Re: Doug's account below:
   This is a very useful story. To this list of "reliable turbines" (based on long experience) I think we can add the Jacobs. Jacobs turbines were being installed on farms before electricity from the grid came to farms. Some reconditioned 50-year-old Jacobs are still in service (see Home Power Magazine). You can still buy the Jacobs and assuming it is fabricated today to the same standards as the past then it will be reliable. For all turbines we have to hope the fabrication standards are maintained each production year.

   Doug says: 'I would recommend: A Whisper 100 from SWWP, and a Bergey Excel 10 kW. Those are the only models I have seen are basically "set-it-and-forget-it",...'

I don't think you can characterize any turbine as 'set-it-and-forget-it" The Jacobs need an annual grease job of the gear box, the SWWP units need to be furled when it gets too windy, and the Excel will stop producing power if you ignore it because it needs manual resets when it overloads the inverter.

    All turbines last longer if annually serviced.
--Mel
 
--- In small-wind-home@yahoogroups.com, dael <dael4@...> wrote:
>
> Re: "ARI Green Energy" not responding to Charge Controller needinng
> Posted by: "dougselsam" doug@...   dougselsam
> Sun Jun 14, 2009 9:04 pm (PDT)
>
>
> Jim ah feel yer pain:
> I helped out with a different brand of Chinese turbine: a 20 kW model. I noticed you mentioned 40-50 mph winds being involved. Would it happen that it suddenly got very windy from a calm?

>
> It seems to me that these Chinese turbines have the same basic problem as most turbines:
>
> 1. Step 1 is designng a machine that can efficiently extract power from light and medium winds.
>
> 2. Step 2 is to place a bunch of them in the most punishing environments you can find - strong winds, brutal climate, and fine-tune your overspeed system so it never fails cuz if overspeed protection fails once, your whole system is toast.

>
> The problem is that step 2 is at least as much work as step 1, easy to just skip: only step 1 is needed to market wind turbines. Many manufacturers and marketers skip step 2, and assume it will all work out when it gets windy.

>
> Step 2 is not required until after the installation when 50 mph winds occur and the machine cannot turn out of the wind fast enough and it fries all the electronics. Then the solution may be to not answer the phone. (Step 3?)

>
> That is only one of many many problems most new machines are likely to see over their intermittent and probably short lifetimes. I've heard of broken blades for one thing. Maybe they are a stable enough platform that eventually someone will get one under control.

>
> They most likely have many problems that nobody will find out about until someone gets one to runs for a few years in a strong wind site. Some problem components will take a while to wear out. That is the nature of wind turbines. Someone has to have enough intestinal fortitude to relentlessly troubleshoot a turbine and a system til nothing can ever go wrong, and the Chinese are about 90% not there yet. Too many details all have to be perfect at once. That's why there are only a few brands worth considering, and within those brands, only a couple of really foolproof models, unless you are looking for an ongoing engineering project.

>
> Remember Kennetech? The largest manufacturer of wind turbines in the U.S. at one early point? And their turbines worked fine up in the swishy san francisco winds of altamont pass, but when they got down here for the hard-core southern=california pitcher-lip pouring the relatively cooler, more coastal air of bakersfield out onto the hot, dry tarmac of mojave airport, otherwise known as the Tehachapi extreme wind zone, these otherwise adequate Kennetech wind turbies failed at such a high rate that the company went bankrupt and went away.

> I created an electronic firewall so the damage would stop without making it to the high-quality yet voltage-delicate German inverters, so at least the inverters remained intact when the smoke cleared. In doing so I helped them get control of their machine electronically and they are off and running with that now, but I would expect to hear more problems with any turbine that hasn't got a few years of good reputation under its belt.

>
> I'd even say honestly that a good portion of which machines turn out to be reliable is luck - some models just hold up better than others, designed by the same person and looking similar. There are 2 models I would recommend: A Whisper 100 from SWWP, and a Bergey Excel 10 kW. Those are the only models I have seen are basically "set-it-and-forget-it", with a decent chance that the average owner afflicted with "consumeritis" will have a completely predictable and trouble-free experience with no surprises.

>
> There is an old saying in wind energy: "If it was easy, everybody would be doing it" - well now they are and it still isn't.

>
> Doug Selsam
> http://www.USWINDLABS.com
>

Mel Tyree, BA PhD (Cantab.) LLD (h.c.) FRSC
Professor
Department of Renewable Resources
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University of Alberta
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