Hugh Piggott's Old Homepage
updated 2nd January 2015
My pages have a lot of links on them. 
They should show up in blue. 
Click on blue text or on images on this page
 to get more information or reach other sites.

[email protected]

NAVIGATION MENU


hughpiggott blog pages

FOR ALL THE NEW STUFF VISIT MY BLOG

 which is actually my new homepage.


LINKS

FOR WINDPOWER
listed concisely

BOOKS

few years ago I have build a wind turbine like described in you're book...
it touched me and following that I decided to start learn mechanical engineering
 these days I am in the end of the first degree and I am already working in a green energy company... 
 I always wanted to thank you for re great book

ALL MY BOOKS How to get them

PLANS

LATEST RECIPES in both: mm and Inches
all languages

COURSES

DIARIES AND CALENDAR
videos
Lots of pictures and stories

OLDER

TECH STUFF
DOWNLOADS FAQ

ROOFTOP

MADNESS
continues
WINDEMPOWERMENTAn association
for the
development of
locally built
small wind turbines
for sustainable
rural electrification.

DEVELOPING WORLD



INTERNATIONAL

HOMEBREW

ARCHIVE

STUFF

YOU NEED
PARTS


'Wind Turbine Recipe Book'
  in English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Hungarian, Swahili and Dutch
(see below for translations)
recipe
Metric and English units editions available.

"Good morning, Sir.   A belated thank you for the recipe book recently ordered.   It arrived the day after it was ordered!   Almost unbelievable.   For a few moments I thought that it must have been delivered, by hand, by my neighbour.
 
Your book could not possibly be beaten for straight thinking!   It has cleared up several points in my mind and given me food for thought.
"
Tom Barrett

UPDATES HERE FOR READERS OF THE EARLY EDITIONS OF THE RECIPE BOOK

"I really appreciated your book , a wind turbine recipe book , very detailed and full of practical advice , like having my own private instructor !"  John Kriskans
TRANSLATIONS
(BUY DIRECT FROM THESE LINKS)

German
Sie wollten schon immer mal eine Windturbine bauen? Ihr Z�gling plagt Sie mit Fragen, wie das mit der Windkraft denn so genau geht? Die k�nnen Sie im nun ganz einfach beantworten ? mit der Selbstbauanleitung f�r Kleinwindturbinen ?Drei Fl�gel im Wind? von GREEN STEP e.V

 Senden Sie eine E-Mail mit Ihrer Anschrift und der gew�nschten St�ckzahl an:
[email protected]
Der Versand erfolgt innerhalb von 3 Werktagen.

Spanish castellano

2005 bookspanish plans
old 2005 with inches, and new 2009 metric

Francais/ French

recipes in French
  Tripalium  (metric) 2009.

Italian

IT Come costruire un generatore eolico 2005
Soluzioni per turbine eoliche 2008
  



Dutch
Windturbine Receptenboek

Kiswahili


Kindle Edition of my plans available from Amazon

Electronic edition for download and view on Kindle.



A residential "Build Your Own Wind Turbine" workshop will be held on Scoraig from 18th to 25th April 2015. This continues a ten year tradition of workshops during which we build a small wind turbine from scratch and test it. 
Scoraig wind turbine workshop videos. 


A Wind Turbine Recipe Book (2013 metric pdf edition)





WINDEMPOWERMENT events CALENDAR HERE

Powerspout Hydro turbines
powerspout
EcoInnovation in New Zealand have produced a brilliant little hydro that they ship worldwide. 
Download the excellent online documentation.  It's well worth  reading!  There is also a site assessment tool so you can design your system online.
I am a dealer for the Powerspout.

How to use a charge controller

Some pages of advice for setting up a diversion load controller


YouTube videos here youtube


Welding with my recipe book design



Art Randolf's blades are for sale again. 
Contact him on this address.
More about his blades.

OTHERPOWER USA
Homebrew Wind Power
A Hands-on Guide to Harnessing the Wind
By Dan Bartmann and Dan Fink

Foreword by Mick Sagrillo
320 pages, soft cover, 8 x 10 inches, 395 illustrations
ISBN 978-0-9819201-0-8
Published by Buckville Publications LLC, Masonville, CO
Retail price: $39.95

"There's nothing better than 'hands-on' experience when you tackle the big project of building your first wind turbine and tower. We (and others) do offer in-depth, hands-on seminars at various locations around the USA. We also offer seminars at our wind turbine shop in Colorado, and we can travel to your location. Contact us for more information."




CONTACT
Email me at: [email protected]

Or (if you must) send snail mail to: 
 Scoraig Wind Electric, Dundonnell, 
Ross shire, IV23 2RE, UK 

Mobile/cellphone number
 +44 77 1315 7600

my BLOG

I respond much quicker to e-mail than to letters! 
I do reply to all reasonable e-mail questions. 
Letters/faxes often get no reply. 

(SPAM SETTINGS! Please make sure your spam settings allow me to reply to your question!!  It is very frustrating to spend maybe 20 minutes writing a helpful reply and then to find that I cannot even contact you because you have such paranoid spam settings.) 

Get my Books here


hugh



"Windpower Workshop" updated
windpowerworkshop
I originally wrote this book in 1996 but have just updated it together with CAT publications, and it is now available.
youtubemy videos

My FAQ
A collection of answers to emails about windpower and some specific questions about my windmill plans and construction techniques. (October 2006)
VIDEO OF SCORAIG AT THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER WEB PAGE
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
guardian video
  
Nice landscape, nice violin music by my neighbour (who also makes violins) Alan Beavitt.



stator on fire
Stator on fire!  Photo by Solar Mad

Scorraigweave - The late Alan Bush's web site

plus video
Kindle version

FEATURED LINKS

V3 DIY renewable Energy Coop courses 


Cheap wind datalogger from Logic Energy Ltd.
Logic Energy Ltd. specialises in providing monitoring and reporting services via the Internet, principally for the renewable energy industry. Our systems allow remote monitoring of energy systems, reporting and control of failures all via a web browser. Our graphical interface is easy to use and understand and can be accessed from any web-enabled device, such as a mobile phone, from anywhere in the world. 



Mini DIY 12" Wind turbine


Windsurvey.co.uk
 
local wind survey equipment

If you're thinking about installing a small or medium-sized wind generator at your home or business, it makes sense to find out as much as possible about the wind conditions at the proposed generator site, so as to have some idea of how much power you can expect.
http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/

This is a project to develop and build open source energy monitoring and analysis tools for energy efficiency and distributed renewable microgeneration.  Following the principles of the Free Software Movement the software source code and hardware designs are available at no cost to everyone under the GNU General Public Licence.

The project being open source gives the following potential:
It makes it possible to do more than just use the technology, you can learn how it works from the physics of AC and DC electricity to electronic circuit design and software programming. You can build it yourself and modify it to your needs. You can take part and benefit from a collaborative effort to develop and improve it. If it breaks you can learn how to repair it and when it comes to the end of its useful life it is easier to take apart so that different components and materials can be recycled in to new technologies.



UK supplier for parts for my Recipe projects

Wind Turbine Supplies
www.Wind-Turbine-Supplies.co.uk

"Parts & Information for the Wind Turbine Enthusiast"



UK supplier for parts for my Recipe projects

Wind Turbine Supplies
www.Wind-Turbine-Supplies.co.uk

"Parts & Information for the Wind Turbine Enthusiast"


INTERNATIONAL STUFF

(MORE HERE)

Tripalium France

tripalium

Cette association a pour objet de :
  • Favoriser les d�marches d'auto construction d?�olien individuel type Hugh Piggott
  • Construire des turbines en r�pondant � un besoin d?�lectricit� identifi� ;
  • Donner des notions th�oriques de base associ�es au fonctionnement d?une �olienne ;
  • Promouvoir la r�duction des gaspillages �nerg�tiques, l?am�lioration de l?efficacit� �nerg�tique et l?utilisation des �nergies renouvelables afin de r�duire les in�galit�s, de partager plus �quitablement les ressources naturelles et de mieux pr�server l?environnement ;
Pour la r�alisation de son objet, l?association se donne comme moyens d?action, de fa�on non exclusive ni limitative, la recherche, la d�monstration, la formation, la production et la diffusion d?information, l?organisation d?�changes de toute nature, la repr�sentation dans diff�rentes instances, et d?une mani�re g�n�rale l?engagement de toutes actions et projets permettant de promouvoir et r�aliser ces diff�rents objectifs.

Rencontres cr�atives
Autour des �oliennes
Piggott
du 24 au 28 Ao�t 2009
pr�s de Florac FRANCE avec Tripalium

And another chainsaw fanatic documents his process here

THE BACKSHED DISCUSSION FORUM  AUSTRALIA
HAS A COUPLE OF INTERESTING THREADS

ecoinn
EcoInnovation is a New Zealand-based renewable energy store and consultancy. Michael Lawley, our founder and chief engineer, is the world's foremost expert on the re-tasking of the SmartDrive motor, which can be salvaged from Fisher and Paykel washing machines, as well as some LG and Whirlpool versions. His family and this business have been power-bill free for over 11 years!





DEVELOPING WORLD

WINDWMPOWERMENTAn association
for the

development of

locally built

small wind turbines

for sustainable

rural electrification.




Solarmad in Madagascar
Le but de Solarmad est de participer au d�veloppement des �nergies renouvelables � Madagascar en proposant des solutions adapt�es pour la g�n�ration d?�nergie dans le respect de l?environnement. Egalement de faciliter la communication en dehors des r�seaux traditionnels en cr�ant sur place les savoir-faire et comp�tences n�c�ssaires.




CNN IBN TV video
Vivek-powers-his-house-with-homemade-windmill.


 Wind Aid in Peru
We are looking for volunteers to help learn how to build wind generators, develop entrepreneurial spirit, and sponsors to keep lighting up peoples lives.


Imani Fungo from Tanzania..........
The earlier project produced a machine which is capable of 1KW at 48VDC and installed in the Lwanjilo village south west of Tanzania. This machine has changed the lives of over ten thousands people as they can now have their phones charged up all the times

GREEN STEP e.V. is a young German non profit organization working to improve the living standard of the rural poor in developing region with environmental friendly technology. In their pilotproject in M'muock, Cameroon they train 10 local craftsmen to build small scale wind- and waterturbines from mainly locally available material for energy production.

African News article and video


Palestinian village electification

Susiya, a beleaguered community in the arid, windswept South Hebron hills, now has electricity.
comet me
videos here and here



ROOFTOP MADNESS CONTINUES...

What's wrong with this picture?
absurdly mounted wind turbine pic
Rooftop wind turbine madness in the UK.

(Picture from Paul Gipe's site.)

NEW STUDY IN 2009, FROM

THE ENERGY SAVINGS TRUST

?Wind turbines do work but only when installed properly in
an appropriate location.
?There is a potential for delivering carbon savings and energy
generation from domestic small-scale wind turbines in the UK.
?The highest potential for successful household small-scale
wind installations is in Scotland.
?Wind speeds are difficult to predict and highly variable.
The Energy Saving Trust recommends that potential
customers first utilise the best available wind speed
estimation tools and then, where appropriate, install
anemometry to determine the wind speed distribution.
Data gathered through the field trial indicates that none of
the sites with building mounted turbines had average annual
recorded wind speeds of 4m/s or greater, and only a third of
free standing pole mounted turbines had average annual
recorded wind speeds of 5m/s or greater. It is therefore
likely that many sites in the UK have less of a wind resource
than previously predicted....
No urban or suburban building mounted
sites generated more than 200kWh or �26 per annum,
corresponding to load factors of 3 per cent or less. In some
cases, installations were found to be net consumers of
electricity due to the inverter taking its power (up to 10W)
from the mains supply when a turbine was not generating.
A review by Paul Gipe


Delta / Zeeland windtest
in Holland October 08

(David Sharman's take on the data)
The Ampair perspective
Dutch small wind turbine trial suffers low wind speeds
HAWTs generally score much better than VAWTs in this test but there are exceptions, notably the Swift (shown right) which seems to me to be a bit of a disaster - a shame considering what nice people they are, and near to my home town of Edinburgh.

A new Carbon Trust study into the potential of small-scale wind energy has found that small wind turbines could provide up to 1.5 Terawatt Hours (TWh) per year of electricity (0.4% of total UK electricity consumption) and 0.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) emission savings.  This is based on 10% of households installing turbines at costs competitive with grid electricity, which is currently around 12p per kWh.

The study also indicates that for the UK as a whole, the majority of electricity and carbon savings are available from small turbines in rural areas - four times as much as urban areas irrespective of costs, and considerably more given economic drivers. This is mainly due to wind speeds generally being higher in rural areas.  Turbines in some rural locations could provide cheaper electricity than the grid, but it appears that in many urban situations, roof-mounted turbines may not pay back their embedded carbon emissions.

The report published today marks the culmination of 18 months research by the Met Office and Entec, and is partly intended for government policy makers. It makes important recommendations to improve existing policy measures, including that:

? A criterion should be used in any new grant schemes to measure likely carbon savings.  This is to help ensure grants are awarded to installations which save reasonable amounts of carbon; and
? Higher height limits for stand-alone turbines should be allowed under permitted development rights.  This is to help maximise the overall carbon savings of small-scale wind energy, given the sensitivity of electricity generation to height.


 

Rooftop nonsense is alive and well in France. See this article from Paul Gipe


It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry that these guys get public acclaim for wildly oversold nonsense.

www.wind-works.org
elena energie

Rooftop windspeed measurements

in the city 

(updated with response from RD Swift turbines, and my email to BWEA)
Mostly now when I see these 'Swift' turbines they are under repair for some reason.  It looks awful.



The new certification body BRE have come out with new guidelines for estimating windspeed on urban sites that you can download.

These rules of thumb (see appendix suggest that the windspeed at rooftop level is approximately 50% of what you would expect from using the DTI (NOABL) data set that everyone relies on.  That means 1/8 of the energy production.

The Carbon Trust have also brought out a new
Windspeed Estimator on line that is much better than NOABL for built-up areas.
The Warwick Urban Wind Trial project has engaged in depth with the new market for  urban, building mounted wind turbines at a critical time in market development.    By taking the customer perspective and combining technical monitoring with social  research into the impact of installations on public perceptions of energy efficiency  and wind, the project is providing the most thorough and complete assessment to  date of the efficacy of urban wind systems in supporting UK energy and  environmental policies.

Further evidence from the Warwick Wind Trials shows that most of the new generation of rooftop turbines also fail to meet their claimed output, often only achieving 30% or less.  In many cases the inverter's standby power consumption exceeds any power generated on urban sites.

The final report is now available and it makes essential reading for those who want to know about small scale urban wind realities (as opposed to marketing spin).

Real world wind turbine data site


"Renew-Reuse-Recycle is an online community all about what we can do to stop or mitigate the effects of climate change.

"Some of our members have recently started logging their KWh output on a monthly basis in a shared Google Spreadsheet."


Siting of small VAWT turbines in the UK


Factors affecting the success of a wind turbine are :reliability, windspeed, swept area, cost and efficiency. I found a Quiet Revoluiton QR5 turbine at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh and I am checking out these criteria.

There is a good rule of thumb that says a wind turbine should be 30 feet above any obstruction within 300 feet. Windspeed is highly critical for energy production since the energy depends on the cube of the windspeed. There is hardly any wind for turbines sited below the 'canopy layer' of the tree tops. For more details check the Carbon Trust wind siting tool. The company state that "Please note that the minimum recommended average wind speed for a QR5 is 5m/s." But they were willing to sell one to go on this site, maybe just for "demonstration purposes"?

Reliability is very important since the kilowatt hours of energy generated will depend on the hours the turbine is available. The QR5 is out of action so far as I am aware due to problems with the blade attachments. Vertical axis turbines do have intrinsic fatigue problems which along with the problems of starting and stopping, and the problems of putting them on proper towers have made them a poor choice for wind energy.

The turbine is a nice size (5m high x 3.1m in diameter) but in relation to its cost it will not produce much energy even on a good 5 m/s site. The turbine alone costs �25,000. It does not matter how efficient it is it can never produce more than about 12,000 kWh per year at a 5m/s site, and the manufacturers claim 7,500 kWh per year. A HAWT of similar size and a fraction of the cost would do the same.

Nice ornament? Or a big waste of money, and another big embarrassment to the small wind industry?


My latest collection of links is below. 
I am keeping this compact for now with no images.
Just because I link to it does not mean that I approve of it or endorse it or believe it is good!

Learn about wind energy

Danish site - windpower knowhow
the "guided tour"
Paul Gipe's writings
Home Power magazine
My 2007 FAQ

Good sites for homebuilt windpower

Otherpower in Colorado
Tripalium in France
Gotwind in UK
Windstuffnow USA
the Backshed Australia
Eirbyte in Ireland
Wind chasers in Canada
Home builder story
Wind turbine works
Breezy 5.5 home built wind turbine
Chainsaw Blade carving tutorial page
Home made windpower in South Africa

Other people's free plans for wind generators

http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_wind.shtml
http://www.thebackshed.com/Windmill/Contents.asp
http://www.velacreations.com/chispito.html
http://www.mdpub.com/Wind_Turbine/index.html
http://riobrisa.com/windpower/
http://www.uv.es/navasqui/ in Spanish

Trials and studies of commercial wind turbines

Mike Klemen - North Dakota
UK Warwick wind trials, mostly rooftop 2008

wind turbine manufacturers

African Wind Power
Ampair UK
Bergey Windpower USA
Bornay in Spain
Britwind (was evance)
C&F in Ireland
Eclectic UK
Eoltec France
Endurance Canada
Fortis in the Netherlands
Gaia-Wind Ltd. UK and Denmark
Gazelle UK
Jacobs USA
Kingspan wind UK
Marlec UK
Ropatec italy
South West Windpower USA
Westwind  N. Ireland
WES in the Netherlands
Windside Finland
Windspot Spain

Loads more... (from windmission)
All the world's small wind turbines (?)
Catalogue with data sheets for 181 small wind mills.
Better generation reviews
Search for approved turbines under the UK MCS scheme

Sources for stuff.  I am not paid to place advertisements here. 
Most of the links are known to be good people.  But some are just ones that I found.
Let me know of any other good links you find.  Or any bad ones so I can remove them.

material

UK

USA

Europe

world

blades

V3 power
Powermax blades
Olsen wings
variable pitch rotors in canada

Extruded PVC blades from Australia

EcoInnovation in NZ

complete

alternators

future energy
Hornet UK


hurricane windpower
 windbluepower (but see review here)
magnet4less
Super alternator
windstuffnow tiny one

new zealand

magnets

www.wind-turbine-supplies.co.uk/

CERMAG
CMS magnetics
Applied magnets
Sweden
France

Australia
Japan
china
South Africa

winding wire

EC WIRE LTD
 (01924) 266 377
Scientific Wire Co.
www.wind-turbine-supplies.co.uk/
BAE wire
Ireland ECWire
tel 01 671 8754
France

laser cut

steel disks

EMSEA LTD
Tel: 01684 299156

Wagner (search for "disk st")


Trailer hubs

for wind turbines

www.wind-turbine-supplies.co.uk/
Towsure
www.breakeryard.com
South west wheel
Etrailer
Northern tools


Dump load controllers

Scoraig Wind Electric
Windgen
morningstar
ghurd's kit
Solar access
Solar converters
DUMP LOADS TO HEAT WATER at BATTERY VOLTAGE  TP Fay Ltd

Ireland

low voltage space heater resistors
Farnell



Polyester and vinyl ester resin supplies
Glasplies
polyfibre
www.wind-turbine-supplies.co.uk/




High temperature flexible wire
(tri-rated flex)
Batt cables
smaller amounts





Quick links to older stuff on this site Homebuilt windpower - general information
Mostly rather dated but useful
Blade theory Blade carving - diagrams Blade carving -colour pics Power performance testing of small wind turbines
Free downloadable pdf files for blade manufacture and other aspects of small wind/battery systems Permanent magnet alternator construction manual - free download in acrobat pdf Using a servomotor as a pm generator Notes for brakedrum builders - extra information to supplement my plans
Differences between the 'European' and the 'North American' versions of the brakedrum design
Magnet suppliers
Technical stuff about load control circuits Current in 3-phase cables
Performance and noise curves for the AirX turbine from Paul Gipe's personal research program are now available here.

Power performance testing of small wind turbines Blade design spreadsheet
Free downloadable pdf files for blade manufacture and other aspects of small wind/battery systems.

Renewable energy options for electricity supply on the Isle of Eigg
 A report on the potential for small hydro, wind and photovoltaic systems on the island
pmg construction manual is now available for free download IN DANISH (p� Dansk) Scoraig where I live : Our house Tour of the Scoraig wind turbines in year 2000 More information about Hugh (rather dated needs revising:-)
FAQ
A collection of answers to emails about windpower and some specific questions about my windmill plans and construction techniques. (October 2006)

TRAVEL DIARIES FROM 1999  >>>>>>>
Information about African Windpower and the AWP36 wind turbine,some picsand its history

 
  hughE-mail me at: [email protected]