Experiments on Wind and Update on Wind Speed at Nachankulam - 3 Weeks

After 3 weeks of measurement at a height of 19 feet, the following are the findings. The wind Speed is averaging at 3 meters/second occassionally going upto 5 m/s. Day or night, there is no variation. It may be noted here that this is only average wind speed calculated over 12 hours span. Average 3 meters  means there could be periods of very low wind velocity say 0 and there could be periods of higher than 6 meters per second. That is good enough to pump water.

I guess if a wind pump is installed, it can take advantage of high wind intervals, pump and store the water at a height (Potential energy) to compensate for no wind hours. Day and night makes no difference for wind energy.



I estimate it should cost around Rs. 3 lacs in all to put a wind turbine which can sweep 5 meter diameter at a height of 12 meters (36 feet), complete with turbine, tower, water tank, installation, pumping and labour.

Meanwhile what I found by doing some experiments at home by making a small wind turbine (for my Son's high school science exhibit) is that generating electricity is less efficient than using the wind power directly. 



Wind Turbine out of Tin foil



Improvised by clipping, trimming
added color to exhibit

I had made a turbine cut out of tin foil and later improvished by clipping alternate wings (taking cue from ideal wind turbine design) to reduce drag.  The blade/disk is mounted on skating wheel which had a ball bearing supported through regular nut and bolt over a wooden plank. Once upon a time that wood was part of magazine shelf. 

This turbine is connected to a small mini motor extracted from a broken toy, through a rubber band.  A bobbin (extra from Sewing machine) helps hold the rubber band in place on the motor.   The motor is clamped to wooden stick with Lego toy metal piece and a normal school rubber cut in shape.  Now the windmill is ready. With a table fan in front or outside wind, this can operate at full speed.

Current generated was 1.5 volt not
enough to power LED

 With the current generated, I could NOT even fire a 3 Volt LED lamp !!. Unfortunately my entire time went in researching how to make a 1.5 volt LED using Joule thief circuit made out of scrap components and miserably failed. Finally I was able to prove generation of 1.5 volt and no more. Asked my son to find a multimeter at school to prove the point.  On the other hand, the wind turbine had such a physical strength when it was rotating (in front of a table fan) that I could not break the rotation so easily with my hand.   So i came to conclusion that ;

 a)   Generation of electricity is clean, has advantage it can be carried through a wire to another place.  But amout of mechanical energy converted into electrical is less.  Further storage of electricity during fertile wind period is inefficient because batteries can make energy loss. Cost per watt is also high.

b)   But raw power from wind turbine is very high and can be directly applied with levers to move things like operate a pump. Storage of water in the form of kinetic energy is highly efficient. Cost per watt equivalent is low.

So my vote is for wind pump and not wind turbine to reconfirm what i had posted in earlier postings.

End of story/-