Solar Voltaic Systems

[ieezitin]

puffing and blowing

Pinman mentioned or queried the cost of a foundation for an off shore wind turbine, I cant answer that but I would imagine it aint cheap!!. One reason why independent companies are unwilling to invest.

Power, food, pharmaceutical, transportation and war are controlled by government, through creating the working & legal environment regulating supplies while constructing the demand.

In the last ten years here in the states has seen an explosion in wind farm construction, the west coast it littered with such facilities all working on world leading European designs being exported here and set up. It cant be cheap hauling a 40ton motor from Birmingham to the west coast. The east coast now has started to compulsory purchase land and start its construction.

From the State and federal level the flood gates have been opened all financially motivated to produce power generating station running exclusively on renewable sources, but really the government is adding to its power generation inventory as it knows it needs to add to the failing infrastructure, even these Nit-Wits here realize oil and coal is dead.

The technology in solar, wind, hydroelectric and geothermal is already here and its viable, now you just need the two other ingredients, cash and the motive.

 

[Shox Dr]

I was told by the electrician that I was talking about these systems. That the foundations are failing and they having to take all the offshore wind turbines down off the coast of Lincs

 

[Rudi McAnichal]

Took this photo of offshore wind turbine foundations in Sept 2000, shortly before they were floated out at Middelgrunden, Copenhagen. They were 2MW turbines, and the railings and tower access door give an idea of scale. Obviously they were for shallow water, and we were told that the “tulip” shape was meant to prevent problems with ice formation.

Apparently there are numerous foundation designs for different water depths and sea conditions, but these are the only ones I have actually seen. Have just looked on the web and found some info at:
http://www.power-technology.com/projects/middelgrunden/

 

[pidgeon chit welder]

dont 4get the double glazing and the cavity wall insulation then put bloody trickle ventilators in windows and a vent 4 the gas in the door because all the condensation cant escape

A heat exchanger to refresh the air quality in the home s and balanced flues for the latest high efficiency replacement boiler sort that one out .

Recently we have had a new condensing oil boiler with balanced flue and only had two oil tanks in one year ( exceedingly cold year ) compared to 5 per year averaged in the previous two years that were fairly mild ..saving us 3600 litres of oil not to mention the better central heating heat.

I will be looking at the heat exchanger later when I have another £1000 or so to play with for the long term savings are looking very very good.

 

[brightspark]

90 percent of homes havent got them fitted. so bathrooms utility rooms and kitchens suffer from condensation so ordinary fans are put in letting cold air in defeating the object of sealing everywhere up i run a dehumidifyer in our house it can remove well over a gallon a week of water

 

[Shox Dr]

I have 2 dehumidifiers, one in the workshop and the other in the house, best bit of kit in both places

 

[breezer]

Agreed - the most "does what it says on the tin" thing I have ever bought!

 

[jugs]

90 percent of homes havent got them fitted. so bathrooms utility rooms and kitchens suffer from condensation so ordinary fans are put in letting cold air in defeating the object of sealing everywhere up i run a dehumidifyer in our house it can remove well over a gallon a week of water

STOP BREATHING ............. & cooking & washing.

We run 2 small dehumidifiers & remove about the same.

Just fitted a house vent system with heat exchange in the roof space, it works well giving filtered warmed air & removing moisture.

Still got 2 more rooms to connect (Quite disruptive getting to downstairs rooms).

 

[Archie]

Hello Jugs,

being a technical forum, does anyone know the size of the foundations needed for an offshore turbine, and how they are actually built?

The trouble with these renewable sources of power is the perception that they must be cheap or free which is far from the case in terms of commercial application. The other fact I found was that due to the variability of their output, 'spinning reserve' is held by conventional stations in case the demand exceeds supply so that they may quickly make up the slack. Basically this means generator stations running, consuming some fuel but not feeding the grid.

Alec

P.S., I like your Anglicisation of Wylfa :-)

Big! The type of foundations depends on the nature of the sea bed in that area. Some are 'just' piles driven into rock while others have upside down buckets for feet. When these are placed on the bottom they pump the water out, sucking them into the soft ground. The more exciting type are the ones they still haven't got out there commercially, the floating ones that are just tied down like a buoy!

A lecture we had from a guy who works on getting power back to shore from these things reckons that, GW for GW, offshore wind is as expensive as nuclear. Oh yeah, and one reason they cost so much: who do you think owns all the kit needed to build things out at sea? That would be the oil companies or more correctly companies in the oil business and as we know, they charge like diseased goats!

As for spinning capacity, anything above 20% wind/PV etc. starts to look economically unenticing due to the spinning capacity required.

 

[tigler]

The other issue is maintenance !! Wind turbines are actually quite service intensive, which makes things difficult on the off shore ones !!
As usual, Governments have been glacial in making decisions regarding energy future, so have jumped onto every quick fix when they realise it's almost too late !!
This should have been sorted 25 years ago !

 

[tigler]

STOP BREATHING ............. & cooking & washing.

We run 2 small dehumidifiers & remove about the same.

Just fitted a house vent system with heat exchange in the roof space, it works well giving filtered warmed air & removing moisture.

Still got 2 more rooms to connect (Quite disruptive getting to downstairs rooms).

Which system have you used ?
I've always thought it bad that houses are sealed boxes with no through flow ventilation !

 

[Archie]

I'm guessing he gave up either the cooking or washing!

 

[SirDick Diodenob esquire]

I know this going off topic but can you get subsidies for the water heating solar panels , there are some companies near me that are pushing large black painted boxes with glass like tubes inside , I suppose at best the subsidy would just be for installation as you couldnt easily measure the energy ? The other problem is saving the heat produced is limited to a few hours . There is a website offering commercically made water panels or assistance to diyers with free designs , I am tempted to try and make one because having read the thread so far the PV panels just look too expensive to me . I applied for the powershift grant in 2003 when the givernment were trumpeting LPG and of course they wouldnt give me the £1500 advertised as they had already given all the money away so I bought a diesel instead . Maybe the PV subsidy works the same way , advertise it and then **** on anyone who applies for it .

 

[Justme]

Not yet. The RHI should / might be starting next year. The change of Gov has put it on the back burner for a while.

The payment will be based a % of the amount of energy that could be made by the system that you have. So lets say you need 500kwh/year to heat your home & your system is rated at 250kwh /year you would be paid for that 250kwh even if its does not perform to its rating. Its a bad system as its open to abuse. People with high heat demands (IE little insulation) could get paid more than those that use little energy. There are ways to meter the "wet" heat but they have chosen not to go down that road.

 

[pidgeon chit welder]

Which system have you used ?
I've always thought it bad that houses are sealed boxes with no through flow ventilation !

The heat exchanger takes room air full of smells and moisture and drags it through the contaminated inside of the heat exchanger draws the same amount of clean air in via the clean air side and adjusts its temerature to that enabled by the heat exchange. some units also dehumidify & de dust the incoming fresh air to to a suitable /acceptable level .

You pipe the clean warmed /adjusted air into each room from a multi port manifold usually situated in the roof void and flex it about in aluminium tubes down to floor level using things like wardrobes and reveals to hide the tubes which are normally also boxed in .
The evacuation route is often at ceiling levels .

Some of the modern houses are using such systems and are pressure tested for integrity .. Their heating bills are a fraction of a house over 20 years old .

 

[pidgeon chit welder]

I like this idea of using as many systems as you can to try and not only reduce your energy costs but to gain as much segregation of supply as possible.
So you are not held to ransom by unions or other countries etc.

I don't think it will be long before we see the introduction of 12 volt heat pumps and 12 volt ground pump systems , that will really focus people minds to build multi input low voltage power distribution systems that will power the latest battery technology and use the battery storage for converting some of the energy into 240 volts for the few things that will not work with out it .

We may still see the house with an incoming 240 supply & sockets through out but we will be wiring to 12 volt for all sorts of things as well..

I recently sayw a £6500 solar water heating system running a 10 bed eco retreat, two small wind generators and several photovoltaic units gave power for lights and TV via batteries . The hot tank was massive some 2 mtrs wide and tall with 100 mm or more of green spray foam on it , all pipe work was massively insulated.

Some of the ground pump systems and air heat pumps provide massive amounts of heat for very little cost over the 20 yrs or more of their expected life.

I have changed all but 16 bulbs in my home (total of 47 bulbs ) into low volts mainly using GU10 fittings with led bulbs or gu10 fluro tubes or 10 watt or 20 watt G4 12 volt transformed down units. We still have 3 units x 4 x 60 watt 240 v bulbs hall light units with G9 (?) bulbs and four 240v 50 watt GU10 in the spare bed room .

Soon we will be seeing 100 LED bulbs on the market with enough different coloured Leds & luminescence to give a fantastic light at a few pounds rather than £15 or so each .( UK invention ) ..... keep looking on ebay for them .

Our electricity bill has tumbled to almost 2/3 or the previous ones , the power company have asked us to reduce our standing order.

 

[tigler]

The heat exchanger takes room air full of smells and moisture and drags it through the contaminated inside of the heat exchanger draws the same amount of clean air in via the clean air side and adjusts its temerature to that enabled by the heat exchange. some units also dehumidify & de dust the incoming fresh air to to a suitable /acceptable level .

You pipe the clean warmed /adjusted air into each room from a multi port manifold usually situated in the roof void and flex it about in aluminium tubes down to floor level using things like wardrobes and reveals to hide the tubes which are normally also boxed in .
The evacuation route is often at ceiling levels .

Some of the modern houses are using such systems and are pressure tested for integrity .. Their heating bills are a fraction of a house over 20 years old .

Thanks, which make of system is that please ?

 

[piman]

Hello Tigler,

I have just installed such a system in my extension, I dealt with :- http://www.cvcdirect.co.uk/. Click on the house ventilation button.

Small family firm and very helpful.

Alec

 

[pidgeon chit welder]

Thanks, which make of system is that please ?

There are all sorts of systems from B&Q diy to expensive professionally installed ,Wicks builders merchants did have everything and also gave guidence for doing it the choice is yours .
Google or follow any of the leads the guys put up.

I looked at the link given and eventually clicked on " whole house ventilation "... prices look reasonable.

If you do install make sure you put the exchanger and filter unit in a place that you can easily access for you do have to clean the filters. The last thing you want to do once it is all set up and the roof void is fully insulated is go clawing about in the roof void wrecking the roof's insulation .