INSTALLING A WESTWIND TURBINE

For information on government subsidies available in W.A. for renewable energy installations domestic or remote see the website Office of Energy's website www.home.energy.wa.gov.au. For other information available on the web see our WESTWIND LINKS  page.

What is your wind strength?

In order to accurately predict how much energy a particular wind turbine will generate it is essential to know the average wind speed at the particular wind turbines site and height.

This rarely occurs with most small scale turbines because of the cost of monitoring and the associated equipment. If installing monitoring equipment is not practical, estimates can be obtained by contacting the nearest meteorological department and correlating the data to the particular installation site chosen.

In summary though, most people will think that their site is a lot windier than it actually is. It probably has to do with the fact that we most often notice the wind when it is blowing a gale. Westwind therefore recommends obtaining measured data at or nearby the site. You can then get an idea of the kWh per day each of Westwind's turbines will put out at that site. See our Daily Energy Output Curves.

Who can do the Job?

Installing a Westwind machine is not overly difficult but moderate practical expertise is needed. In general most of our customers have a professional installer to do it for them. Some of the ones that have dealt with Westwind in the past are included on the Installers and Agents list.  

Westwind itself does not undertake system design or installation, although we can provide some advice. Westwind prefers to direct efforts towards manufacturing the best small to medium sized wind turbines on the market. 

Battery Charging or Grid?

Westwind turbines can be installed as either stand alone battery charging systems or as grid connected systems. In general a grid connected system is not cost effective with small turbines such a Westwind manufactures. Usually grid connect machines are in the hundreds or thousands of kilowatts.

The Tower

For information on the towers available from Westwind see our section on towers.

Westwind towers are specifically designed for our range of turbines as well as conforming to the relevant design standards for steel structures.

The towers incorporate

• Upper and Lower terminal box (for connection of turbine and site power cables).

• Bolted flange connections between all tower pipe sections.

• Integrated guy wire attachments.

• Furling mechanism, including furling  cable brackets etc...

• Ginpole, sheaves and tow up cable for tilt up action.

The gin pole, guyed monopole, type tower that we manufacture is the only type that we recommend for use with our machines. Using free standing towers is usually expensive and makes servicing a real chore often leading to neglect of maintenance. Problems with towers being too stiff or too soft can also occur with non-Westwind designed towers.

The installation of a Westwind tower involves the following basic steps:

1. Select the best site for installing the tilt tower. See our section on site selection.

2. Lay five concrete foundation blocks, with special supplied foundation parts cast into them. Some common levels are critical. See our section on site selection.

3. Dig trench and lay power cable running to controller.

4. Install controller and attach to batteries.

5. Starting at central hinge, bolt all 6m long tower sections together. The larger towers will require some lifting equipment to do this (eg backhoe, HIAB)

6. Make off guy wires to correct lengths, and attach to tower.

7. Lift ginpole, with attached guys, into its vertical position and attach its two guys to the tower. The full length of tow up cable is also fed through the sheave block while this is performed, ready for tow up.

8. Attach tow up vehicle to do a practice tow up. This is done slowly as a preliminary check.

9. Lower back onto support trestle.

10. Install power cable and furling cable inside tower.

11. Attach turbine

12. Attach blades, nose cone, furling cable, power cable, tailboom and tailfin.

13. Tow tower up.

14. Lock turnbuckles in position

15. Your Westwind turbine is now ready to make some power, Happy Winds!!!

Attaching the Turbine

The Blades and nose cone can then be installed and the turbine is ready for service.

Setting up the controller

The controller needs to be mounted on a wall so that air can ventilate the heatsinks on the back. It should be protected from all weather and be preferably in a well ventilated room. The controller needs to be as close to the turbine as possible to reduce losses. Using a high voltage turbine also reduces cable losses.

The load dump needs to be mounted in a well ventilated area. This usually means outside the controller and battery enclosure but it should be also protected from the weather. Up under a verandah is perfect. The dump load gives off a lot of heat and should therefore be mounted away from flammable materials or heatshields be used as necessary

Electrical connections can then be made. This includes the three phase turbine input, the dump load positive and negative, the battery positive and negative, and most importantly the thermistor to the battery bank. Leaving the thermistor out will result in a random battery charging voltage that could damage the batteries.

Avoiding lightening strikes on your turbine is almost impossible and the damage that results can vary from minor to quite serious. Until now Westwind have received very few reports of  lightening damage.  Most reports are of  minor damage to whereby some controller components required changing.

The best way to protect your turbine against lightening is to install another taller tower alongside the wind turbine. The inherent cost of this though usually makes it an unobtainable option. 

If you can't afford a separate tower then applying some or all of the following suggestions can help you avoid major damage to your turbine. 

1. Build another higher tower alongside your wind turbine tower.
2. Provide good earths at each of the guy foundations and the central tower foundation. 
3. Install Metal Oxide Varistors (MOV's) on the top and bottom terminal strips. These conduct voltage spikes to earth.
4. Earth the controller well.

Even with all these protection mechanisms a direct strike is too much energy to be able to protect from. The above methods though will reduce the damage.

What now ?

The wind turbine will operate automatically charging and regulating battery voltage. All that is left to do is to keep checks on and maintain the system for years of happy power generation.