SunEdison's Green "Home Wind" Push

Comment

Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on August 22, 2015 at 3:21pm

I wondered about why my friends have decided to move. They did say there was a large clearcutting (or nearly) going on down the ridge side toward the valley. They have had enough and are moving to Colorado, though they have family in Cortez, another project proposal may have been their tipping point.

Intelligence Control......... Do our elected officials? ;)

From some of the pictures I have seen, some have these devices atop the Generator Heads.

The two blade, and most smaller inexpensive types do not incorporate blade pitch controlling to allow for high wind operations, thus have to withstand full brunt of the forces causing many stresses on the blades and thrust forces on the bearings. This prematurely degrades the system's mechanics.

Though my point of posting the article was to show that they (major players) are now implying that it may be better to support home use of smaller systems, though with deceitful information when the math is completed. If they are also the sellers of these products, of various sizes, this may well be an attempt to get more capital for investment from those both on and off the grid. As with computers, the first models were, and still would be expensive. Those people provided seed funding for that which exists today. Each new step of a technology doing much the same, except renewable energy. Under the thought of losing PTC's and other credits, they may be looking toward that end, while fleecing the consumer. Reliability, maintenance, batteries, controllers, noise, ordinances, wavers, lightning strikes, and many other considerations should be of concern. At best these may break even, otherwise an expensive investment to a loss.  

Comment by Kathy Sherman on August 22, 2015 at 2:25pm

I think Accentech folks doing an acoustic study for extension of Beaver Ridge heard the facility clearly a half mile away too. Regarding the microturbines that I am talking about, parts of the sales pitch for passively following the wind instead of active yaw drive sounds good. It is too long since I have been a sailor but I do remember the dangers of wallowing in s following and dying wind over which I had little control versus sailing close to the wind over which I had sensitive control of direction via rudder and sail via ropes for main and jib. Turbines don't have an intelligent control. If the anenometers behind the vortex creating rotor are indeed what controls pitch, yaw, rotation rate, in the last five years or so those wind indicators have been found sorely wanting. But if they don't control, what does?

The microturbine that has been hell for families near and across the water, has a teeter mechanism that with mild wind sheer might be good, but this wind comes across the water, up over a steep (for MA, not Maine) bluff and hits 60 ft trees. No vegitation doesn't stop low frequencies and that close, I don't think it does a lot to block loud A-weighted noise.

NREL had some good stuff about small wind and how AWEA made up their own certification scheme that differs from IEC! And about microphone shielding - difference in what ear hears when it is under microphone artifact versus .wav file replay. A basic thing is that two-bladed downwind rotors spin faster. The two-bladers will be more susceptible to bad bends under wind shear and fatigue.

Comment by Eric A. Tuttle on August 22, 2015 at 10:19am

I have heard some of the two blade wind turbines, in need of bearing changes as they intermittently Squeal, and the noise they also make buzzing at different pitches and harmonics with echos off the trees and homes. I have also heard the turbines of Beaver Ridge, 1/2 mile away through a wooded area. Nothing I want to be around for either. Even Trees do not deaden all the noise. 

Comment by Kathy Sherman on August 22, 2015 at 1:08am

And noise pollution unless it is on vast, open/cleared estate. Some of those mictoturbines are the downwind two-bladed rotor configuration - the variety we are told made all those infrasound problems that are 'resolved now'. The upwind variety often does not get anywhere near nameplate at the wind speeds likely. If the UMaine 660 kW (or what?) doesn't produce, then these won't. We had a microturbine on a fairly exposed site at a regional tech school that saved about the CO2 equiv. of 13 trees. It was taken down finally.

There must be a tax credit expiring. SunEd in free fall. Mass Clean Energy Center CEO to join SunEd as COO. She was Deputy DEP Commissioner in Massachusetts who rolled out the MA DEP-DPH 'expert panel' review (Dora Mills) on turbine health impacts, and 'heard' the testimony at hearings on it. That still seems to be favorite of all 28 to 40 literature reviews, and we never heard that it had been formally accepted. But, Alicia was long gone from DEP over to MCEC to fix the horrible mess of turbines way too close and prepare for massive industrial wind offshore.

I think she will make a good COO, though, but too late. Investor confidence has to be really troubled by China's pull back from subsidizing its renewable manufacturers and its economic woes.