Finally it is Wind Pump for the Farm

Solar or Wind?.  Dilemma is finally over. It is wind that takes precedence over Solar at this time. Depending on vagaries of wind is risky, but I must take this.

Solar Solution still remains elusive. The most colorfully advertised, Happy farmers with perpetual smile, intellectually pleasing solution, scientific approach to green energy, yet it remains a mystery why on ground retailers are unable to close any deal. Most of the claims are turning out to be false.

I remember as a child, i have played with solar powered wrist watches, toys, calculators, PDAs and even ball point pen with digital watches. They used to work efficiently in doors under tube-light settings.  Now everything is gone. 40 years hence, even toys are hardly solar.  Instead of buying bundles of batteries in malls, we could have gone solar at-least for kinder-garden pendulum toys which consume less power. Rechargeable AA batteries using chemicals are still around with photographers frantically buying "power packs" instead of solar panels. Cellphones should have gone solar way. Still we search for power points in hotels, trains and airports.  (Solar) Panels could have been sold in mom and pop stores for everyday use. Huge solar thermal water heaters which are found on roof tops of every apartment could have actually become and replaced with sleek solar power generators. Yet nothing has happened in 40 years!.  Mystery ? yeh !  Presently let me keep that research aside.

One of the reasons not going for solar in first iteration is also to escape theft and vandalism.  My farm is not guarded in the night. Solar panels could attracts miscreants.

Coming to Wind energy, there are few companies who manufacture time tested wind pumps, whose proposals were duly compared. There may be other small scale companies fabricating pumps, but they were left this time for want of installation base, service and support. The list published by Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Sources on the manufacturers of "water-pumping windmills, aerogenerators, and wind–solar hybrid"  systems is laughable. Hardly anyone except Aureka has a working solution in this list. Two things I have never understood so far. a) how HR selects employees for promotion in a corporate. b) How Govt selects eligible applicants for their schemes.

My farm happens to be on high density wind area. Thanks to CWET (Centre for wind energy technology), this map is available for re-affirmation. The violet colour indicates high density and thankfully my farm is there.

Tinytech offered me Wind Pump, but Mehta said he has no time to support. If any repair comes you take care yourself. If I were at the farm, i could do that.  From remote location it is better to go safe way.  So I left it this time.  Aureka pump from Pondicherry was costing more for my budget. ABS was right in all respects including their good response. Both are UK design and time tested.  ABS windmills use Poldaw reciprocating wind pumps as against gear box driven pumps. They also use SKF ball bearnings which are available commonly. These attracted me besides other things.  It would have been good if good old American pumps as captured by Dorothy Ainsworth namely Sears & Roebuck, Aermotor, Dempster, and Baker Monitor were available. But unfortunately they are not available in India. I doubt even if it is available over there.

Courtesy : ABS

On the specification, the wind pump would have a 3.5 meter diameter rotor atop a 12 meter tower. There was an option to go for larger diameter, but to keep costs low....    Water to be drawn from 150 feet depth through a 6 cm dia pipe. I hope we should be able to build a 10,000+ liter water tank (to be designed yet) and pump the water at 5 meter above the ground level. From this, gravity should pull the water down to pipes for irrigation. Excess water from this tank should fall in another ground level large pool tank. This is the grand plan.  Presently planning to install the wind pump alone and allow it to stabilize.  The output will be taken to existing small tank and with rubber hose, irrigation to continue for some time before investing in piping network.

I am trying to contain the cost within Rs. 2.5 lacs to 3 lacs for total cost of ownership including everything.  THERE IS NO SUBSIDY for WIND PUMPs as I know, yet general opinion and intellectuals thinks that the Government and the World at large are favoring and incentivising renewable energy.  Perhaps policies are made for large Megawatt projects in both solar and wind sectors.  No one seems to care for marginal and poor farmers. Or they come with Gang Bang Plan of subsidy which will benefit God knows who. I would invite anyone who can give sensible consultancy on availing subsidy for small wind pump on the invoice that I would have already paid.

Presently ground preparation for installation to start any time this week. This marks an important milestone.

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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/-

Wind Energy

Having decided to fully explore the renewable energy sources for the farm, one of the proposals at the back of the mind was the Wind Energy.  I have seen many wind mills all over the place. Thirumala Hills have plenty of them. South of my native place, the entire villages around Aralvaimozhi is filled with wind mills generating commercial electricity.  The wind blows through a gap in western ghats from Kerala in those places.

Bu they are very giant size wind Mills. I believe each of them costs around Rs. 1 crore or more.  Not affordable.  I need a tiny and efficient one.  Searching the internet, one will find very few of them. The practical experience of purchasing and installation wind pumps of reasonable size are mentioned in few blogs like Point Return. 

Recently I chanced upon a manufacturer TinytechIndia in http://www.tinytechindia.com  located at Rajkot, Gujarat.  I am attracted by the simple and bold philosophy of its owner Shri Mr. V K Desai - For Renewable & Solar Energy.  He is marvellous.

This is TinyTechIndia Wind Pump

Has invited me to visit his plant and I am scheduled to travel next week to get a first hand experience of watching few things. a) Steam Engine b) Wind Pump  and c) Solar Concentrators.  All these are time tested, vintage technologies that will never fail. I am going to try atleast two of them.

Presently it is important to measure the wind speed at the farm. For this one needs an instrument called Anemometer. After doing some study and enquiries, I found a cheap and best anemometer in the market manufactured at Nashik. I have enquired for a "Cup Counter Anemometer".  This instrument will be tied to a pole and eracted in the farm. There will be a physical counter which will advance as the spindle rotates due to wind. Once a week we need to take the readings from this counter and estimate the wind speed or volume for the given time.

I just donot want to take a chance and want to be sure that there is some wind movement at any time of the day.

Anemometer : Courtesy Internet

The preference of wind over solar is that the wind is available day and night.  I just need some wind everyday to pump water from a depth of 40 feet.  My idea is that if giant size wind turbines weighing several tonnes can be rotated by wind, why can't a simple sail based fan run properly. Specifications say that we just need 10feet/sec wind speed. I want to measure this.  I hope to do this from next week, once the instrument reaches the site.