MREA Energy Fair

[Windpower]

We went to the MREA Energy Fair today

http://www.the-mrea.org/energy_fair.php


220 miles up 220 miles back -- tired

but I attended some good lectures one on 'advanced PV' and another by a couple "otherpower" guys (Dan Bartmann and Dan Fink --there's a couple 'far out dudes, man' IYKWIM ) about home brewed windpower 

I was a great day

learned that sun trackers for PV will get you about 30% more energy -- at a price -- turns out to be a big price too

Me: What type and brand of batteries would you buy

Chris PV GUY:  "Well I would go big -- big is always better -- and I would want the batteries to have a red case and be made in Canada (wink wink Surrette)

the engineer/owner of a company showed us his tracker unit -- I looked at it and said -- OK great engineering solid construction -- I 'd pay $10,000 for it


WHAT!!  $26,000 for 16 panels 

I calculate that should pay back in about 38 years or so ---probably not going to live that long....
but the good thing is he really went into detail on how it worked

really slick

the controlller is an off-the-shelf comercial unit that has sunrise and sun set already programed in for every day of the year

no tracking the sun, just set it to full east at sunrise and move it in equal small steps to end at sun set then recycle for tomorrow

It included a angle adjust for the seasons that I think is overkill --- why not just adjust the angle every 2 months manually-- should work fine

it also had a novel chain drive

I think I am going to duplicate it should cost $2000 bucks tops

more later -- I'm beat

oh they have an old Jacobs running --it's probably 70 years old still cranking amps--it was running strong when the much newer 7 meter diameter high tech mill was just barely turning

average wind today was about 10 -13 mph