- Doris - A thought experiment in progress (1) - Description
- Doris - A thought experiment in progress (2) - Energy Delivery
- Doris - A thought experiment in progress (3) - Storage Sensitivity
- Doris - A thought experiment in progress (4) - You have to do both
- Doris - A thought experiment in progress (5) - Good and Bad Years
- Doris - A thought experiment in progress (6) - The Mix
- Doris - A thought experiment in progress (7) - Climate
- Doris - A thought experiment in progress (8) - The winter problem
- Doris - A thought experiment in progress (9) - Going Offshore
It is important to remember that Doris is a computer simulation with some arbitrarily set parameters and rules, it exists only in the imagination and has no physical reality.
Back in 2007, before the financial crisis, some DIY superstores were offering small wind turbines. From what I remember, these had a nameplate rating around 1 kw (at 10 - 12 m/s, or 20 to 25 mph) and cost about £1,500 excluding mounting. They could be installed either on a pole (10m high (?)) or strapped to a chimney stack (not a good idea). Stories appeared in the press saying that they did not work too well and the take up was low.
There are several ways of working out the economics of a project, one of which is to watch how people behave, in the 1 km radius of where I live and walk my dog, I am not aware of any households with wind turbines, however, there are a lot with solar panels, mostly PV, but some thermal. Solar panels will do something useful in any reasonably open south facing location, but turbines are very sensitive to location.
When I first started messing with this stuff, it seemed that there was a lot of data to play with, however, this is a lot of good quality information about the wind around airports, but but not much about urban and rural areas. I have amused builders working nearby by standing in my backyard with a wind speed meter showing light airs when there is a gale blowing on the seafront a mile to the south. Whilst trying to understand the variation in wind speed, I did a couple of cycle rides with a wind speed meter.
One of these was around the town, pausing to estimated the average speed over a 3 minute interval in a several locations, public parks, the beach, the cliff above the beach and multi-story car parks, these estimates were then compared to the speed reported from an airfield a few km to the west which was about 16 knots. The result was this graph:
With exception one of the beach locations, the average speed was significantly less than at the airfield, equally significant was that nature of the wind which was often turbulent and gusty.
Another trip was up to the hills to the north of the town, I used the GPS on my phone to record the location of readings, which were then plotted on a contour map generated using data from the SRTM Space Shuttle mission and overlaid on Google Earth, the result was this map:
The figures are the ratio of the observed speed to that reported at the airfield. This can be summarized as the wind speed is higher on the ridges than in the valleys, maybe a space rocket was not needed for that observation.
The accuracy of the measurements displayed on both these graphics is not high, but I think they give a reasonable impression.
I'm not convinced that small wind turbines are suitable for dense urban housing, I have memories of the 1987 hurricane that passed through the south of England when the air was full of tiles, trees and other debris, bits of wind turbine would not have been a welcome addition. However, I am intrigued by some vertical axis designs that could be incorporated into a suitably strengthened roof. A rotating machine strapped to a Victorian chimney is something no man can face with equanimity.
Running a data set of urban wind through Doris gave this graph.
For this run, the wind generating capacity was reduced to 0.5 kw. The contribution for wind is significantly less than that of solar and does little to offset the seasonal nature of solar. The data set was randomly selected and I'm guessing that there could be a wide variation in results, for example, a house located at the top of a ridge, might get a significant yield from a small turbine, whilst one in a sheltered valley would get almost nothing.
Back in 2007, before the financial crisis, some DIY superstores were offering small wind turbines. From what I remember, these had a nameplate rating around 1 kw (at 10 - 12 m/s, or 20 to 25 mph) and cost about £1,500 excluding mounting. They could be installed either on a pole (10m high (?)) or strapped to a chimney stack (not a good idea). Stories appeared in the press saying that they did not work too well and the take up was low.
There are several ways of working out the economics of a project, one of which is to watch how people behave, in the 1 km radius of where I live and walk my dog, I am not aware of any households with wind turbines, however, there are a lot with solar panels, mostly PV, but some thermal. Solar panels will do something useful in any reasonably open south facing location, but turbines are very sensitive to location.
When I first started messing with this stuff, it seemed that there was a lot of data to play with, however, this is a lot of good quality information about the wind around airports, but but not much about urban and rural areas. I have amused builders working nearby by standing in my backyard with a wind speed meter showing light airs when there is a gale blowing on the seafront a mile to the south. Whilst trying to understand the variation in wind speed, I did a couple of cycle rides with a wind speed meter.
One of these was around the town, pausing to estimated the average speed over a 3 minute interval in a several locations, public parks, the beach, the cliff above the beach and multi-story car parks, these estimates were then compared to the speed reported from an airfield a few km to the west which was about 16 knots. The result was this graph:
Another trip was up to the hills to the north of the town, I used the GPS on my phone to record the location of readings, which were then plotted on a contour map generated using data from the SRTM Space Shuttle mission and overlaid on Google Earth, the result was this map:
The accuracy of the measurements displayed on both these graphics is not high, but I think they give a reasonable impression.
I'm not convinced that small wind turbines are suitable for dense urban housing, I have memories of the 1987 hurricane that passed through the south of England when the air was full of tiles, trees and other debris, bits of wind turbine would not have been a welcome addition. However, I am intrigued by some vertical axis designs that could be incorporated into a suitably strengthened roof. A rotating machine strapped to a Victorian chimney is something no man can face with equanimity.
Running a data set of urban wind through Doris gave this graph.
For this run, the wind generating capacity was reduced to 0.5 kw. The contribution for wind is significantly less than that of solar and does little to offset the seasonal nature of solar. The data set was randomly selected and I'm guessing that there could be a wide variation in results, for example, a house located at the top of a ridge, might get a significant yield from a small turbine, whilst one in a sheltered valley would get almost nothing.
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