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Assessing Wind & Renewable Energy for the Home


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  • 5 months later...

You should wait,

 

I beleive our design will figuratively "Blow" the blades off existing technologies". I know it a bold statement so I want everyones feeback.

 

Please take a few minutes to see the Patent Pending Robinson Wind and Water turbines in action in the YouTube video.

 

 

my email address is h_skip_robinson@hotmail.com if anyone what to see the short term business plan.

 

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

It strikes me that current wind turbines (propeller on a stick)

are heading in the wrong direction.

Perhaps more mileage could be obtained using windpumps, the

design for which was pioneered in the US in the 19th century.

 

Windpumps

 

On US farms, particularly in the Midwest, windpumps were used to pump water from farm wells for cattle. The self-regulating farm wind pump was invented by Daniel Halliday in 1854. Eventually steel blades and steel towers replaced wooden construction, and at their peak in 1930, an estimated 600,000 units were in use, with capacity equivalent to 150 megawatts.[10] Early wind pumps directly operated the pump shaft from a crank attached to the rotor of the windmill; the installation of back gearing between wind rotor and pump crank allowed the pump to function at lower wind speeds. Today water is primarily raised by electric pumps, and only a few windpumps survive as unused relics of an environmentally sustainable technology. This type of windpump can be found worldwide and is still manufactured in the United States, Argentina, and South Africa. A six-foot diameter windpump rotor can lift up to 180 gallons per hour of water with a 15 to 20 mile per hour wind, according to a modern manufacturer (about 700 litres/hour by a 1.8 metre rotor in 24-32 km/hour wind). Wind pumps require little maintenance, only requiring gear oil changes about once per year.[11] An estimated 60,000 wind pumps are stil in use in the United States. They are particularly economical in remote sites distant from electric power distribution.

 

..though rather than raising water, they would be used to drive a small dynamo.

And they probably resist storm force winds a bit better.

ABB

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  • 8 months later...

Hydrogen power, solar and wind energy.

 

Combination of green technologies for practical and affordable homes.

 

The commonplace use of these technologies in the home is near.

 

 

 

7 July 2009

 

ITM POWER Plc

('ITM' or 'the Company')

 

 

Launch of Commercial Application Package

 

 

Demonstration of 'zero carbon' home energy system and agreement to supply demonstration kitchens and electricity storage systems to showcase housing development

 

ITM announces that, in line with the strategy set out in June 2009, it is today launching and demonstrating the equipment needed to realise a 'zero carbon' home power system aimed at taking commercial advantage of UK legislation on emissions from new homes.

 

 

Housing currently contributes just under half of the UK's carbon emissions and the Government's July 2007 Building A Greener Future - Policy Statement announced that all new homes will be zero carbon from 2016. ITM has applied its patented technology to designing and building a zero carbon domestic energy system providing heating, lighting, and electric power plus the storage needed to allow this to operate from renewable resources. The system makes and stores non-polluting hydrogen which is then used in specially adapted household appliances. This system is being launched and demonstrated today to media, local authorities, potential commercial partners and potential joint-venture partners. The system has been designed to run from renewable sources of power as well as the national grid.

 

 

In addition, ITM announces that it has agreed to participate in the building of an innovative demonstration housing development in South Shields, supplying its expertise and technology, in order to show that affordable housing can be made a net producer, rather than a net consumer of energy. The housing development is being built by a partnership between Groundwork South Tyneside & Newcastle with ONE Northeast, Four Housing Group, and South Tyneside Council. The development is being financed by the partners. These houses and apartments will incorporate the best and most practical aspects of building design commensurate with the cost of the properties still allowing for their designation as affordable homes and will be no less comfortable or convenient to live in than a conventional dwelling.

 

 

In addition to ITM's hydrogen technology, the site will feature state of the art heat pumps, solar energy, renewable wind energy, and modern low energy lighting. ITM will fit two of the properties with hydrogen powered kitchens while hydrogen will also be used as an energy store and for provision of electricity to the properties and for the site lighting. The site will be connected to the grid with energy flows in and out from a 225KW wind turbine. Final designs for the development are now being completed and it is expected that application for full planning permission will be made in late August 2009. If successful, Groundwork envisages rollout of the ITM energy package throughout projects in the North East region.

 

 

Commenting on today's news, Dr Graham Cooley, ITM's newly appointed CEO, said, 'I am committed to pursuing multi-market routes to commercialisation with the best strategic fit to the Company's technology. Today's demonstration and the showcase agreement with Groundwork will bring us to the attention of potentially one of the most important of these markets.'

 

 

For further information please visit www.itm-power.com or contact:

 

ITM Power Plc

+44 (0)1799 542222

 

Dr Graham Cooley, Chief Executive Officer

 

 

 

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Pickens drops giant bid for wind farms

 

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- T. Boone Pickens has scuttled plans for a giant wind farm in Texas, partly out of difficulty with building transmission lines, the latest sign that efforts to rebuild the nation's electrical infrastructure have been marked by fits and starts.

 

Hurdles faced by the billionaire financier include lower natural-gas prices, which made power from wind less desirable as an alternative to gas-fired electric plants.

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/pickens-s...lans?link=kiosk

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We've got the power to build

 

 

Published Date: 09 July 2009

 

By Bob Rae

 

WORLD-beating technology, developed by ITM Power in Sheffield, is enabling new homes to be built in the North East which generate enough energy for others to use.

 

Eco charity Groundwork South Tyneside and Newcastle is joining forces with social housing developer Four Housing Group to build a number of homes in South Shields that meet and beat challenging Government targets.

 

Most of the homes will be carbon neutral, but two houses and a block of flats will be carbon negative.

 

That means they will generate more energy than they need to use for cooking, washing, heating, lighting and home entertainment, without adding to CO2 emissions.

 

That is possible thanks to pioneering Hydrogen Home technology, which went on show recently at ITM Power's Atlas Way Prototype Production Facility.

 

ITM has developed a low cost electrolyser, which uses electricity from solar panels and wind generators to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

 

While the oxygen is released to the atmosphere, the hydrogen is stored in modified tanks, originally designed to store propane and can then be used 'on demand' to fuel-modified gas cookers, fridges and what ITM believes is the world's first hydrogen-powered combi boiler.

 

The hydrogen can also be used to run a generator that produces enough electricity to provide lighting, boil kettles and power an electric fridge, air conditioning and a widescreen TV.

 

ITM's Shaun Stancliffe said: "We've been monitoring usage and the plan is to use the solar array we have on site to produce enough hydrogen over the weekend to run the factory for free on Mondays."

 

ITM has developed special burners for its modified gas cooker that will boil a pan of water faster than natural gas.

 

The firm also captures the heat from the exhaust of its hydrogen-powered generator to run the central heating in a "show flat" which it has created inside the offices at Atlas Way.

 

Because burning hydrogen in a generator produces water and nothing else, there are no poisonous fumes, which means the engine's exhaust pipe can be inside the factory.

 

And, since hydrogen is the lightest gas and rises upwards at 45 miles an hour, the danger of it accumulating and causing an explosion, if one of the hob's burners is turned on but not lit, is minimal when compared to natural gas.

 

ITM has been told there are life- saving applications for its technology in places like Africa, where its electrolysers could use solar power to produce hydrogen to run fridges keeping medicines at the right temperature during power cuts.

 

But the initial commercial applications are in enabling developers to meet challenging government energy and emissions targets now, without needing to lay new pipes or wait for the development of reliable and cheap fuel cell technology to convert hydrogen and oxygen directly to electricity.

-------------------------

 

 

http://www.thestar.co.uk/business/We39ve-g...r-to.5443084.jp

 

 

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  • 4 months later...

Turning streams in to cash

A sheep farm in the Brecon Beacons in mid-Wales is providing a glimpse of a post-carbon future, one in which green electricity is generated locally.

 

And the farmer involved, Howell Williams, has found that low emissions can mean high profits. He is making £900 ($1,500) a month from going green.

 

Howell has worked on the damp, golden hills above the village of Abercraf for 30 years. One day, tramping back down along one of the streams that tip down from the hilltop, he had an eye-opening moment.

 

"I thought: 'What terrific power!'" he remembers. "If only we could harness this."

 

 

Howell Williams spent £25,000 ($41,000) on a water turbine, housed in a small shed over the stream, just next to his farm. A £2,500 grant from the Brecon Beacons National Park helped him reduce the cost.

 

He showed me the equipment after a rainy few days and it was generating at its maximum rate, a constant 11kW, all of it sold to the local electricity company.

 

"I think I am generating enough electricity for 20 houses," Mr Howell says.

 

World leaders are under pressure to agree a climate deal in the Copenhagen talks, but the only pressure Howell Williams feels is from the water gushing 90 metres down the hillside.

 

He is thinking about installing another turbine. On a recent Sunday, 20 local farmers came to see his mini-hydro station and 14 of them said they could see the potential for similar installations on their own farms.

 

Welsh hill farmers have always struggled to scrape a living. Water power offers the prospect of a steady income to supplement the up and down earnings from selling lamb.

 

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A few miles away, in the picturesque Dyuffryn Crawnon valley, plans are being hatched for a bigger water turbine on another steep hillside dotted with woods, sheep and and stone farm buildings.

 

The difference is that this is to be a community project. The profits, expected to be £12,000 a year, will be spent on energy-saving schemes for residents and more water turbines.

 

Projects like this are tiny compared with the overall demand for power, but the plans are just a start.

 

"It's not going to generate all of our electricity needs but it's going to produce a lot of it," explains Chris Blake, who runs a local initiative called The Green Valleys, "And if we can get 40 or 50 schemes in this area then it really does start to make a big difference."

 

He points out that the water is only "borrowed": it's extracted upstream and returned to the river below the turbine. And the turbine house will be hardly visible, half-buried and covered in a turf roof.

 

The 16kW Dyffryn Crawnon turbine will generate almost as much power as the inhabitants of the valley currently use.

 

"This valley probably has scope for four or five such schemes which would make it a carbon negative valley, this within 5 years. It's something fantastic to show to Copenhagen."

 

Steep slopes

 

Howell Williams took me to round up sheep and lambs and move them to some fresh, glistening pasture, in order to show off the spring above Abercraf which feeds his stream.

 

 

Water is diverted at this point to shoot down the hillside in a buried plastic pipe, gathering speed and force along the way.

 

He restricts grazing and the size of his flock, to try to control its impact on the landscape. But the water turbine has transformed his environmental credentials and he is beginning to look at the sustainability of the farm as a whole.

 

Farming has had to face difficult questions in the debate over global warming. There are the tractors, the manufactured feed, the methane given off by livestock: all combine to create a carbon footprint which has to be justified.

 

"You're producing carbon-negative lamb," I suggest.

 

"Yes," Howell agrees, "I should imagine 90% anyway."

 

"I think it's a good route to take with livestock. We should make use of any natural resources we've got - wood, water, the air you use. It can all be brought together in one package."

 

Not many people are lucky enough to have a steep slope and a fast-running stream on hand.

 

If the numbers in that article are correct the turbine pays for its self in just 28 months!!!

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  • 3 months later...
Hello, I'm new here. I got to this forum via GOldfinger and the Gold Thread ! I need advice on micro hydro electric. I've got a stream ( an old mine adit which always flows at 50 litre per second. I can pipe this water for a 200 metres to a suitable position for a turbine. The total fall would be around 5 metres. The flow is constant year round.

 

Any suggestions to what turbine would be suitable. I understand all the stuff about grid tie inverters as I plan to get a ROC meter and send the excess back to my elecy company.

 

Thanks

 

I really hope you're able to successfully utilize your stream! Keep us updated, I'd love to hear how it goes.

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  • 5 months later...

Have you every looked at your energy bill only to be shocked at the number written on it? It’s appalling. Not because energy prices are climbing these days, but what most folks don’t realize is that there is a little known trick that has been around for a long time which quite possibly is the least expensive, long term, and eco-friendly way of creating green energy. This is a concept better known as GreenDIYEnergy.

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