Power Predictor Results
Well, it’s about time I wrote a new post so here it is! I retrieved the Power Predictor from the mast on the 12th January after I had returned from my Christmas holiday in Hong Kong and Thailand. I must admit, I was a little anxious of whether the Power Predictor had stood up to the harsh weather conditions the UK had experienced whilst I’d been away, but I had nothing to worry about. Upon examining the device, the plastic cover was coated in ice particles and was completely misted up, but I soon managed to undo the clips and retrieve the memory card. I think the silicon moisture absorber pad, which comes inside the Power Predictor had done its job well! I was also a little worried that the battery might have run flat on me, considering I’d left it for 6 weeks in the very cold weather, but all was fine. A fellow Power Predictor user commented on one of my previous blog entries to say that the battery had run flat on him after only a few days, but this was because he had left the screen display on, instead of setting it to turn off after 5 seconds. I spoke to Toby from Better Generation the other day and he said that they are replacing the current battery the device is supplied with, with a long life Duracell one for extra piece of mind. But like I say, I didn’t experience any problems with low battery life.
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!
