fortis up 2 years

[Shaun Burgess]

Hi all . happy new year
my fortis montana has been running 2 years now. I lost out on 2 weeks last year with a earthing problem in the swa cable from turbine . the cable got cut on a lane crossing on the farm .There a post about it on the forum a while back. At the start i changed the furling system abit on the advise of Hugh Piggot.
1084
i think we have it furling to soon .As you can see it can be ajusted. But its great peace of mind, the max peak i have ever seen is around 4700watts. and Rob sent me a great power curve which helps also.. Here are sum numbers i recorded over the last few months
2-9-13 = 7430kwh
30-9-13=7726
1-11-13=8117
4-12-13=8416
31-12-13=8991
i have produced 8755kwh in the last 2 years .There was a few hundred kw from a smaller turbine at the start. the turbine is in Ireland . i dont have much to compare my numbers with .In Ireland there not that many turbines . are these numbers good or bad . should i push the turbine a little harder.. The electric company here only pays 10cents (euro) for every kwh exported and for the first 5 years they give us a bonus of 9 cents kwh on top of the 10cents. To buy a unit of electric cost 19cents .
I Think this is the reason theres so few turbines in Ireland. If any one is interested am living in Califorina For the last 8 months . what i did was set up a dericam ip camera think it cost around $80 its set to look at the lcd on the eurora inverter you can set the backlight on the inverter to stay on . .So i can check the inverter any time from here as the inverter goes throw in menu. It was the cheapest way i could do it . If any one would like to see it please pm and will send you a link and the password .
thanks for all the help over the last few years , SHAUN

[Rob Beckers]

Shaun, looks like it's working like a charm!

Do you happen to know the average annual wind speed for your location, and at what height is this? How high is your turbine tower? Is this near the coast or land-inward?

With those things it should be possible to calculate a rough number of what the turbine should produce annually (emphasize *rough* number). That'll give you an idea how yours is doing.

The other one is that if you have an anemometer on the tower (just below the turbine blades) and some way to log both wind speed and output power from the inverter simultaneously, you can then optimize the MPPT curve quite easily.

-RoB-

[Shaun Burgess]

Hi Rob
the turbine is about 165mtr above sea level on a 12mtr pole . And am around 20km inland
1086
The first picture is the way the wind blows most of because of the hills from this side i feel i lose out a bit. When the wind comes from the direction of the second picture i do very well .I would guess the avg wind speed is around 5mtr. Would you no what losses i have in the turbine to the inverter . There is 360mtr of 16 sq swa cable . Am sorry for my bad english . I should have listened more at school . thanks Shaun
1085

[Cor van Houtum]

Hello Shaun,
nice numbers

but you will find out that the backlight from the Aurora wil be dead after about 3 months

kind regards

Cor

[Shaun Burgess]

Just hit the 10000 units.. Wind hsa been crazy. Back light still working , Fingers crossed it stays working,
1098

[Rob Beckers]

Congratulations Shaun! That's a nice milestone.
Now go have a 'Redbreast' to celebrate (that's the only Irish whiskey I have, the rest here is Scotch)... :)

-RoB-

[Shaun Burgess]

Ya will have a large Jameson .