figures seems to be quite low, since usually 20-30 % is quoted for land based windmills near the coast over here. Of course, if you use a too big generator for a particular place and wing size, the percentage will go down. If you use a smaller generator with the same turbine and same location, the percentage will go up, however, during stronger winds you can only utilise the amount of power as the generator is rated for and some of the wind energy is "lost" during stronger winds compared to a larger generator. During system design, you can select the percentage by selecting the generator size. The generator cost compared to the other costs of the windmill will determine the most economical generator size and thus also this percentage. Paul OH3LWR |
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