Wind turbine potential

[joeorton]

Hi all,

I am very interested in the potential use of wind turbines to power a classroom at my school. I am an outdoor education instructor and love the idea of the green potential as well as the cost saving. I have recently built a classroom in our woods for both special needs and mainstream children to use and study the environment. Unfortunately we do not have any power in it. Any ideas??

MAny thanks,

Joe.

[Lancashire Lad]

Hi Joe, and welcome to WAB.

Probably going to put a damper on your enthusiasm here but - as an educational instructor, you must be aware that school environments are required to comply with many and varied legally enforceable regulations, just a very few of which being: Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, Electrical Safety in Schools (Electricity at Work Regulations 1989) guidance note GS23, legislation regarding electrical implications for DDA, fire alarms, emergency lighting, external lighting, security systems, – down to such things as lumen output levels and heights of switches and sockets etc. etc.

It seems strange that you are asking such a question having built the classroom, as the choice of primary power supply will have implications system wide. I am very surprised that detailed electrical installation proposals were not a requirement of obtaining planning permission and building regulations approvals.

As purely a personal opinion, I wouldn’t think wind power alone would be a viable option. You would need to site the turbine above tree height to catch the wind, (planning permission etc.). You would need suitable inverter and battery systems equipment to cater for the calculated demand and to store power – and, since low/no wind events might last for days or weeks, what contingency would there be? How often and for how long would the room be used? Would it be used year round? Do you install back-up generator or do you halt all activities in the room as and when the wind doesn’t blow? (Hardly conducive to structured lesson planning). These and many other things will need to be satisfactorily resolved (risk assessments etc. etc.) in order to meet the legislation.

As the implications are far reaching – and the employer, (in this case the teaching authority / school governors etc. etc.), would be held responsible if some non-compliance led to an accident, it would be wise to discuss the options with an appropriately qualified professional electrical consulting engineer / electrical systems designer. Failure to comply could be disastrous.

Regards,
Mike.

[STYRBJORN]

It strikes me that you have built a shack in the woods as a base from which to explore, study wildlife and so on. You really must check your legal position, especially WRT special needs children

[joeorton]

Hi all,

thanks for the replies. I had not thought about any of the aforementioned issues as it was originally meant to be a viewing room and has grown as our ideas have blossomed. I will put forward your suggestions and thoughts to the head of health and safety and hopefuly he will put he hand in the schools pocket!

If anyone has any other suggestions for alternative energy I would be more than happy to hear them!

Regards,

Joe.

[John D]

Originally Posted by joeorton

Hi all,

If anyone has any other suggestions for alternative energy I would be more than happy to hear them!

Regards,

Joe.

Joe, I suggest that before you even think about alternative energy sources, you take note of what has already been said and get EXPERT ADVICE on all aspects of safety, building regulations, electrical installations and rules associated with occupancy/use etc etc.
Safety is most important!

John D

[bigdave60dog]

Originally Posted by STYRBJORN

It strikes me that you have built a shack in the woods as a base from which to explore, study wildlife and so on. You really must check your legal position, especially WRT special needs children

Sounds great to me.
Can`t understand the fuss though. You will need to comply with building regs and planning permission. A "shadow flicker" survey may be needed for the wider area and more closely with the light flicker exacerbating epilepsy on some vulnerable children. There will be loads of these things but none that cannot be overcome. Contact a few firms that supply these. I found that the cheaper ones did not pay for themselves in their predicted lifetime.
Dick Strawbridge in "It`s not easy being green" bought an indian one off the internet. I have no idea if it was any good.
Get price on the one that you see as best then jump the hurdles one by one including funding. All of the research would be a brilliant school project I would think.
Dave

Sounds fine from where I am standing.
Dave

[joeorton]

Dave,

Thank you so much for those positive words!! Our head of health and safety would be checking everything and is hot on legal requirements.....my initial enquiry was simply if people could point me in the right direction!

If anyone else has any ideas......they would be gratefully recieved!!

Kind regards,

Joe.

[STYRBJORN]

Contact a firm that fits out narrowboats. They'll have all the griff on low-voltage lighting, heating, inverters &c. I think your best bet will be a little diesel jenny, in which case fuel storage will be an area needing attention. A lot of boats have supplementary wind driven jennies, so you could treat the diesel as baseload supply and use the turbine whenever possible.

Best of luck, it sounds like a great project.

Ric

[pressld2]

How thick are the trees? Do you get much light through? I'm wondering about solar panels. These will generate some power even on cloudy days but nothing at night if you had any plans for evening activities.

In an ideal world, for security of supply, you'd have turbines, solar panels, geothermal and chuck a water-wheel in the nearest river too. But the cost would be astronomical and you'd probably still end up falling back on the diesel genny occasionally.

"It's not easy being green". Ain't that the truth!

Dave P.

[williamswindtech]

you could get the kids to make some of these

‪WIND TURBINE BUILT FROM SCRAP FREE ENERGY‬‏ - YouTube