December Results are in . . .

For the month of December we made  228KWH of electricity.  That includes being down from Dec 6 -12.  That means we saved $35 off our electric bill this month and we had a lot of windy days.

Redriven gets a new investor

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/partner/redriven-power-inc/news/article/2010/12/new-capital-investment-boosts-canadian-wind-turbine-company





Good news, Redriven has a new investor to help the business grow. It says that Redriven is "positioned as the 6th largest small wind manufacturer worldwide based on kW of sales".

We are up and running again!

 Parker and Scott were here yesterday. They worked very hard on a bitterly cold day and evening. The problem was that the computer in the Nacelle lost it programming. They couldn’t get it to reload, so they replaced it.


We checked the production meter before and after raising the tower. It seems that lowering the tower takes about 1KWHs and bringing it back up is about 1.5 KWHs.

Down again

We got another Nacelle fault and it won't clear or startup again.   We were really starting to make some power too.

Starting to Crank Out power now

In the last week we've cranked out 88KWHs.

November Results

This month the wind turbine was down more than up but in the last two days we have made more power than we did last month. The new Redriven system seems to be much better at reducing the parasitic power needed to just keep the system up.



This month the production meter that tracks the power that we can use read 85KWH.  51 KWH were produced  just yesterday.

The inverts combined for the month made 131 KWH. I believe a lot of that power was used to raise and lower the tower. I think we lowered and raised the tower about 5 times this month. I'm not exactly sure how much power that uses but with the weight of that tower if has to be significate.


Here is the wind chart  from a neighborhood weather station. We missed a bunch of great wind days this month but last two days were really windy.

Thanksgiving day

Happy Thanksgiving United States readers! I’m very thankful that both Rural Wind & and Electric (Rodney and James) plus Redriven (Dave and Scott) were here for the last two days working hard to resolve the issues with our wind turbine. They replaced a cable that was 6 wire unshielded with a cable with 2 shields and 2 twisted pair cable. This cable replacement significantly reduced the noise and raised the control signal. Dave from Redriven also programed some checks (firmware 2.05) so the system will automatically reset on the over-speed error that we just started getting.

Now our wind turbine is back making power better than ever. Since they left yesterday, we have had no errors at all. Plus now at 3.75 miles per hour the meter stands still (no gain no loss). If you remember, with the older system, the meter stood still at 8 miles per hour. This means that when the wind turbine is slowly turning we will now have a net gain rather than a loss. The parasitic loss is now about 300 watts, we think it was about 600 –to 800 watts with the older control system. This should do great things for our power production.

Redriven was here this week.

Redriven was here Tuesday and Wednesday this week. They got the wind turbine running Tuesday afternoon but night we started getting contiunous nacelle faults.  The next day they came back but couldn't get the errors to stop.  They now think the wiring between the controller and the nacelle is picking up interference.  They said they would be back this coming week to work on it again. I think replacing the controller cable to the nacelle.   It kills me that we are missing all of this great wind, this would have been the best month ever.

We're off line again

The wind turbine worked for about two days.  As luck would have it no wind days.  On the third day a little wind and we got a Nacelle fault.  Resetting it got it working again for a whole day.   The next day we got a DV error (Dog Vane- I think?) and then another Nacelle fault.  We have been unable to get it started back up.  The anemometer shows no wind even when there is wind.  So now we have everything turn off and are waiting for the next fix.

Windturbine back on line

Parker came back Wednesday afternoon and work past dark getting our wind turbine running again. He put in another external power supply in the nacell. Of course since that time there has been no wind at all to test it out.  Hopefully, there will be some tomorrow.



October Results

Unfortunately, this  months results were worse than last month – Only 49KWH.   I can't give you the amount of power the Inverters made  this month, since they need to be powered up to get the stats. The inverters have been off for the last few days.  As you can see from the weather chart, there were some good wind gusts, but we missed a lot of days too.

This month we had a couple of issues with the wind turbine. My job (that pays) has been very busy, so I haven’t had much time for posting. The weekend of Oct 9th, the turbine would turn its self off. At first every few hours and then every hour. My husband set up a camera on it so we could easily watch it. We hoped we would see some kind of pattern or symptom just before it stopped, plus with the camera,we would know when it needed a reboot. It would always come back with when you power it off and back on.   Rodney, our installer was convinced it was the power supply, but it was Canadian Thanksgiving on monday, so it would be hard to get an new power supply.   Then on Sunday night it just died and wouldn't come back. It was off for about 5 days, then one windy day we tried it again and it worked. It would work for about a day or two at a time for about week. I think we made all of that 49KWH that week. 

Parker from Redriven came out last weekend and gave us the upgrade to the “long board”  they have been working on.  He worked all weekend to get us going on the new system. 

It included replacements of almost everything in the controller box, and upgrade to the controller program, a new Anemometer and a new power supply.  ( I'll write more about this when I have more time)


The new system ran for about 2 days (with barely any wind) the good news is that the new power supply in the nacelle uses much less power. So when there was no wind those two days we hardly lost any  power. Parker also made us a switch and taught us how to take the turbine up and down.  the first time it went up I was was to busy taking pictures ( that didn't come out ) to pay attention to how to bring it up. 

Parker say he will be back tomorrow with a fix. Unfortunately, today was one of the windiest days we’ve had since we got the turbine.

Three issues with the wind turbine but fast response to our call

Yesterday, my husband noticed that it was windy but the wind turbine was not moving. He called Rodney and he came out today. They found three things that were wrong:


1) The Yaw break was burned up. Apparently it had been permanently on for the last two months, but this break will not be used until we get the new controller card.

2) There were some loose connections on the Yaw relays.

3) The a power supply needed to be moved in order to get more ventilation in the head.


It was impressive that Rodney came the next day after we called him. We are about 3 hours away from him. Hopefully, fixing these things will also help to reduce the power needed to run the turbine.

September Stats are in . . .

First the good news . . . The winds were much better this month.

The combined Inverters made a 357KWHs !

Now the not so great news . . .  The wind turbine again used up a lot of power.  Our total wind production was 83KWH.  This is the power left over for our personal use.   We're hoping to do even better next month with the wind stop setting increased.

New settings and info on power use

We had a surprise visit from Parker from Redriven Tuesday. He made some adjustments and explained some of the settings so we'll use less power in low winds. He also hooked up the inverters so they will show in WindView.  (more on that later)   Below is a picture of how the wind settings are now.  Also, the units of measurement, definitions of what they mean, plus why that are set that way.


Parker told us that when we get the new controller, the break which now takes a lot of energy to remain open (off)  will use less power to stay open.  Now with the old controller, we are using full power to keep the break off.  This means we'll see some energy improvements when we get he new controller. Maybe we'll be able to run the turbine next August without paying the grid for power.

Here are the definitions of the Wind settings.

Thank you Parker for helping all of us understand what the settings mean

Start wind = 6 mph that means when the anemometer shows 6 mph the start timer will start counting

Start time =60 seconds this mean the anemometer must show 6 mph for a count of  60 seconds to before it starts to hunt for the direction of the wind. The yaw motor will kick in and move the head to the right position. Moving it prior to that value is not worth the power it takes to move the head head with the yaw motor.

Stop wind = 5 mph this means that if the wind = 5 mph the stop wind counter will come on. We had this at 1 which meant it was always hunting.

Stop time =300 seconds. This means if the wind is below 5 mph for 300 second or 5 minutes it will stop hunting for the wind direction.

Max wind = 30.0 mph ( Changed from 25 mph)  When the wind value from the Anemometer exceeds this speed, the system will automatically go into “OVERWIND” which shuts down the system.  It  shuts down by turning  90 degrees out of the wind and stops the blades via a contactor on the AC 3-Phase side in the controller.


Max time =When the Anemometer reads a wind speed LESS THAN “Max Wind” for the “Max Time” value (10 minutes) the system will restart.  This allows the system to stay out of the wind in an OVERWIND condition as long as it sees 30mph+.  The timer starts once the wind comes down below the “Max Wind” setting because if the system gusts back up above 30, it will continue to maintain out of the wind and shutoff.  The logic is, if the wind stays down below the “Max Wind” setting long enough (10 minutes as predicated by the Max Time value) then the system is good to restart without the threat of an OVERWIND situation.  OVERWIND is the only Automatically restarting fault condition.  Max time means that when the Anemometer reads a wind speed LESS THAN “Max Wind” for the “Max Time” value (10 minutes) the system will restart.  This allows the system to stay out of the wind in an OVERWIND condition as long as it sees 30mph+.  The timer starts once the wind comes down below the “Max Wind” setting because if the system gusts back up above 30, it will continue to maintain out of the wind and shutoff.  The logic is, if the wind stays down below the “Max Wind” setting long enough (10 minutes as predicated by the Max Time value) then the system is good to restart without the threat of an OVERWIND situation.  OVERWIND is the only Automatically restarting fault condition.

 All inverters low = 200  - This setting is not used
All inverters high = 250 - This setting is not used
All inverter high timer= 5 seconds    This setting is not used
The inverter controls are set in the Inverter


Min Voltage = 250 V When the controller sees a value greater than 250 volt being produced from the Turbine, it says “I’m over producing and the turbine needs to turn slightly out of the wind”. This setting correlates with “Turn Out Degrees and Turn Out Time” settings from Yaw Control Settings page. (see picture  below)

Max Voltage = 295 V
Once the AC Peak exceeds 295 Volts (Max Voltage setting) for 2 seconds (Turn Out Time setting), it will rotate 15 degrees  (Turn out degrees) out of the wind. This will be seen on the controller main screen because the “Desired Orientation” direction indicator on the top right side (green arrow clock type thing) of the controller will say 165 or 195 degrees, indicating that the turbine no longer wants to be 180 degrees relative into the wind, but rather at a 15 degree off-set. The turbine will continue to turn out at  15 degree intervals as long as it continues to see AC volts >295. The system will wait 20 seconds (see pic below -Turn hold)  between each attempt to turn farther out. That way it has a chance to see if the change in orientation has allowed the turbine to make 295 volts or less.  see Min Voltage for more detail

 Regulation window = 20 Volts is a setting that dictates to the controller when the turbine should be sending voltage to the dummy load and how much. When the turbine starts to over produce power (anything over Max Voltage) not only will it turn out, but it will send some voltage to the Resistive Load to aid in slowing the turbine down. Reg Window basically means that in a window of 20 volts from Max Voltage (in this case 295-315), the turbine will send 0-100% of the power being made to that Resistive load. So for instance, if it was 5 volts over 295 volts, 5 is 25% of 20, so it would send 25% of the power being made to the resistive load.

 Over voltage = 350V Over voltage will shut down the system into an “OVERVOLT” fault, 90 degrees turn out and shut down the blades.  The logic here is that “at 350v production, we have not been able to turn out far enough, and we are sending 100% of the power being produced back to the resistive loads to act as brakes, and we’re still over producing, we need to shutdown”.  The system will shutdown and display an OVERVOLT fault and will not restart until someone manually restarts it using the E-Stop button.

Min Voltage = 250 Volts   When the turbine turns out due to being over Max Voltage, for instance lets say its at 165 degrees, a 15 degree off set, when the turbine comes down below 250 V for the “Turn In Time” value from the Yaw Control setting page (see below), it will turn back towards the wind 5 degrees, which is the “Turn In Degree” value. The logic here is that “We’ve turned out due to over production, but now we are under producing because we are below 250 V so it must be safe to come back into the wind.” It will continue to turn back into the wind as long as the Voltage remains below 250V until to comes back to 180 degree orientation.

Max frequency = 30 Max Frequency measures revolutions, but it’s based on the AC Sine Waves coming from the turbine rather than blade rotations as you might assume. Basically, this does the same thing as Max Voltage. If the turbine sees rotation over a frequency of 30, it will begin to throw power again to the Resistive Load. There is no reg window for this setting, so it goes from 0-100% based on the gap between Max Freq and Over Freq. This acts as a secondary safety behind the braking it does based on voltage production.

Over frequency= 38 If the turbine ever hits a frequency of 38, it will go into an “OVERSPEED” fault and shutdown, 90 degrees out of the wind, blades stopped.  This is also need a manual restart.

Phase balance= 50V  This measures the difference in voltage between the phases.  I believe that when there is a difference of 50 V between any two phases, the system shuts down and indicates that one of the Phases may be bad.


UPS restart = 120 second. Restart is used when there is a battery backup system (I don't have one) . If there is a grid failure, normally everything will shut off. Controller, Inverters, everything. The system won’t make power, but it won’t be able to turn out of the wind and change that orientation as the wind direction changes. With a Battery Backup system, the controller would still receive power, and be able to continue to turn the turbine to maintain a 90 degree off set orientation. The UPS Restart would say that it needs to see grid power for 2 minutes, it knows power is back and will restart the turbine.

The Yaw Control Settings Menu

46 KWH in one day!

September is off to a good start!  

We finally had wind and we made 46KWH in one day!

The one month results are in

No drum roll please . . . Since National Grid was here July 27 – call that day 0, we are @ negative 67 kwh. Yes, when there is no wind, you use more power than you make. This month we’ve had a few windy days where we made some power, but we’ve had many more where there was no wind at all.



Where did I get the -67 KWH  reading from? NYSERDA requires the installer to include a meter that measures power going to the grid. This meter goes both ways too. On a windy day it increases and on a no wind day is shows that we are using power from the grid to run the turbine. Unfortunalty, this month we've had a lot of no wind days.

This is a graph from a very close by weather station that shows the winds for August.


I emailed Re-driven to see if they are working on some adjustments in the newest controller software to cut down on the power usage during no wind days. Here is an example of what we were experiencing; We were eating dinner outside on our deck the other night. It was a summer evening without a drop of wind. While we ate, over about a 20 minutes period, the yaw motor turned the turbine twice. I’m assuming it takes a lot of power to move that heavy turbine head and there was no apparent reason to move it. Redriven asked that I move my wind start setting from 2 to 4. (see below pre -change) I just did this yesterday. Hopefully, that will cut down on running the yaw motor when there is no hope of making power.

I finally read the Aurora inverter owner’s manual. One thing I learned was how to set the currency to USD (US Dollars) from EUR (Euros). I like to think of myself as a citizen of the world, but I pay for most things at my house in USD. I’ve also learned how see th amount of power we’ve made in the last 30 days. This excludes the power used to run the wind turbine and associated equipment.


Inverter output


Inverter #1 97.6 kwh

Inverter #2 87.6 kwh

185.2 kwh


It makes sense that Inverter #1 has is reading more power. They are programed to have # 1 come on line first, only after it hits a threshold does # 2 go on line.  This is to save power I believe.


Originally, I was using 9 cents per KWH when I calculated the pay back. Now that I further exam my bill for the exact cost it takes some calculation. The price of power is 6.4 cents per KWH. I get some renewable energy from Green Mountain for 1.6 cents extra charge and the delivery charge from National grid of 5.3 cents per KWH. Also some taxes and the SBC/RPS. This would put my real delivered cost at 15 cents per KWH. I’ll have to use this new figure when I figure out my payback again – after we get some wind.


Delivery 5.3
Delivery Adj. 0.983
Incr Stat Ass 0.307
SBC/RPS 0.594
Tax 0.14368

Electric supply 6.44
Renewable service 1.6
-----------------------------
Total cents per KWH 15.36768


That .59 cents SBC/RPS is the charge that helped NYSERDA pay for their portion of my wind turbine cost. Thank you to all of you that have paid for my wind turbine with your RSP charge for electricity use! I have no idea what Incr State Ass - is about.

So at the end of one month, I’m now $10.29 behind. We could turn off the turbine for “no wind” days, but then we might miss some wind when we are away from the house or in the middle of the night. Maybe by changing the wind start setting from 2-4 will help too.


I still have great hopes for September, when the winds should pick up and we’ll have fewer no wind days eating up my power. You can see from the Inverter stats I'm making power on windy days.


Stay tuned.

ReDriven's Windview Performance

We had a few windy days in a row, so I was able to capture this from the WindView site. Unfortunately, the controller doesn't get data from the inverters, yet.  I believe they said that was coming in another version of the controller.   There is a place for the data from each inverter in the screen above.  You can connect a laptop to the inverters and get a report on those too.  The Inverter LCD screen gives you stats as well.  So far, our peak output was 6,107 watts on each inverter. That means it can produce  12,214 watts, but that is right be for it shuts down to protect it's self from winds that are too strong.   Soon it will be September and the wind will pick up again.  I never thought I would be looking forward to the end of summer.

Let the measuring begin!

Yesterday,  National Grid installed their meter that goes both ways for Net Metering. With last night's winds we have now offically reduced our power bill by 11kwh last night.

Here is the digital meter.  You can see what direction it is going by the way the LCD blinks.

10 days or less until I can connect to the grid!

T-10 days until I’m okay to connect to National Grid. I got an email from National Grid Friday that they will be here in 10 business days or less to connect us to the grid.




A few weeks ago I had to sign the agreement Form K

Niagara Mohawk, d/b/a National Grid,Standardized Contract For Interconnection of New Distributed Generation Units of 2 MW or Less, to be Operated in Parallel, Form K


This form,  in short, says that I agree that can disconnect me at any time they want . I can inturn disconnect from them too.

I had to spend another $ 150 dollars for an inspection of the wiring.

Here is the equipment wired in my garage. I guess it isn’t rocket science to figure out that all this equipment takes power to run, even when the wind is not blowing. So be prepared that if you start out in a low wind time of year you're going to use more than you produce just having the system running. You do have the option of just turning it off on days when you are sure that there will be no wind. Once I can turn the system on, I’ll let you know what wind speed is require to run the equipment without any power lost.

My wind turbine in operation

The electrical inspector was here today so that we can connect to the grid. (someday).  We had to power it up so he could see it running.  It was a great windy day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF8g09jVZ0E

I've finally got it!

Yes, the day I've been waiting for finally arrived. I've got my wind turbine and I love it.  It is quiet and it makes power with the lightest of winds.  

Here is part two of the Making for a Redriven Wind Turbine.

The video of the raising of the wind turbine didn't come out so great. Even with two camera angles.

New Narcell Cover.

Here is the new Narcelle cover. This is the first one out of the factory. ReDriven and Rual Wind and Generation were here Thursday.  They did the inverter and controller wiring and put on the cover.  ReDriven and Rual Wind will be coming back Monday to put on the blades and hopefully get this in the air!

The blades have arrived

My blades were delivered this week!  The truck couldn't make it up our driveway so my husband had to deliver them to the turbine site in his Tacoma pickup.

The holes on the blades

Don't match the holes on the turbine

I called Redriven  and they said the holes in the blades could be re-drilled to fit. Chris said that 4 holes fit, but I don't see that more than two would fit. He said we could get replacements later with the proper drillings.

Redriven was to call my installer to set up installation, but Rodney hadn't heard that from Redriven yet.

See my youtube video the Making of a wind turbine

I just posted my youtube video

 Check out how one of these  is put together.

The making of a Redriven Wind Turbine


I asked Rural Bolt and Wind for an update on the shipment of the blades. They said they were waiting for an email from Redriven. It seems my installer will not be passing on info by word of mouth about what Redriven tells them. I believe that means we won’t be getting any up dates. It seems that Redriven doesn’t put anything in writing.

Finally! Some parts installed see my install page.

Check out my new side page on the installation of my wind turbine. Don't get too excite yet still no blades.

See all the details on my Installation Page

Next week?

My installer is having a hard time getting someone to rent the equipment that can lift this new heavy tower into place. Maybe next week?  If anyone knows of a source for this in Upstate NY, let me know.  I don't think it is a crane that is needed. The equipment just has to move the tower off the truck and hold it in place to be bolted.

Installation Next Week?

My Installer says they are coming next week to put up my tower! Can I believe it?


As you can see I haven’t written in my blog for a long time. I was thoroughly discussed with this whole thing and thinking that I should have never done this. Two of my coworkers who ask me all the time “did you get your wind turbine yet?” Were sorry they asked when I started complaining to them. I realized the other day if only I had put my money in the stock market, it would have doubled by now. They told me that power generation companies always have in their contracts that the generator service providers must pay the cost of any down time or lost power. Doesn’t matter if the problem is late installation or malfunctions, if there is any down time they get paid for power lost. I didn’t expect this in my wildest dreams, but I did expect that if I’ve been waiting for a part since March that it would be delivered by now. Three months of lost power could pay for the cover to be Fedexed. Why was I waiting to get booked on the next slow boat from China? I decided to call the guy at the top. The very first person I called about Redriven almost 1.5 years ago was Christopher Grant, one of the owners of ReDriven.

I told Chris  that I was totally discussed that I’ve after a year and a half, all I have is a block of cement. He said he thought that all my parts had been delivered in Feb. but he wasn’t sure if my blades had the right drilling and that he would call me back.

When he called back he told me that all my parts were there and that he just wasn’t sure if the blades had the right holes drilled. There was a change in the bolt pattern in the blades so they fit the flange. He said that he had a temporary cover that could be used until the new improved cover was delivered. The Controller card I was waiting for could be by-passed and the old controller system could be used until the new controller card could be installed. He told me (as he told many of you when you called about my web site) that they were completely re-designing the system one piece at a time. First the Controller was redesigned before I put in my order, then the blades (see blade issue blog ). Next they re-designed the tower because of failing FEA (Finite Element Analyses). Last the turbine itself – hence the missing cover (one last part to be built). He said that the generator was now NEMA class H winding rated at 180 degrees Celsius.

About an hour after he verified that all my parts were there and I was ready to be installed, Ginny Weaver called and said they are coming next week and they would call later and tell me more details about what day. They need to rent some equipment to assemble the tower.

Christopher told me about this YouTube video that shows the new system that I will be getting. This shows the complete new tower base.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46xwwEKRYMs

The second video is a turbine that my installer put up. It says 80 meters, but it is really 80feet. Shows the turbine and top of the tower.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl4QQx6HfYQ

You see the tower is now one large hydraulic instead of two, the Nacelle has a different shape. I think he said the blue is the temporary cover. The blades look more aero dynamic. Chris said they hired an experienced engineer from LM Glasfiber to design them.

I used to scan the Internet weekly for any new Redrive information, but since the New Year, I guess I gave up hope that this would ever really happen. I stopped looking. People that commented on this site and I couldn’t believe that I still had nothing yet one year and four months later.


As you can see from my blog my installer has been stringing me along with “just a couple of weeks” since July 09. Instead of just telling me last July when NYSERDA approved my project that the manufacture was redesigning the whole thing and that is wouldn’t come for many more months, he kept telling me it was going to be 3 more weeks. Then my turbine was delivered in Feb, he kept telling me a few more weeks. (Update 5-22-10 - my installer says that he was just telling me what ReDriven was telling him - read my May 22 blog and you will see why the installer seems more credible here than Redriven)


Redriven tells me they have a huge backlog of people waiting for their turbines. We are all in queue for a turbine with no published track record. I guess that is better than one with a poor track record.  Redriven says that the new design is much more reliable. We hope they are right.

I guess that my installer didn’t want to do my installation because he knew he would have to make a return trip or two when the real cover and controller came in. Which means a long drive for him and his crew. I guess I’ll have to hear his side of this. Truth is always better in the long run.

Chris Grant says the people at NYSERDA have always been updated on what was happening. I guess that is why they were not concerned about how long this was taking. They did call me about a month ago checking up on what was happening. They said they wanted to see if everyone is getting the same story.

Chris Grant from Redriven told me that they are submitting for the small wind certification and they’re seeing a much more reliable system with the new design. He said that updating the web site hasn’t been a priority for them. I guess it wouldn’t be a priority to let everyone know there is no history on the new turbine and they are fresh off the design bench.

De ja vu

More waiting . . . My installer told me now we are waiting for controller cards. This will take a few more weeks. Is it still called déjà vu when you think you have heard something 4 or 5 times before?

Waiting for Installaton

  More waiting! The snowstorm has gotten my installer behind schedule on the installs. He has put together one tower, but found that he is missing a head cover part, which could take a few more weeks to get.


Luckily, I didn’t count on the turbine being installed right away, so I renewed my building permit for another year. Let’s hope it goes in before Feb 2011!
I did make progress on the insurance front. By getting all my insurance through Nation Wide I was able to get a policy for the wind turbine and save money on my car and homeowners policy. Switching insurance companies is a real pain however. I just couldn’t stay with a company that would have cancelled my policy because I had a wind turbine on the same property as my house. I was just reading the mounds of paperwork. It seems I'm covered for Vandalism and Lighting strike with a huge deductable. I’m not covered for wind damage, earthquake,or volcanoes or nuclear bombs .

Turbine coming and insurance issues

I got a call from Rural Wind and Electric, they say the container is out of customs and will be delivered on Monday to their office.

Early this week, I didn't want to get my hopes up, but it appeared that I might get a turbine soon. So I gave my insurance agent a call. This summer when I thought my turbine would be coming soon ;) I called my insurance company and it was only going to be a few dollars on to my policy to add an “appurtenant structure” to the policy.

This time, however, it occurred to me that the wind turbine is really on a separate piece of land so there might be an issue with putting it on my homeowners policy.

The agent called today and said it is a good thing that the turbine is not on the same land. If it were, they would have to cancel my policy. There name, so you can avoid them, is Peerless Insurance.

He said they could write a liability policy for the land, as its own plot. He said that as long as there is a chance (Very small chance) that we might get a check back from National Grid that it is commercial not personal. Also, we should put a fence around it to keep out unwanted visitors too. We had a fence, but took it down when they started constructing the foundation. I guess we’ll need to put that back up.

It would be really bad to pay for insurance and find out after an event that you were really not covered, but I don’t want to over pay either.

My installer says the All State will put it in a home owners policy. But it looks like I'll need a separate policy for my land. I'd like to get more than just liability too.

Wind turbine will be delivered soon

I got a call from Rural Wind and Electric. They said my wind turbine and tower are in Newark NJ!