Welcome to my blog where I talk about my experience researching Micro Wind Generator Systems (wind turbines under 50kw), and the Power Predictor wind anemometer. It was my lengthy research into wind turbines which led me to purchase a product called the Power Predictor wind anemometer, manufactured by a company called Better Generation. This blog documents my story so far…

“If you like, you can skip this post and go straight to the results!”

I stumbled across the Power Predictor whilst carrying out some research into the installation of a wind turbine on my girlfriend’s parents farm in the Peak District National Park. Rona & Geoff Cooper, from Common Barn Farm in Rainow, Cheshire had always wanted to install a wind turbine ever since I’ve known them, but due to busy work commitments and a hectic lifestyle, they have never found the time to investigate it further. It was inspiration gathered from a recent viewing of the highly acclaimed “The Age of Stupid” film, directed by Franny Armstrong that I decided to look into a greener lifestyle for myself and close family and friends, and spur me to take action into researching wind turbines.

Common Barn Farm sits in a very exposed position 1300ft above sea level, with gusting winds the daily norm, so Rona & Geoff always believed a wind turbine would be great addition to the farm. I believe they were always put off the idea because of the intense research and work involved in such a project such as applying for planning permission, deciding on which turbine to go for, which grants are available, how to sell electricity back to the grid and whether the Peak District National Park would actually approve it, not to mention can they actually afford it!

Common Barn Farm

Rona & Geoff operate a large working sheep farm with over 800 sheep, as well as two holiday cottages, five bed and breakfast rooms and a tea room, so you can imagine how busy they are and how much electricity they consume. Last year, the annual consumption for the entire property was 45,000 kw/h, which is very high considering the average household energy consumption is around the 3300 kw/h mark. High consumption brings high bills and with a poor economy at present, I felt that I would take the burden off Geoff & Rona’s shoulders, and begin the research into wind turbines myself.

Last Tuesday, I took time out from work and spent the entire day speaking to numerous wind turbine companies and green energy related organisations. My aim was to find out the following:

1. What is the average annual wind speed at Common Barn Farm and will this equate to be enough to power a wind turbine?
2. What grants & loans are available for a wind turbine in the Peak District National Park?
3. Which wind turbine should we have installed?
4. Will we actually get planning permission if we are in the Peak Park?
5. Which surveyor should we use?
6. Can we generate enough power to match current consumption levels?
7. Will we be able to sell excess power back to the grid, if so, how much is this likely to be?
8. How much will the government pay us to generate our own power?
9. How do Renewable Obligation Certificates work?
10. What is a G59/1 application?

Reading this you’re probably wondering why I am babbling on about all of these questions, rather than talking specifically about the Power Predictor. Well I just thought it would help if I explain the entire process which lead me to purchase the Power Predictor, to help you make a better informed decision on whether this product is right for you. Just bear with me for a little longer!

Anyway, you can see from the list generated above that there is a lot of information and research required when it comes to purchasing a micro wind generator system. I’m calling it a micro wind generator system rather than a wind turbine, because I’m referring to a wind turbine with a rated output of 50kw and under. I’ve been advised by the many wind turbine installers that when applying for planning, you should always refer to it as a micro wind generator system, because the words “wind turbine” seem to stir up an image of a wind farm, which in my case and probably yours, is not what you have in mind. But to make my life easier for typing purposes, from now I will be calling it a wind turbine!

After a long day of telephone conversations and endless browsing of renewable energy websites last Tuesday (17^th November 2009), I felt I had gathered enough information to relay back to Geoff & Rona the correct steps to take in installing a wind turbine. I’m not going to mention all of the details of my findings in this blog entry, rather just a summary, and will create new blog posts which go into more detail later on.

The initial step and also the most important one portrayed to me by the many experts in the field, was to gather accurate, average wind speed data for the location of where the wind turbine will be sited, to see whether a wind turbine would be suitable for powering the farm. You need an average annual wind speed of least 5 m/s for a wind turbine to be a viable source of renewable energy. You can check average wind speed data for your property by visiting the Wind Speed database on the Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) website: http://www.berr.gov.uk/windspeed-database/page27326.html.

The figure quoted for Common Barn Farm was 6.9 m/s at a height of 25m agl (above ground level). The database gives average figures for 10m, 25m and 45 m agl.

Click on the image below to enlarge.

Windspeed Database Query Results for Common Barn Farm

The problem with using the online database is that you only get data for a 1km grid square, which does not take into account buildings, hills, trees, telegraph poles etc…which cause turbulence and thus affect wind speeds. The data from the national wind speed database would be accurate if the land was flat and there was absolutely no objects in site, but this simply isn’t the case, so the only way of knowing for sure, is to measure the wind speed on your site yourself, using a wind cup anemometer.

The next step in the process is to arrange for an accredited surveyor to visit your property, so that they can analyse your land and view your current energy consumption from the grid, before recommending a suitable location and specific model of wind turbine. This step should probably be carried out before installing your wind anemometer, if your property is located within a large area of many acres. If you are just simply looking to install a wind turbine on the roof or side of your house within an urban area, measuring your wind speed first is probably the best option, but don’t quote me on this because I can only tell of my own personal experience of a large property; Common Barn Farm sits within 250 acres of land, meaning there are many possible positions for a wind turbine.  The location where you believe to be the best might in fact be quite the opposite if you haven’t factored in buildings, trees and turbulence created by steep hills. A survey will take out all the guess work in deciding where to site your anemometer and ultimately your wind turbine.

One surveyor advised by email, that the position of a wind turbine should be at least a lateral distance of 10 times the height of the obstruction, so with a 10m high building you need to be at the least 100m away. However, if you are located in a National Park like Geoff & Rona are, the location a surveyor suggests, will not necessarily be the location a planning officer agrees with. Nick Parsons from the South Yorkshire Energy Centre told me about another property called Stanedge Lodge in Sheffield, which is also in the Peak Park, which took approximately 5 years for planning permission to be granted. This was for a small 6kw Proven turbine, which in the end had to be painted green and sited close to a group of trees to camouflage it amongst the surrounding countryside. Ironically, this property is now on the front cover of the Peak District Renewable Energy leaflet!

We haven’t had a survey yet, but we are all off the opinion that we will have to compromise on the wind turbine location before planning is granted. We will probably have to compromise on the height and power output of the wind turbine too, so before we apply for planning, we are going to arrange an informal chat with our Local Planning Authority after a visit from a surveyor.

Once a survey is complete, a surveyor should be able to suggest an appropriate wind turbine based on the average annual wind speed for the proposed location, but for them to do this, they will have to have accurately measured the wind speed with an anemometer for at least 1 month, and ideally one year to take into account seasonally changes. On account of this, surveyors will often use the data from the wind speed database to recommend a wind turbine which will suit your property, in terms of annual output, max operating conditions and payback time. As previously mentioned, this method is pretty inaccurate, and you could end up with a wind turbine which doesn’t suit your property. This leads me onto the reasons why I chose the Power Predictor by Better Generation.

It was after a recommendation from Phil at the Energy Saving Trust and a subsequent telephone conversation with Gary Payne from Live Work Greener, who also praised the Power Predictor that I decided to look into this product and after my own research, purchase it.

You will probably have found this website after searching for more information on the Power Predictor, so you’ve probably a rough idea of what it does, but for those of you unfamiliar, I will explain. The Power Predictor, invented by Toby Hammond from Better Generation, is a wind cup anemometer with built in data logging facilities which allows you to upload your wind speed data which you have gathered from your property, to the Power Predictor website which analyses your recordings. The Power Predictor website converts the raw pulse data which is recorded from the device into meaningful m/s data, which will show you graphs of the wind speed for your property on different days of the month, for up to a maximum of 3 different locations, if you have decided to test different areas.

The best bit about the Power Predictor is the fact that their website holds up to date power output data for all the top wind turbine manufacturers and their different models of turbines. The wind speed data recorded from your property can be compared with the outputs for all the turbines in their database, giving you an accurate projection of which turbine would be best for your site in terms of the biggest financial and carbon savings and the fastest payback period. So if you are like me, in that you will probably have to keep moving the anemometer to test new locations which meet planning approval, you will be able to make an informed decision easily about which turbine to go far, if your new wind speed data is different to your previous reading.

Here’s a video animation of how the Power Predictor works:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I did look at other wind anemometer devices, but found that there wasn’t anything out there which really compared, especially at the price of £149.50. To me it was a no brainer, especially after the advice I received from the Energy Saving Trust. If you have watched the video above, you will have noticed that the Power Predictor can also collect solar data and compare it with the projected figures of leading solar panel manufacturers, in the same way it does for wind data.  This makes the Power Predictor even better value, as this will come in handy at later date, when I look at installing solar panels. After I’ve finished using it, I’m going to lend it to family members and friends who I’m sure will appreciate using it too.

I opted to buy the Power Predictor with the 6m extension cable, as we are planning on mounting our anemometer approximately 15m above the ground. The Power Predictor does however come with a 5m cable, so if you are able to mount the device somewhere with access by a ladder you should be fine without the extra 6m.

We are quite fortunate in that Stockport Radio Society use the land at Common Barn Farm to hold radio contests, so with their kind permission, we are going to mount the Power Predictor onto their radio mast which stands 50ft above ground level. We will still have you use a ladder to reach the memory card located in the data logging device, but this should be fine. I will let you know how we get on in later blog posts. If you don’t have anything suitable to mount your anemometer on, Better Generation also sell a 12m mast which is available from their website.

I ordered the Power Predictor on Saturday 21^st November 2009, and as soon as it arrives, I will update this blog with my findings and will continue to add new posts every time I download an update from the data logger. My next post will let you all know how easy the Power Predictor was to set up, and whether I had any problems.

To find out more information about the Power Predictor, please visit the Better Generation website, where you’ll find detailed spec lists and additional product features.

If you would like to stay update with my new blog entries detailing my Power Predictor findings, please add your name and email to my newsletter subscription box in the top right of this page.

I hope this blog entry has been useful to you and I haven’t bored you too much!

Until next time, Ben

So once the card had been removed, I headed over to my computer, fingers crossed, to upload the data. Again I was very anxious at this stage, as I was worried the Power Predictor might not have recorded anything, but I needn’t have worried, because there it was, a full six weeks worth of data. I clicked the upload button from my admin panel on the Powerpredictor.com website and waited in anticipation of the results.

Wind data for December

Once the data from the memory card had been interpreted, I was presented with a set of graphs which showed my average wind speed recordings for the month of December and the first 12 days of January. There was also a chart showing wind direction and a couple of graphs showing the solar energy recordings (which I wasn’t too interested in as my purpose was to gather data for a micro wind turbine).

Wind data for last 7 days

Wind data for last 24 hours

The average wind speed for our site was 6.1 m/s over the 6 week period, but the average for December was a mighty 6.4 m/s, with maximum wind speed recordings of approximately 17m/s! I knew our site was windy Now remember, the mast which I had the Power Predictor mounted to, was about 12m above the ground, so hopefully another 6 metres should see even better wind speeds. The Power Predictor site has a “Wind Sheer” graph showing what out wind speed will likely be at 15m and 18m (the same height as the towers the Gaia and Westwind Turbines are supplied with.

Wind Shear Graph

This leads me onto the next section of the PowerPredictor.com site; the Power Report.

Seasonal Power Report

For me, this tool was the most useful, as it used our 6 weeks worth of wind data to show the payback, capital cost and predicted energy output, CO2 savings and cost savings for the leading wind turbines on the market. It also lets you generate 2 reports; a seasonally adjusted report which uses 4 weeks worth of data (or more) to show what the estimated outputs would be over the 12 months, using model wind data which Better Generation have uploaded into their database. The second report is a real time report which as the name suggests, only shows predicted energy output, CO2 savings and cost savings for the month(s) you have recorded.

Real Time Power Report

So after selecting the Power Report, I was pretty excited to see what the table of data would show. As you can from the screenshot below of the seasonally adjusted report, the Endurance E-3120 50kW Wind Turbine came out top, but I chose to ignore this one, simply because it is way out of our league in terms of price and size. The next turbine down in the list is the Gaia Wind 11kW Wind Turbine followed closely by the Westwind 20kW Wind Turbine. For me, it was always going to be a choice of these two turbines, but after viewing this data, it would make more sense to choose the Gaia, especially at nearly £20,000 cheaper. My initial concern over the Gaia was the fact it is classed as a “Class 3” turbine, and I was worried about whether it would stand up to the harsh winds in the Peak Park, but after speaking with a quite a few experts in the field I’ve been reassured that it will be fine. In the beginning, I was adamant the Westwind 20kW would be the best turbine, simply because it comes into its own at higher wind speeds, where as the Gaia applies its breaks at around 12m/s, but looking at the data above, you can see that the Gaia would actually generate about 3500kW extra per year.

From this screen, you can also click on the name any of the turbines to view more specific data such as its Power Curve, and a detailed breakdown of costs and projected earnings if you were to install this specific turbine.

Gaia 11kW Power Curve

At your site data

In summary, I think you’ll see that the Power Predictor from Better Generation has been a very useful tool, which to be honest; I don’t think I could have done without. You can buy the Power Predictor from the Better Generation website, and I can assure you, it’ll be one of the best purchases you’ve made this year!

My next step now is to arrange a site survey, which will most likely be from a company called Segen who appear to have the most experience as well as the most installed turbines in the country. Please keep checking back to this blog to see how I get on or subscribe to updates by filling in your name and email address in the form on the right.

Good luck with your wind turbine project!

Prior to testing, the first task was to install the 9v PP3 battery which involves unscrewing the black plastic nut on the cable below the data logger, and carefully easing the logger out of its housing. I found the best way to do this was to gently push the cable at the base of the logger casing upwards, whilst gently pulling the logger upwards simultaneously.

Installing The Battery

Once the logger had left its housing, I inserted the battery and then pushed the logger back inside.

Set Date & Time

Once the battery has been inserted, the device does a countdown from 5 to 1, and then shows the current time, which is easily changed using the 2 buttons on the top of the device. Once the date and time have been set, the bottom row of the display shows two readings; the left reading is for wind speed and the right reading is for solar energy.

The Mast

You might remember from my first post, that Stockport Radio Society use the land at Common Barn Farm for radio contests, so we were quite fortunate that the Radio men were happy to install the Power Predictor on the top of their mast. Luckily, they have just finished a big worldwide competition and won’t be requiring the mast for 5 weeks, which leaves plently of time for me to gather some wind speed data to generate the Power Report. The mast can actually be erected to 60 ft, but this requires a great deal of time setting up and installing many guy ropes, so for the purpose of monitoring the wind speed, the mast was erected to about 45ft with just 3 short ropes.

The Mast

As you can see, Common Barn Farm is located in quite an exposed position

Erecting The Mast

Power Predictor Attached To The Mast

The Power Predictor bracket must point to North. If you look closely you will see a white label on the arm of the bracket which has an arrow pointing to North printed on it.

Erecting The Mast

The Mast Fully Erected At 45ft (approx 13 metres)

To accurately measure the wind speed, we really need to leave the Power Predictor for 12 months, changing the battery regularly, but my plan is to test 2 or 3 different locations at various heights for short periods of say 1 to 3 months. My next post won’t be until mid to late to Jan, as I am away on holiday for 3 weeks at the end of December. When I get back, I will upload the data to the Power Predictor website and let you know the findings of the Power Report, which will include carbon savings and annual energy generation estimates, as well as advice on which turbine to install.

For more information on the Power Predictor by Better Generation, please their website here: http://www.bettergeneration.com

Our plan is to test a few different locations at our site once we have been advised by a surveyor and a Peak Park planning officer on which location would be of satisfaction to both. As you might be aware of already, we anticipate a lengthy struggle in seeking planning permission in the Peak Park and feel we’ll have to compromise on the location of the wind turbine and also the size. The Power Predictor will allow us to test wind speeds for 3 different locations, and compare the data online thus simplifying the decision on which turbine to purchase if a compromise is required.

Here’s a list of the contents which I’ve copied from the outside of the box:

• 1 x Solar and wind gauge
• 1 x Waterproof data recorder
• 1 x 512mb SD memory card
• 1 x USB memory card reader
• 1 x 5m cable
• 1 x Mounting bracket with 2 cable ties
• 1 x User manual

There’s also a 9v pp3 battery supplied and a velcro strip for affixing the data recorder, but personally I think I’ll use a couple of additional cable ties too.

I’ve taken some photos of Power Predictor and the accessories to show what’s in the box. Please click on the images to see enlargements.

Power Predictor Box

Power Predictor Contents

Power Predictor Kit

Power Predictor Cup Anemometer

Power Predictor Data Logger

Power Predictor Data Logger Close Up

Power Predictor USB Pen

My first port of call whilst seeking out which grants were available for a farm in the Peak District National Park in Cheshire, was the Energy Saving Trust, who informed me about their Low Carbon Buildings Programme grant. I must point out now that the grants available to you will be dependent on your property type and location and my research was for the Peak Park only.

Low Carbon Buildings Programme

The Low Carbon Buildings Programme grant is available to domestic properties only and provides 30% of the installed cost of your micro generation technologies plus £1000 per k/w, up to a maximum of £2500 per property. To qualify for the grant, you must show that you have tried to make more your property more energy efficient by fitting energy saving light bulbs, loft and cavity wall insulation (where possible) and installed a thermostat control to your heating system. You must also use a Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) approved installer and equipment to qualify for the grant.

My first thoughts about this grant were whether a farm with two holiday cottages and five bed & breakfast rooms would qualify, and I was soon told that it wouldn’t. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised and not too bothered, because I felt that £2500 towards a £50,000 project wouldn’t have helped much really, but it would have at least been a little help. I spoke to a chap called James at the Low Carbon Buildings Programme  (0800 915 0990) who told me that there used to be a funding available for businesses, but this funding finished 2 years ago and there is no new proposed grant scheme. He also mentioned that when feed in tariffs are introduced in April 2010, funding for domestic wind turbine projects might become unavailable too.

Cheshire East Council

After browsing the internet for another half hour, I decided to ring our local council; Cheshire East to see if they provided any grants. After being transferred about 3 times between departments, I finally managed to speak to Keith Barry from the Climate Change department, who guess what, passed me onto to someone else! Anyway, I finally spoke to their housing Officer, Karen (01270 529699) after Keith transferred me through. Karen advised that Cheshire East Council were able to provide a £300 renewable energy grant.

Northwest Regional Development Agency

So my first two enquiries weren’t that successful really in helping to fund our wind turbine project. I carried on searching and came across the Northwest Regional Development Agency, who in my opinion, were very helpful indeed. I spoke with a lady called Gill (01768 861306) and after explaining the proposed project at Common Barn Farm, she advised of a grant from the Rural Development Programme of England (RDPE)

This is a grant funded jointly by the government and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. The maximum grant available here is £100,000 or 50% of the total cost of the micro generation technologies, whichever is lower. There is also another grant available called the Northwest Livestock Programme which is only available if you are not planning on selling excess power back to the grid. If you’ve read my first blog post (Why I bought the Power Predictor), you will know that we are in fact planning on selling our excess energy (if there is any) back to the grid. The Northwest Livestock programme grant provides 40% of the cost with a maximum of £8000 available. There is also cost of £150+ vat for an initial audit with this grant.

Gill agreed with me that the (RDPE) grant seemed the right one for Common Barn Farm, so she kindly emailed me an ‘Expression of Interest’ form to fill in, which is what they will use to check our eligibility for a grant. Gill also informed me that we must have planning permission in place first before making an official grant application.

Peak District Sustainable Development Fund

I felt quite chuffed after speaking with Gill, but I wasn’t ready to stop looking for additional grants, just in case we wouldn’t qualify for the RDPE. My next internet trail brought me to the Peak District Sustainable Development Fund and a chap called Richard Godley (01629 816312), under recommendation by Nick Parsons from the South Yorkshire Energy Centre. Richard advised me that funding was only available for community based projects such as schools, cubs and scout huts and village halls etc. Richard had plenty of advice about planning applications which I I’ll summarise below:

1. “You should try and prove the environmental impact is as low as possible”
2. “Show that you are reducing your carbon foot print, and try to demonstrate how much you can save in electricity consumption from the grid” (this is where the Power Predictor will come in handy)
3. “Explain that the wind turbine will act as an education tool to the B&B, holiday cottage and tea room customers”

Richard did stress though that we should arrange for a wildlife officer to assess the impact on bats and birds in the area, and also look at the impact it might have on the general public with regards to noise pollution, because there is a public footpath running through the fields adjacent to the farm.

Defra Diversification Grant

After speaking with Richard I discovered the Defra Diversification grant, but after speaking with them, they told me to speak with Business Innovation & Skills who subsequently advised me to speak to the Energy Saving Trust, who operate the Low Carbon Buildings Programme.

High Peak Border Leader Programme

The final grant I found out about was the High Peak Border Leader Programme for businesses, but unfortunately the village of Rainow lies outside of their boundary. The lady I spoke with there was called Amanda Brown (01629 816223)

So after a lot of investigating, I had managed to find one grant which could potentially provide 50% of the cost of the micro wind generation project, which I was very happy about, but this still left us with approximately £30000 to find of our own money, if we to get planning permission for the Westwind 20kw.

Obviously, we always anticipated that we would have to fund part of the project, but £30000 is a lot of money and Rona & Geoff are currently renovating a derelict barn for conversion to another holiday cottage, which is swamping all of their funds. I had already been advised by a few people that it wouldn’t be possible to have two grants funding 50% each so I began looking into loans, preferably interest free ones for further funding, which lead me to the Carbon Trust.

The Carbon Trust

The Carbon Trust has interest free loans available for businesses only. You need to have a SME enterprise which has been trading for at least 12 months with 1 years worth of accounts. The amount of money you can borrow is dependent on what your projected annual CO2 tonne savings are. You can receive £1000 per 1.5 tonnes of carbon saved, limited at 5 times your annual financial saving, because the loan must be paid back within 5 years. Any excess energy which is generated and sold back to the grid does not factor into the equation when working out your maximum loan. I was strongly advised by the Carbon Trust that we should have planning permission in place first, because the first instalment of the loan must be drawn no more than 3 months after they have approved your application.

The calculation is worked out by looking at your present annual consumption in kw/h and deducting your predicted saving in kw/h. The Carbon Trust Carbon Calculator uses the following formula to convert kw/h into CO2 tonnes:

0.537020 kg of CO2 = 1 kw/h

For example, Common Barn Farm currently uses 45,000 kw/h annually from the grid. At 11p per unit, this equates to an electric bill of £4950.00. If after installing a wind turbine, we are able to generate 30,000 kw/h from renewable energy, then assuming our usage is the same, our energy savings from the grid will be 15,000 kw/h. Using the online Carbon Trust calculator, this works out at annual saving of 16.11 tonnes of CO2 and £3300.00, with a maximum loan amount of £10,740.00 (16.11/1.5 x 1000) available.

As this loan is based on projected energy savings from the grid, the information required to make the calculation won’t be available until we have carried out a full in-depth survey of the site. Rona & Geoff would like to get the maximum loan available and to insure this happens; we need to know fairly accurately how much renewable energy we can generate.  If you’ve read my previous post on why I decided to purchase the Power Predictor, you will know that it was because we didn’t want to purchase a wind turbine based on the windspeed data from the Department for Business Innovation & Skills (BIS) website, due to it not factoring in turbulence creating by buildings and trees. Likewise, we don’t want to apply for a loan using the BIS data, as the calculation from the Carbon Trust will be based on the output data of a proposed wind turbine by a surveyor using estimate wind data. The turbine selected might not actually be suitable for our farm, and could have output levels far lower than what another turbine could produce, if we were to use accurate data gathered from an anemometer to select the best wind turbine, if you see what I mean.

This leads me onto another reason for purchasing the Power Predictor; especially considering the online software can compare payback times and average bill savings for the leading wind turbines on the market. The information retrieved from their reports should really help us get the maximum loan possible from the Carbon Trust, based on more accurate results.

You can find out more information about the Power Predictor by visiting the Better Generation website.