PRODUCTION OF SMALL WIND TURBINES
(1) We have developed most modern small wind turbine for home use as per Hugh Piggot (UK)'s design with Axial Flux Permanent Magnet Generator and 3 bladed wind rotor of 2.5 mtr. dia.
(2) We have developed most modern small wind turbine for home use of our own design based on Kragten design theory with Radial Flux Permanent Magnet Generator and 3 bladed wind rotor of 2.5 mtr. dia.
(3) We have obtained the license from Kragten design Netherland to manufacture their VIRYA 4.2 and VIRYA 4.6 model wind turbines. VIRYA 4.6 model with wind rotor dia of 4.6 meter directly connected to Radial Flux Permanent Magnet Generator giving 1.5 kw power on 12 meter free standing tower will be available from us from July 2005 onwards.
(4) VIRYA 4.2 model with wind rotor dia of 4.2 meter directly connected to Radial Flux Permanent Magnet Generator giving 1.1 kw power on 12 meter free standing tower will be manufactured against the orders.
PRODUCTION OF COMPONENTS
(1) We have developed Radial Flux permanent magnet generators from 1 kw to 7.5 kw capacity and is available for sale.
(2) We have developed Axial Flux permanent magnet generators of 300 mm dia with 500 W capacity with 2 magnet rotors and 1 stator and is available for sale.
(3) We have developed Axial Flux permanent magnet generators of 500 mm dia with 2 KW capacity with 2 magnet rotors and 1 stator and is available for sale.
(4) We have developed and we can supply wooden blades 118 mm chord and 1.1 mtr length non-taper, non-twisted as per GO623 air foil section. This is suitable for 2.5 mtr dia wind rotor.
(5) We have developed and we can supply FRP blades 312 mm chord and 3 mtr length non-taper, non-twisted as per GO624 air foil section. This is suitable for 7 to 8 mtr dia wind rotor.
(6) We have developed and we can supply wooden blades 200 mm chord and 1.8 mtr length non-taper, non-twisted as per GO623 air foil section. This is suitable for 4 mtr dia wind rotor.
(7) We have developed and we can supply free standing tower of 12 mtr suitable for 1.5 kw small wind turbine.
(8) We have developed and we can supply free standing tower of 18 mtr suitable for 8 kw small wind turbine.
(9) We have developed and we can supply various types of guy wired pipe towers for small wind turbines.
EXPERIMENTS
(1) We have developed Crete type sail wind rotors of 6 mtr dia and 7.5 mtr dia. Testing has not been done.
(2) We have developed wind rotors with tube and wire type cloth blades of 3.6 mtr dia and 4.2 mtr dia. Both works satisfactorily but long time testing with generator still to be done.
(3) We have developed compressor connected wind turbine of 5 mtr dia with 6 FRP blades but we are not getting satisfactory performance.
(4) We have developed auto alternator connected small wind turbine but because of high gear ratio, it works only at high wind speed. Suitable new design with lower gear ratio is under development.
(5) We have developed one small stratified down draft gasifier with gas filter, heat exchanger and carburetor unit. We have purchased one automobile petrol engine to be assembled with generator. The entire gasifier plant is being prepared for testing. We intend to test on legnite coal and on groundnut husk brequetts.
ENCOURAGEMENT TO DEVELOP TINY WIND TURBINES
Godly help came from Mr. John Furze from Denmark. I read his article
"STEALTH WIND
TURBINES" in RE-FOCUS magazine and I was very much attracted with his article. I sent him one email and promptly he sent me 4 CDs containing treasure of knowledge of complete human survival science and renewable energy technology including lot many technical literature, papers, drawings and other material on wind energy. I had no any knowledge of wind energy. Aerodynamics, blade theory, air foil designs etc were completely new subjects for me. So I studied wind technology deeply for 2 years.
During this time, Mr. John Furze and his hearty friend Mr. Hannu Virtanen from Finland highly encouraged me by giving day to day guidance through emails. Then Mr John Furze invited me to Denmark, Holland and Finland for 3 weeks and he took lot of pain to travel with me to visit many expert persons who have designed and manufactured their own innovative wind mills including highly experienced design engineer Mr Adriaan Kragten in Holland. Mr Kragten is considered to be authority in Europe in designing small wind turbines. This 3 week trip infused high confidence in me to manufacture small wind turbines of various designs.
WHY SMALL WIND TURBINES ?
"To become a happy society, precondition is that means of production of primary needs of the people should be within the reach of common masses and it should be owned managed and controlled by common masses."
This has been stated by Mahatma Gandhi. It specifically implies that all the technology related to the production of primary needs must be tiny and cheap enough to be afforded by common masses and simple enough to be understood by common masses.
Just as food, clothing and shelter are the primary needs of the people, similarly, electricity has become indespensable primary need of the people. So means of generation of electricity should be small, simple and cheap enough so that common people can afford it and can control it. Then such technology can create self reliant life style and happy society.
Big and giant thermal power houses or atomic power houses can not fit into this ideology. Similarly big and giant solar power houses or Mega Watt size wind turbines and giant wind farms also can not fit into this ideology. As per Mahatma Gandhi's thinking, independent, tiny, family size or at the most village level industries can contribute to the freedom and happiness of the common people.
So generation of electricity also should be at tiny scale for homes, for farms or for family scale industries. So looking to the Indian situation, power generation schemes from 100 Watts to 10 to 20 KW should be thought out. As I am strongly committed to tiny decentralized cheap and simple technology (please go through MY BASIC CONVICTIONS), I am sure that millions of such small power generating units can work in India with strong economic viability based on renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, biomass, micro hydro, fuel cells etc.
Wind energy is the most appropriate permanent resource gifted by the nature free of cost to the humanity. It works more or less round the clock irrespective of day or night. So harnessing the wind energy for homes and farms will make revolutionary changes in rural life of India and it will contribute to the happiness of the society to the great extent by providing numerous opportunities for self employment through home industries of cotton spinning, cloth making, oil seed crushing, jaggery and sugar making in the farms, soap making and manufacturing numerous light industrial items in villages and towns.
SCOPE OF SMALL WIND TURBINES
(1) About ten million small wind turbines of 250 W to 2 KW capacity for home use can be sold and installed in rural and urban India.
(2) About one million wind turbines from 2 KW to 10 KW for farm use can be installed in rural India.
(3) About 100000 small compressor connected wind turbines can be sold and installed in India which may be useful for running pneumatic tools in industries and in highway garages to inflate tyres in automobiles.
(4) Above is the scope only in India. If we consider entire world with developing countries and developed countries also, the scope is atleast 10 times. So future is for small wind turbines.
In spite of huge scope of small wind technology in India, most unfortunately Government of India is not recognizing the importance of micro and tiny wind projects. Decision makers in the Government are after the giant technology of wind turbines and entire fund is invested in promoting giant wind turbines where capital investment is in millions of dollars which is not useful to common people of India. If the role of tiny and micro wind projects is rightly understood and encouraged, then common people can produce their own power and can get freedom from bureaucratic state electricity boards run by governments.
Rajkot
Date : 05-04-2005
V.K.
DESAI
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