ATA Report: The Viability of Domestic Wind Turbines for Urban Melbourne
ATA recently launched it’s report The Viability of Domestic Wind Turbines for Urban Melbourne which was prepared for Sustainability Victoria.
This report investigates the feasibility of small-scale, grid-connected wind turbines for urban Melbourne, outlines the findings of the research and highlights the issues which may face the emerging market.
Click here for the report.
Click here for the appendices.
Listen to our four speakers on the audio files below:
Kane Thornton ATA Vice President and MC for the evening.
Ken Guthrie Manager Renewable and Distributed Energy at Sustainability Victoria
Alicia Webb Wind engineer and author of the report.
Dominique La Fontaine CEO of the Clean Energy Council.
Executive Summary
Sustainability Victoria engaged the Alternative Technology Association to investigate the feasibility of small-scale, grid-connected wind turbines for urban Melbourne. This report outlines the findings of this research, highlighting issues which may face the emerging market for this technology, including turbine performance, planning and grid-connection.
Case studies of urban wind turbines overseas demonstrate poor economic performance and long payback periods, a problem frequently attributed to a lack of accurate wind measurement preceding installation. In cases where the wind regime is known, power curve data from manufacturers has been found to be inaccurate, and there is a lack of standardised testing done to verify these power curves.
Urban areas have, by the nature of their built-up topography, slower wind regimes than open rural areas. The number of obstacles in the path of the wind also makes it difficult to model the wind resource. Models and wind maps that do exist have a resolution far lower than the size of an average building, and turbulence can result in two adjacent locations having vastly different wind regimes.
Due to the difficulty of predicting wind resource in a given urban location, the report has found that the installation of anemometers to measure the wind in a potential location is recommended before considering any wind turbine installation. Anemometers are both affordable and available, and although collecting data for one year is ideal, compromises can be made for small domestic installations.
Planning requirements specifically targeting small-scale wind turbines in urban Melbourne are still some way off. The number of grid-connected wind turbines across the state is very small at present, and, as a result, councils are yet to produce any planning guidelines governing their installation. At this stage, turbines are treated on a case by case basis, resulting in little consistency. Turbines are likely to require more complex regulations than solar PV due to the nature of their construction; noise and aesthetics for example are certainly not an issue for solar photovoltaic systems.
Domestic wind turbines experience many of the same difficulties as solar photovoltaics when negotiating grid connection. Whilst much has been done with respect to standardisation of terms and conditions for connection with distribution businesses, electricity retailers still have very little standardisation in their procedures, and the cost of grid connection and new meters is large compared to the potential returns from domestic generation. Work is currently being done to rectify this situation for the growing solar photovoltaic market and any advances in regulations and procedures should also benefit domestic wind.
The desktop study successfully concluded that:
- the urban environment is too complex to model with any accuracy; therefore
the use of anemometers would be advised to check the wind resource at any potential site - urban turbines have performed poorly overseas and payback periods are likely to be long
- bird strike and electromagnetic interference are unlikely to be significant
- turbines are still expensive, with installation and grid connection costs adding around $10,000 to the cost of the turbine
- at present, relatively few turbines are available on the Australian market and nearly all of these are horizontal axis machines
Due to the inherent limitations of a desktop study, further clarification on some issues would greatly benefit from a field trial. These include:
- specific local urban wind regimes
- technical performance of turbines and accuracy of manufacturer power curves
- noise output
- planning issues, for example height and noise restrictions and the ability of councils to process applications on a case by case basis
- grid connection issues particularly the negotiation of a retailer contract for the sale of excess electricity
- community acceptance of domestic wind turbines
From calculations performed using manufacturer power curves and approximations of system costs, it seems that there would be little value in installing a wind turbine in a location with wind speed less than 5m/s.
However, in suitably windy locations, wind turbines could prove an attractive alternative to solar photovoltaic power systems, with similar output and a lower capital cost. Finding out how much wind is necessary for this will require field trialling to see how individual turbines perform compared with manufacturers’ claimed power curves.
Individual locations with reasonable wind speeds can best be identified using anemometers. Although these locations can not be used to generalise a wind regime, they could be used in field trials to establish a base wind regime at which the economics of domestic
