B&Q are selling a wind turbine for £1500.....does anyone know anything about them??

[Katymac]

Cos £1500 for 30% of my electric ......well I'll have 3

I don't think so - it's very difficult to get your supplier to put in a Reverse meter

But I do have fridge/freezer/washing machine & dishwasher going at night

Plus my underfloor heating is on at night (we are going to run it like a NSH)

Oh & my central heating pump wil be on at night as well

that makes more sense then, than it would in my house.

I think that if you have to use electric as your main sorce of heat - then it is a good move

I'm still not sure - but it is def. worth a bit more research

We looked into this and we came up with the same cost savings (25-30% per year). That's based on a house that uses 2.5 MWh per annum. We have been waiting ages for WindSave to get back to us, this is a fantastic MN tip, afaic.

The point of the site survey (included in B+Q price) is to check that the house is structurally sound enough to take it (sigh).

It won't be enough power to run the hoover, wash machine, kettle or microwave, but it will do the fridge, some lights, probably computer, too, all at once. Not sure about what happens to spillover, probably just feeds back into the grid. Costs ~£100-£200 to get a reverse meter put in, as you call it. DH really thinks we should have reverse meter as it's windiest here at night (but blows pretty hard all day in winter, too).

Blows a gale down the side of the house so we are very interested! Neighbour down the road has an anemonitor + I keep meaning to ask him what windspeeds he's recording (his house is less exposed than ours, too).

Flack - the elce co won't do the meter i tried - it's uneconomic to buy such a small amount of elec the admin costs too much

So sink it into a heat store (either a tank of hotwater/night storage heaters/underfloor heating) so it isn't wasted

depends on which elec company.

Really I'd rather use as much as poss anyway (as it's free)

The washing machine/dishwasher and battery chargers all go on at night as well stingy aren't I?

This is spagblog's DH....

I have a business supplying and installing renewable energy . I would say be very carefull buying wind generation,they need to be properly sized to site conditions also the 1kw system you are talking about meaans it's peak output at a certain wind speed, you are very unlikely to achieve this very often as wind is intermitent and can swirl .I would be happy to give advice only, to anyone interested in solar or wind energy

Oh hello Spagbol's hubby

I would like to chat - do you want to cat me or shall I cat you?

Hi (this is spagblog herself LOL) I don't know if I am set up for CATing, you could email us at solarwindsuk @ aol . com
DH would love the chance to talk about renewable energy

Spagblog's DH: when you say that the turbine should be "properly sized to site conditions" what happens if it's either A) too big, or B) too small? (assuming it's just a little too big or too small)

Have emailed

there are different ways to use wind energy 1 grid connect (connects thru an inverter to the mains supply)2 battery system (energy created stored in deep cycle batteries for use when needed) or a combination of both . you need to establish how much free energy you want to harness or what you want to run from it for this you need to understand how and when you use the electric e.g kettles use 1kw large demand same with some other appliances hairdryers etc.an average house may require 2.5kw in a day but winter will be different tumble dryers, lighting etc.if you wanted to run the whole house and your generator was to small you would still need to rely on utility companies, if to big initial outlay will be a lot higher 000's poor investment or if you had grid connection in theory you could sell it back to them but they charge you 14p for 1kw but only give you 2p for 1kw your making them more profit to sell on to someone else.you also need a cut out device so if they are working on the line you don't send electricity up the line .

Spagbol...can I talk to your DH?

I think he can help me....does he actually work with in the renewable industry?