Another Featured Renewable Energy Generation System

As you've seen on here a few times before, I like to feature little renewable energy projects that are good not only for their owners and the environment, but also help spread the message by being conspicuous. I've talked about the ones in the pics below, at Walmart in Lowell AR, and also at St. Thomas' in Springdale. Feel free to click on the pictures to get a better view.

















Here is a new system that is set up right next to the freeway in Rolla MO. It consists of a Bergey Excel S 10 kW wind turbine, about 2 kW of solar panels and a weather station. It is part of a project by the University of Science and Technology. The setup is on the front lawn of the Highway Patrol Headquarters and its purpose will be to test the performance of the system as well as keep track of all sorts of weather stuff. To the left you can see the 10 216 watt solar panels.












Here is the brains of the operation, the inverters, weather station recorder, and whatever else. It's hard to see, but there is a rainfall recording device attached near the top of that yellow post next to the propane tank in the background. I assume it's wireless.






















Here is a picture looking up at the turbine and the anemometers of which there are three. No the tower is not straight, but it doesn't really matter as long as it doesn't fall over. For a little perspective which is hard to get standing next to the thing, it is on a 36.5 meter (120 feet) tower and the blades are 6.7 meters (22 feet) in diameter.













I didn't know what this was right off.


I had either never seen one before or never noticed. I did a little research and found out that it is a pyranometer which measures solar irradiance.














Here is the whole thing. It looks really good from the freeway. If you look up Bergeys, you'll find that this one has a custom paintjob as Bergeys have a very characteristic yellow to them. There's another one with original paint along the freeway in Springfield coming back from Lambert's that is on a monopole with a solar system with it too. I believe it is next to some sort of utilities office. Both excellent examples because a Bergey Excel is a great turbine for whole home service. One of these should easily be able to provide all the electricity for an efficient home in a moderate wind area. This unit is the grid connected unit, they also make a 7.5 kW low wind speed optimized unit for battery charging.













The wind was pretty heavy, so I decided to take a quick video to show how loud the wind turbine is. The problem is, I was standing right under the thing and it was no louder than the wind. In fact, on the video, it is virtually impossible to pick out the sound of the turbine. Admittedly, my digital camera does not have the best microphone.


Special thanks to the University of Science and Technology.
WiredForStereo