UP!

The weather forecast called for a chilly day of rain and thunder storms, but it turned out to be a gorgeous day after all. A perfect day to lower our wind turbine for its annual inspection - and hopefully repair. It hadn't been performing well since a bad wind storm did some damage to it last April, it was now a matter of finding out how much damage.

Coming down carefully...

As usual, Frank "the Solar Guy" who designed and installed the system was in charge of the operation. Lowering a 306-feet, $9,000 tower is not something you do lightly, it takes thorough planning and smooth team work. Fortunately we had a good group volunteering to help us out, which included a powerful Bobcat to do most of the heavy lifting.

Once the tower had come down we quickly found out what the problem was: a frayed tension wire in the turbine head had overheated and shorted the system. The good news was that we had the skills and the tools to repair it. Other than that there were no further issues or repairs, thank goodness.

Many hands...

Getting the tower back up proved a bit more of a challenge. Because of the slippery tall, moist grass under the Bobcat, its wheels began to spin. The solution proved simple: everybody pile on top of it to give some extra grip - and there we went.

All aboard!

Lowering & raising a turbine, even a relatively small one as ours, is always a hassle and time-consuming. On the other hand, it's also a great exercise in community building, with everyone pulling his/her weight, learning about wind power and adding to a wonderful day. But the end of the afternoon the turbine was back to happily cranking out green energy again.

Thank you, Frank, Jane, Mark, Dana, Paul, Brian, Will, Joey, Mel and Tyler for your help and positive attitude. Oh, and the happy dogs Will & Kate and Amber, too!

Comin' Down!

It's that time of year again: time to lower our wind turbine for its annual check-up. Our solar system has been performing flawlessly since it was hooked up 7 years ago and doesn't need any maintenance, really. But with wind, it's different...
All those moving parts at often high speeds make it a very good idea to make sure those parts are still performing adequately. Right now the wind turbine has some issues since we got hit by that big wind storm last April so we'd better have a look-see and fix what needs fixing.

Last year's wind turbine inspection

The date: this coming Saturday, August 13. Time: 2:30 pm.
Why are we posting this on our blog, you may well ask. Well, lowering a 106-foot steel mast is always a bit of an operation, so we could sure use a few good men and women to help us out (and ideally someone with a truck).

So if you're interested in being part of our annual wind turbine maintenance routine and have an up close & personal experience with green wind energy, give us a quick call and we'd be happy to fill you in on the details. Oh, and we'll provide the drinks, munchies and other goodies - and those dorky yet strangely sexy hard hats!

Maintenance Day

Saturday was Wind Turbine Maintenance day. Any wind turbine needs to be checked annually for any wear and tear, loose bolts, unbalanced or chipped blades, things like that; they have a lot of moving parts that get get worked hard year round - unlike maintenance-free solar panels that just sit there, quietly and efficiently making power.

For the past few years we've been combining it with servicing our friend Jane's smaller wind turbine. Frank the Solar Guy is in charge and does any repairs if necessary; he designed and installed both Jane's and our wind turbines as well as our solar arrays, so if there's anyone qualified for the job it's Frank.

As has become a good custom, we started the morning off at Jane's place with a sumptuous breakfast outside on the deck, enjoying the morning's sunshine and each other's company. It creates just the right mindset to start work on Jane's 70-feet tower, lowering it relatively painlessly using a manual winch (except it was a hot and sticky day).
We were glad to see that no repairs were necessary, just some loose-ish bolts in need of some fastening. Pulling the tower up was a bit tougher (hot!) but went just fine.

Next, it was off to the Eco Centre. Our tower is 100 feet tall with a bigger turbine, so here we needed the help of 2 trucks to do the pulling. Our own beat-up truck was one, and the other came with our neighbouring friends Larry and Liz in it who generously offered their help for the afternoon.

Once everything was hooked & cabled up, the tower came nicely controlled down. We were again happy to see that no repairs were necessary, except for the tail vane that showed some micro cracks from too much play between the vane and the tail rod. An extra rubber  washer would help, which Larry made from recycled parts of one of Jacomyn's old rubber boots. They're even green, eco all the way!

By the end of the afternoon the tower was back up again; the wind had picked up, so we spent a few satisfied minutes just watching the turbine spin and make power. Boy, does that ever feel good!

Beers, snacks and lots of good food shared with excellent company was the perfect finish of a great day. If only it was possible to do all our maintenance chores this way, the world would be a better place...

Winds of Change

We get hundreds of visitors through the Eco Centre for house tours, and we always enjoy having them; some even become friends. We're in our third summer now, long enough to notice some shifts in the questions that get asked. Some questions will always be the same, but other questions emerge or disappear depending on what's in the news or is talked about.

This summer I noticed a new recurring question: "How come your wind turbine is so small?" At first it surprised me (after all, the tower is a solid 106 feet/33 metres tall), but then I realized these visitors were expecting a wind turbine big enough to power an entire village; you know, the type you see on the news and in glossy magazines. Those 250 feet tall monoliths dotting entire mountain ranges, their massive white wings gently wooshing along.

Small...?

So understandably, when see see our "little" turbine with its measly 6-feet wing span, well, some visitors may not be too impressed. Of course they understand when I explain that this turbine is only designed to help power 1 super-energy-efficient house, not an entire village or subdivision of power hogging homes.

But it made me realize how even over these past 3 years some conceptions have begun to change. When our Eco Centre just opened and our wind turbine went up, it made the regional media. It was something new, an inkling of green things to come. Since then, wind farms have gone up all over this part of the province, some highly successful, some hotly debated. And all of them much in the public eye.

That wasn't the case only 3 years back. And it makes me happy. Sure, there may be some misunderstandings about wind energy's different applications, but  I'm sure that'll change, too. Point is, things are a-changing.
Wind energy has become a household word; most of us now know what a wind turbine does and why. Most of us now "get it". And that's a good thing. Let's hope things keep changing in this direction, and who knows where we'll be 3 years from now!

Our Big Fat Energy Credit

Anyone depending on sun & wind to power their home dreads the month of November. It's usually the darkest and wind-stillest month of the year. Drizzle and wet snow will come straight down; compare that to the blizzards we can expect very soon, and I suppose we should be grateful for it...

A typical November day: no sun, no wind...

For solar and wind-powered folks like us things are a bit different. We almost welcome those howling storms that make the snow fly horizontally. It means lots of energy is being produced and stored in the battery banks. Same for those bright January and February days, when you can't go out without your sunglasses and sunscreen on: lots of sunlight bouncing off all that snow produces lots of solar energy. Call us crazy, but we can't wait till it gets cold & windy!

Until then, we'll just have to sit this dull November out. Looking at our charts I see we produced a measly 12.5 KW/hrs of solar energy and 9.5 KW/hrs wind energy over the past 7 days; that's a total of 22Kw/hrs. We typically produce that in 2 good days.

Still, the lights stay on at the Nolalu Eco Centre, together with the stereo, the fridge, our computers and even the big-screen video projector for those must-have movie nights.

Of course we're a bit more careful when using power, but what really saves our free-range bacon: it's days like these that we happily dip into the credit we've built up with the Power Utility. Each summer and fall we produce hundreds of excess Kilowatt-hours that all get pumped back into the power grid, producing a big fat credit at Hydro One. Think of it as a Power Piggy Bank that we're now taking some change out of.

Of course we should still be careful how much power we're using, as even big fat credits will come to an end. But at least we don't have to worry too much about those long dark days. And thank goodness, we can still have our movie nights!