Decembers Results

Like the snow,  the wind is not coming this year.  So again not much power made. (see the chart below)

For the month we made 606KWH. Mistake -Sorry 320KWH

My husband was able to down load the latest long board and user interface code. Now Redriven can download code remotely to the tower, long board.  We have seen them do this several times - there is a warning on the main screen when it is getting a remote download.   We are now on version 356 according to windveiw.   Also since my last blog - Redriven had my husband change the Inverter numbers and they now read on windview.  Next windy day, I'll give you a screen shot on how that looks.

We had a problem with a rattle noise - we thought were the breaks. That rattling noise has stopped coming as frequently, but now there is an increasing loud vibration noise. It  sounds like a plane is landing in our yard.  Does anyone else have noise like that when the wind gets blowing hard?

Windview What can you see?

I received an email from a college professor that is the process of getting a  Redriven wind turbine for the college.  He asked about seeing the Wind view.   I thought I would post this so you can see why we don't look at Windview very often.  Our inverters are not connected, so there is not too much to see there.  My husband has it on his cell phone (iPhone). I can't get it to display on my Blackberry. Another reason I don't look too often as I can't get it on my work laptop any more.  The only browser that seems to work is Opera. I can't run that on my work PC.   It is much easier to look out the window to see if it is running.  If you are interested in how much power your making , you can't see it here. Take a look for yourself.

November Results

This month we’ve had a few issues with the software. It has been having errors in low wind and doing a lot of extra yawing. We’ve had to unwind it twice. Not huge issues but we missed a few hours of wind here and there when we were sleeping or away. There is a new version of software that should fix these low wind issues, but we were not able to get it to load. We’re hoping a tech will come by soon to upgrade us. With the next version of software, upgrading will be able to be done remotely they say.




This month we had a total of 286KWH of power. The average wind speed for the month was only 5 miles per hour.

Other news this month – I’m glad to see that NYSERDA still has Redriven listed as a choice. The more turbines they have in NY State the more access we will have to the technicians.

http://www.nyserda.ny.gov/Page-Sections/Renewables/Small-Wind/Eligible-Wind-Turbines.aspx

October a Record Breaking Month

Another record broken.  From Sept 27 to Oct. 27 We produced 408 KWH for the month. Average wind speed was 6.3 mph. The inverters recorded that they produced 529KWH for the month.  Also, we have been running without an outage since July!

Last Sunday Scott from Redriven was here and upgraded our system (Nacell, long board and HMI to version 3.34. 

This was not a big upgrade. You can now get live wind speed on the main screen . The new software has Internet connection capability again. The main screen now has RPM, MPS and Degrees. It also had better error handling so there will be few times when it completely shuts down based on faults alarms.  We've had it for 6 days and so far it seems better than the last code. 

Another New Best Day Ever Oct 15th.

The wind has picked up and so has the power we are making.  84KHW in a 24hour period.

Here is what the wind looks like for the period 6am to Midnight with an average wind speed of 15mph.

Absence of Wind Made for a Lackluster Month

The wind was abysmal this month. With the exception of a few good days, there wasn’t much wind at all. The average wind speed for the month was a mere 3.3 mph. The wind turbine just breaks even in that range. This month, all the blame should be placed on Mother Nature. The wind turbine was ready to go but with no wind , it couldn’t produce. September 13 was the exception for the month the new best day ever but it couldn't make up for a lackluster beginning and end to the month.


 This month we made a total of 69KWH.

Wind Sept 2011

New Best Day Ever! Sept 13th

We learned during hurricane Irene that constant change of wind direction and gust are the enemy of wind power making. Although there was a lot of wind, the hurricane was pretty useless for making power. The big gusts would shut the turbine down into protection mode and when the gust stopped the constantly changing direction made for inefficient capturing of the wind.



However, September 13, 2011 “The NEW Best Day Ever” had a near constant moderate wind speed of 9 miles per hour and a constant direction from the south west.

We measured from 6am Sept 13 to 6am Sept 14 we made 60KWH with an average that day of 8.9miles per hour. Looking at the graph, it looks like the power was really made from 10am on averaging a steady ~12mhp.

Wind graph for Sept 13 2011

Wind direction for Sept 13