SKYSTREAM 3.7 WIND TURBINE UPDATE
Just wanted to post an update to Winds of change, on our installation of a Skystream 3.7 wind turbine on a 45' tower that we purchased from North coast wind & power.
Since the last post two months ago we have made a lot of progress and this coming Saturday the 29th we are setting the Skystream on it's foundation. I took a bunch of photos of the process of the installation.
1st: We had a local contractor Masonry Construction do the foundation. There was a problem getting the j-bolts for the foundation from our dealer on the date specified because of shipping, which delayed the pouring of the pier section of the foundation. This turned out not to be a huge problem because the day after they dug the hole and poured the pad it rained for three days...ha.
2nd: While we waited on the foundation, I did the electrical connections and shut off in the playhouse to wire the turbine into. I decided to put in the optional meter at the shutoff, just to make it easier to keep a daily total of kw produced.
3rd: The bolts arrived, so I drove out and picked them up, but when I got home I found out that one of the bolts were missing. So I ran back out to North Coast Wind and Power and pick up another bolt. Luckily they had gotten two sets in. Masonry came back out and completed the foundation.
4th: I rented a walk behind trencher and suckered my friend Phil Nottingham into helping. Ran the entire trench in about an hour and a half. We had to hand dig the areas around the foundation and the buildings. That sucked, I wish I would have bought that Case backhoe a few years ago.
5th: I went up to the dealer, North Coast Wind and Power, and picked up the Skystream wind turbine and blades and put them in my garage. The turbine must have got bounced around a bit on transport from the warehouse to the dealer, because some of the screws holding it in place on the pallet had ripped free and the turbine had slid forward on the mountings in the box. I couldn't see any damage, except for a few scratches.
6th: The 45' monopole tower arrived. This day turned out well, but was shaping up to be a fiasco. The tower was supposed to arrive on Monday or Tuesday. I get a call Tuesday and the trucking company asks about bringing it out that after noon. I say cool, I'll get the loader ready to lift it off. I wait and no one shows. I get a call that they couldn't get a driver to deliver it, and could they bring it out tomorrow. So they set it up to come out Wednesday morning between 9-12. I'm working in my office and look the window that morning to see a road crew shutting off our street for resurfacing. crap... I talk to the workers and they tell me the road will be closed until noon. Now I'm stuck I have semi coming to my house and no road to come down. Luckily the truck company was running late and didn't arrive until 12:30. Well I'm expecting a flat bed to arrive with the tower on it, but instead the tower is in a box trailer. So I end up having to drag the tower out the back of the trailer and then lift the other end while he drove the semi away. No biggie, just not expected. I then put the tower on an old farm wagon running gear. I then hooked my Hasquvarna Garden tractor to the wagon and drove the tower to the foundation. I'll have to say that I had a bunch of problems with the first Hasquvarna Garden tractor I had. Lowes service deal is horrible. They worked on it 6-7 times and I got to use it twice the entire summer. Finally I took it to a Hasquvarna dealer and they found that there was a problem when it was manufactured and fixed it. It's been perfect ever since and it towed that tower like it was nothing.
7th: I jacked the trailer up to get the clearance I needed and place some supports under the end of the tower so it wouldn't flip the trailer over when the turbine was connected. My brother-in-law and father-in-law came over and helped me bolt the Skystream to the monopole and put the blades on. It went really well. I then hooked the turbine to the shutoff and turned it on for the test. I was a little freaked at first, cause it didn't seem to spin any different. Totally forgot that you had to wait 5-7 minutes for it to reset. ha... after 7 minutes I spun the nose cone and it worked perfect. spun freely and when they threw the shut off, it shut down immediately and stopped spinning.
8th: Crane will be here Saturday and we bolt her down and wire her in.
So that's where we stand to day. I'll drop on another update once it's running.
Since the last post two months ago we have made a lot of progress and this coming Saturday the 29th we are setting the Skystream on it's foundation. I took a bunch of photos of the process of the installation.
1st: We had a local contractor Masonry Construction do the foundation. There was a problem getting the j-bolts for the foundation from our dealer on the date specified because of shipping, which delayed the pouring of the pier section of the foundation. This turned out not to be a huge problem because the day after they dug the hole and poured the pad it rained for three days...ha.
2nd: While we waited on the foundation, I did the electrical connections and shut off in the playhouse to wire the turbine into. I decided to put in the optional meter at the shutoff, just to make it easier to keep a daily total of kw produced.
3rd: The bolts arrived, so I drove out and picked them up, but when I got home I found out that one of the bolts were missing. So I ran back out to North Coast Wind and Power and pick up another bolt. Luckily they had gotten two sets in. Masonry came back out and completed the foundation.
4th: I rented a walk behind trencher and suckered my friend Phil Nottingham into helping. Ran the entire trench in about an hour and a half. We had to hand dig the areas around the foundation and the buildings. That sucked, I wish I would have bought that Case backhoe a few years ago.
5th: I went up to the dealer, North Coast Wind and Power, and picked up the Skystream wind turbine and blades and put them in my garage. The turbine must have got bounced around a bit on transport from the warehouse to the dealer, because some of the screws holding it in place on the pallet had ripped free and the turbine had slid forward on the mountings in the box. I couldn't see any damage, except for a few scratches.
6th: The 45' monopole tower arrived. This day turned out well, but was shaping up to be a fiasco. The tower was supposed to arrive on Monday or Tuesday. I get a call Tuesday and the trucking company asks about bringing it out that after noon. I say cool, I'll get the loader ready to lift it off. I wait and no one shows. I get a call that they couldn't get a driver to deliver it, and could they bring it out tomorrow. So they set it up to come out Wednesday morning between 9-12. I'm working in my office and look the window that morning to see a road crew shutting off our street for resurfacing. crap... I talk to the workers and they tell me the road will be closed until noon. Now I'm stuck I have semi coming to my house and no road to come down. Luckily the truck company was running late and didn't arrive until 12:30. Well I'm expecting a flat bed to arrive with the tower on it, but instead the tower is in a box trailer. So I end up having to drag the tower out the back of the trailer and then lift the other end while he drove the semi away. No biggie, just not expected. I then put the tower on an old farm wagon running gear. I then hooked my Hasquvarna Garden tractor to the wagon and drove the tower to the foundation. I'll have to say that I had a bunch of problems with the first Hasquvarna Garden tractor I had. Lowes service deal is horrible. They worked on it 6-7 times and I got to use it twice the entire summer. Finally I took it to a Hasquvarna dealer and they found that there was a problem when it was manufactured and fixed it. It's been perfect ever since and it towed that tower like it was nothing.
7th: I jacked the trailer up to get the clearance I needed and place some supports under the end of the tower so it wouldn't flip the trailer over when the turbine was connected. My brother-in-law and father-in-law came over and helped me bolt the Skystream to the monopole and put the blades on. It went really well. I then hooked the turbine to the shutoff and turned it on for the test. I was a little freaked at first, cause it didn't seem to spin any different. Totally forgot that you had to wait 5-7 minutes for it to reset. ha... after 7 minutes I spun the nose cone and it worked perfect. spun freely and when they threw the shut off, it shut down immediately and stopped spinning.
8th: Crane will be here Saturday and we bolt her down and wire her in.
So that's where we stand to day. I'll drop on another update once it's running.
Looks like you got a visit from Bugs Bunny. He should have taken a right at Albuquerque.
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ha... yeah. big wood chucks out here....
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HA! Sweet, all we have are little moles. I guess you can get good use out of that highly illegal firearm stash you have under your kids play house.
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I am trying to install the same turbine and tower. I am still in the research phase. It would be nice if you could list the costs of foundation, wiring, turbine, tower, hardware, etc.
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Hey Doug,
That's cool, so far I'd have to say we're extremely happy with our Skystream. We definitely noticed a big difference in the electrical output between the average 10 mile per hour winds so far and the winter winds of 20-30mph that just started to roll in more frequently. In one week the turbine put out three times the power that it had in the previous two weeks.
Here's a list of what it cost to install the system on your own.
Skystream 3.7 Turbine - $5400.00
Wireless Remote - $335.00
USB Convertor Kit - $99.00
45' Monopole Tower - $3700.00
Foundation/Bolt Kit - $350.00
Shipping - $450.00
Pad Foundation/install - $3000.00
Crane - $400.00
Loader for lifting tower of semi-truck and placing near foundation - $? not sure what rentals go for. We used my father-in-laws Case tractor.
Trencher rental - $75.00
35amp shutoff switch - $40.00
20amp double pole breaker $4.00
Dedicated 100amp meter box for turbine - $40.00
Dedicated 100amp electromagnetic meter - $99.00
110' 8-3 with ground wire - $220.00 - $2.00 a foot
50' of 1.5" electrical conduit and other fittings $80.00 - 1 1/2" conduit is $1.00 a foot
Township zoning height variance hearing - $150.00
Township zoning permit - $35.00
County electrical permit - $60.00
First Energy interconnection agreement - $250.00
First Energy meter replacement - $300.00
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Total - $15,087.00
Some of these prices are just estimates because I already had a lot of the materials and equipment for installation on hand from building our home.
The worst part was dealing with zoning. They were working up rules to do their best at stopping people in my area from installing wind turbines. If you don't have zoning in your area count yourself very lucky.
Over all it's not hard to install a skystream. I had the foundation done by a local masonry company because I don't own a backhoe or a machine for bending re-bar so I figured it would be easier to let some one else handle it. Also that is the linch pin in the tower going up with ease, so I thought it best to put the responsibility on someone else to get it right.
Things to check into before you start...
Check with aviation board in your area, make sure they don't have any regulations that will effect you.
Check with county and township to make sure there are not zoning regulations you must follow.
Check will your local electricity provider and make sure that the turbine your installing is approved by them and that you can get an interconnection agreement.
Also make sure to take your plans around to all your local neighbors and explain your plans ahead of time to make sure they understand the limited impact on your area and answer any questions they may have. They can shut you down faster than zoning can.
Well off the top of my head this is everything I can think of. Just hit me up if you have any other questions.
Josh
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Looks like nice work so far. We have Skystreams on the 34' monopole and 70' tilt-up. I'm eager to see it on the 45' monopole. I'd sure like to see some photos of the crane work.
Cheers, Brent
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Have you had any problems with combined high winds and below 32* temps shutting down the turbine??
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Yes I have, my turbine has been down since December 1st and I am still waiting for help.
Check out my latest podcast, I tell all about the problems we've had with Southwest Wind Power.
Are you having problems too?
Josh
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Yes See other comment I left after your 1/4/07 entry. Did this follow the same kind of conditions? I will try to send you the e-mail I recieved from my distributor
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Yes it did. High winds and it was cold.
The dealer I bought from told me a little about this possibly being the problem the other day, but that was the first I heard of it. Thanks for sending those emails, I never saw those before.
It sure would have been nice if Northwest wind power would have sent this information out to all it's owners or at least the ones in cold areas.
I still totally amazed that they never thought to test this equipment in extremely cold conditions.
I really appreciate you letting me know.
Josh
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My Skystream wind turbine, installed last fall has been inoperative since th get go. Main problem is the brake mechanism that shuts the turbine blades down in very high winds, except in my case the system shuts down in anything above a mild breeze! SW Windpower has another unit they intend to swap when weather inmproves a bit. Second problem is excessive NOISE. Our unit is on a 50 foot monopole and seems to have a sympathetic vibration that amplifies noise tremendously. Any suggestions for noise reduction??
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If you coil a rope around the pole you will solve the sound problem.
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We have a wind turbine in the Caribbean. Did you have noise problems. Are whining noise seems to come from the turbine at the top of the pole. We filled our pole with expanding foam and it helped marginally.
How much rope do you wrap on the pole?
What are the wind levels in your area and how far is the turbine from your house and is their anything that blocks the pole( landscaping, trees, a garage or ? ) between your house and the wind turbine?
Doug jones
doug.jones6@comcast.net
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Hi Joshua, We are having probs as described in this forum - with our turbine shutting down when winds get more than approx 15 knots - unfortunately we are in a coastal area facing the Antarctic and we have predom 20 - 25 + knot winds ! Our supplier has told us we are in line for a software update that should fix the problem. We are also in a non grid feed situation and are attempting to charge a bank of 48 volt (650 Ah) batteries - there is no sign of the battery sensor that the our supplier have said we need - last word was that it had been shelved as if the sensor looses connectivity with turbine it will cook the batteries. This I can agree with as being a potential problem, as out remote control unit is 160 m away from our tower and it only has intermittent contact with the turbine. We have resorted to turn the unit off and on via shutting down the power supply to it as the remote does not work all the time. We are a little frustrated as is our supplier - we had a Whisper H 500 that was erroneously suppled to us originally (only suitable for land, not marine!) - It could not handle our conditions. I hope the skytream is going to work out OK - any suggestions with battery feed anyone? It is unregulated now via our Outback invertor and we run the risk of cooking our batteries if we don’t manually switch off our skystream...
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Hi You think you had installation issues, try installing and even delivering a 35' pole to the top of the mountain over a winding road that you have back up on most turns.
I have a similar noise problem to the one mentioned earlier. I have not tried wrapping a rope on the pole, but I think the noise is coming from the top of the pole. The pole does have a reverberation when you put your ear to the pole.
I have a Sky stream 3.7 installed in the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Close to USVI. Our turbine works great and we are generating 1 Kw per hour when the wind is blowing (most of the time). No problem with starting in cold weather. The coldest we get is about 75 degrees F.
Our turbine has a whining noise. It is on a 35 foot pole set about 40 feet from our house and above it at the top of our property. The whining is so aggravating that we turn the unit off when we are home.
In trying to mitigate the problem we pumped marine foam to fill the pole full of foam. It only marginally reduced the noise.
The noise seems to become louder at higher speeds.
Our turbine was designed to be protected from the salt air even though we are over 700 feet above the ocean surface. At 40 cents per Killowatt I want to be running my wind turbine as much as possible.
Spoke with the manager of Richard Branson's Necker Island and he indicated a similar problem.
Our local dealer in Minnesota suggested that the bearings may need to be greased. I was not even told about this regular maintenance from Southwest Wind or by my dealer.
I would appreciate suggestions, I will try the rope, how much do you need to wrap on the pole?
Thanks, Doug Jones
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This all looks very familiar.
Noise is a big problem. Insulation and foam in the tower seem to make no difference. The noise is inverter noise from the head and most of it is airborn noise so the isolators won't help much. SW says that the NEXT software update (2.0.1?)will quiet the inverter.
Shutdowns: Mine shuts down at winds over 35 mph (not 56 as in the spec). It stays down for an hour and then restarts unless you go out and manually restart or remote restart. You can mitigate the shutdowns by setting your elevation lower. I'm at 1000 ft and setting it to 0 ft did help. It also lowers the output because it assumes higher air density and makes some internal changes to the overspeed strategy.
Also, my remote communication died about six weeks after install. Don't know if its at the head or the remote control unit. More calls and emails to SW! And lower the tower one more time.
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Hi, We did not wrap the pole - it was only someones suggesion to stop vibration that was an earlier issue, rather than noise. Our turbine makes a little noise but not enough to bother us. The turbine is mounted on a guyed tower on a ridge overlooking ocean - at the same elevation as the house - 180 m away. I guess we have background noise from the wind, so turbine is not so obvious. Regards Derek
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Hi Tom, I was sent a new update for the unit yesterday that changes the one hour shut off in high winds to 45 seconds. As luck would have it, as soon as I put the update into the turbine, after 7 days of gales, the wind dropped off and is now dead still. Unbelievable !!Our situation is that we have a lot of high winds pretty much most of the time, so the batteries never really (under the old software settings) were getting a good regular (regulated) charge from the turbine. Our local supplier is building a battery regulation heat dump for the system now, but I have now asked SWWP power if the turbine can limit the blade rpm to a desired range to maximise power output by a form of constant/ occasional (when required) braking?? This would possibly solve the over speed shut down problem in the high wind conditions. My turbine in these windy conditions has been slowing to approx 150 rpm and has an output of approx 2-300 watts for a lot of the time. I have actually had to run our diesel generator for six hours to put enough charge into the batteries during this last seven day gale that we have had this last week ! I thought this low output phase of the turbine (@ 2-300 watts) was to moderate the power output and rpm and keep at least some charge going to the batteries, but I think (after an email from SWWP) now that this is a wind speed monitoring cycle that the turbine does every now and again. Mine was doing it pretty much all of the time in high winds and not charging the batteries. I am annoyed that the unit was sold to me as a unit for battery charge applications, when clearly it is only really working for grid connect. The battery sensor side of the unit has been shelved by SWWP now. Our supplying agent here in Australia has been trying to make good the situation for me, but I feel that for the year now that this has been going on, that SWWP have not really been helping them all that much with forthcoming information to assist. That said, we will continue to exercise patience (in burning diesel) as I hope that when all the problems are ironed out we will have a good system, free from the grid.
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Hi Derek:
Thanks for getting back to me. I think our problem may be related to bad bearings. The noise can be heard at quite a distance even after filling the tower with foam.
Have a great Fourth.
Doug Jones
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Hi tom:
Cannot imagine what a software change would do to quiet the inverter. Maybe someone from Southwest can explain this to everyone. I am sure they read these comments.
Doug Jones
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My Skystream went on line May 17 and has been doing well overall. As with the comments previously posted, my unit also has difficulty communicating with the remote interface. I suspect it is a transmitter or receiver problem. By Southwest's attitude I kind of think it's a transmitter problem. They're probably embarrassed because there isn't much you can do about it except lower the unit and put in a new transmitter. The good thing is that the remote interface isn't needed for the grid tie or normal operation. I have had one automatic shutdown during winds of 50-60mph but I believe it was also a fault on the grid. I'm not sure because Southwest doesn't supply customers with the full glossary of what all the error codes mean on the interface (when it's working). I am getting ready to hook up a CB antenna on my roof and run coax down to the remote interface and see if that helps at all. My unit has generated a modest 330 kwh since online May 17, 2008. I am in the market for a discounted 45' monopole if someone has an extra one laying around close to WA state. As far as the noise goes, I believe the hum that generates out of the turbine is fairly normal. It's a machine and machines do make noise. The noise out of my unit stays relatively low although the unit is roughly 120' from the house. When the wind is 20-30 mph I don't really care, I'm not outside anyway.
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Hi,
Did you get the SkyStream cold weather issues, and remote display communication problem resolved?
Please let me know, as I year later my Skystream is having the same shut down problems as the thread from January of 2008.
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Hey sorry for the delay responding. Been really crazy around here. After Southwest replaced the original turbine with a new one we were good to go. The new one has run fine ever since. The communications unit still rarely worked, but they sent a new inverter with the Zigbee communications package but I haven't had a chance to install it yet because of the weather. Over all it's done good. Last year it produced 2,480 kWh. I have a production chart and various info on the skystream at KeepTurning.com
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Hi
We are back on island. Shut our system down in September because one of the blades delaminated. Finally got the blades in November, but no new bolts, so waited until those were sent and we are back up and running mid January. Delays were not all SWWP fault. I was back in the states. While the pole was down we coated the pole with a marine sealer used for roofs. Two coats. has made a real difference in the reverberations from the pole. Now if SWWP could come up with a solution for the whinning. I think it is from the invertor. Why not put that in a seperate unit on the ground?
Enjoy the comments.
Doug Jones, Tortola, British Virgin Islands
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I had a Skystream installed in Oct 08. This unit is a serious disapointment. I have had many day this winter with winds over 25mph for hour and it has never produced more than 1kwh in an hour. Only 325 the entire 4.5 months. I suspect the there is a lot of misinformation on production out there. I had a meter installed in the line and it does'nt lie. Also found out the state of MI. will tax this unit and the amount of tax will be far more than this will ever produce. So far sorry I ever put this up!
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My parents just south of MI boarder in IN are installing a Skystream and I'm sorry to hear so much negative news on this blog. Where are you located in MI? Were the wind speeds of 25mph at the head of your turbine or from an airport report etc? What is the height of your turbine above nearby obstructions like trees or buildings?
Explain more about the MI tax. Is it a property type tax that is fixed or is it an energy generation tax based on kWhr produced by you? What is your annual taxes increase in dollars for this turbine?
I hope something works out for you.
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What tax does Michigan impose on the wind turbine? I'm planning on putting one up at an off grid home I have in the UP and this is news to me. Where is yours installed?
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What tax does Michigan impose on the wind turbine? I'm planning on putting one up at an off grid home I have in the UP and this is news to me. Where is yours installed?
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I have a skystream 3.7 installed 4/08. It is on a 50' rohn guyed tower.
Mild weather limited production to 1100 KWH to date. I installed a capacitor where the unit power met grid power; as turbine would shut down every time it started. Capacitor helped smooth the sine wave. Southwest was happy to hear this as they had no solution. I am at 4900' and freezing temps do affect start. Also I have old software and the remote box is in "error" more then it is working. I was told by SW that I was eligible for the Ziggbe upgrade. It is almost a year and no upgrade.
Noise is a high-pitch hum, louder as speed increases. This is about 60d. and I believe normal. Sounds like money in my pocket.
Hope this helps some issues.
George in Spanish Springs NV.
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Can you give an indication of what you used as a Capacitor. Southwest has not helped me at all and I think I will need to help myself. Willing to try anything to stop the embarrassment of a $10K lawn ornament.
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George
I plan to install a Skystrean on a Rohn tower 70' high. My main concern is how do you adapt it to fit the top of the tower. How did you adapt the Skystream to your tower? Thanks James Ferguson
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I have two skystream 3.7 on 35' monopoles in central Texas. I've had them running since mid May 2009. I've had nothing but trouble since day one. In 10 to 20 MPh winds they will shut down and restart. Combined they are producing appx. 40 kw per week. I installed a meter mid Sept. and10-11-09 they had produced 95 kw. With a $30,000.00 investment only God could live long enough to break even.Save your money and pay it too the utility company.
Ken A.
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Quite inspiring,
It is good to see some one who shares an interesting in gree energy resources, keep up the good work,
Thanks for writing, most people don't bother.
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Skystream is more a marketing company than anything else..taking US funding for R&D, US customers for testing, and then offshoring production to China. Could have been a good unit, but the payback would still be huge.
Probably only worthwhile for those totally off-grid, and with solar as backup.
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While our SWWP 3.7 took a direct hit from lightning here on the 15th of November. Probably not much you can do to prevent the damage to our unit. The directions for installation did not suggest an appropriate ground. We put a #8 gauge wire and #8ground wire. Should have installed probably a #2 ground.
The lightning hit literally blew apart our PVC piping in two locations. Thecharge literally pulled a bolt out of our house as it entered the house to go to ground. Spoke with a local contractor who worked installing local phone towers. He said a much larger ground wire would have helped.
Important to add coverage for the wind turbine to your homeowners policy.
We are at the top of a hill that is much higher than surrounding ground. How can I protect my wind turbine from lightning strikes? Not sure my insurance company will cover me if I do not provide additional protection.
We have some new help from AES Energy in Tortola. The previous owner passed away before before we had installed our turbine so we were left on our own and probablymade some mistakes, Located the wind turbine too close to our house, undersized the wire from the turbine to the meter room and lost about 7% of the generated electricity. Several ground wires would help and make sure the ground rod is close to tower.
Hope some of this information helps.
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