SLG Wind Diesel System

Appropriate Energy's Wind Diesel System

What is it?

The Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System is an engineered site specific power system solution designed to reduce diesel fuel consumption and increase system efficiency and economics.

The Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System has been designed and developed for use by Public Utilities and commercial users. There are three major components to the Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System:

1) The SLG wind turbine,
2) The Appropriate Energy Control System, and
3) The Diesel Genset.

1) The SLG Wind Turbine is a patented turbine, designed specifically to work efficiently at low wind speed sites.  It is rated at 4.5 m/s, a wind speed found by the United Nations to be on generally available over 80% of the earth's land mass. Due to our patented design, the AEI can generate energy in locations where other manufacturers would fail to even rotate.

The SLG was designed and modeled using proprietary and patented computer modeling software developed especially for Appropriate Energy.

The first SLG wind turbine was installed in 1996 and has been operating continuously at our test site in Spanish Fork, Utah for 5 years.  This test site, which is subject to extreme weather conditions, is located 55 miles south of Salt Lake City at approximately 5,200 feet. The SLG has experienced everything from hot dry summers (32-38 degrees C) to extreme winters where temperatures have been recorded at -23 degrees C. The site has received moderate to heavy amounts of snow and ice but the SLG has shown no signs of ice accumulation.

The Spanish Fork test site not only sees good energy producing winds, it also has its share of extreme wind conditions. When thunderstorms build in the mountains, it is not uncommon to see winds gusting above 25 m/s. These gusts can be associated with large wind direction changes as well.  It is common to have storm gusts in excess of 35 m/s that have caused the SLG to be subject to the IEC extreme coherent gust conditions.

Hearsay suggested that these winds were the winds that continuously damaged, and eventually caused the removal of the Jacobs test turbine which were installed by the city of Spanish Fork. The SLG has not failed for any reason in these high winds.

2) The Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System Controls are specifically engineered to meet the needs of each client's generating system, while containing the ability to be adjusted to adapt to an ever changing energy load. These controls regulate the output from the SLG wind turbines, while controlling each diesel generating device to achieve the highest fuel reduction.  Depending on your current generating configuration, the load, the age and the condition of your current system, and wind resource, the fuel reduction from adding a Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System can be anywhere from 30-200 % for each kWh produced using this wind turbine.

"fuel reduction from adding a Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System can be anywhere from 30 - 200%."

3) Diesel gensets are the standard generators for rural electrification, thus a major design consideration in the Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System.  As most clients will want to utilize their existing diesel genset in any wind diesel system, Appropriate Energy's control components were selected in such a way that these controls should be compatible with all major genset available on the market. If you are concerned about your genset's compatibility with Appropriate Energy's Wind Diesel System, please email us the technical specifications and current operating condition of your existing diesel genset.

Why add a Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System? A Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System is usually installed to reduce the amount of diesel fuel required to power a site. With a 30-200% fuel reduction, a Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System can pay for itself within a matter of a few years (depending on the average delivered cost of diesel fuel at your site). The pay back period of the system tends to decrease as the sites become more remote and where the cost of diesel fuel is high. Appropriate Energy has personally reviewed sites in Asia where the system pay back would occur in less than 1 year at the full installed retail price. A Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System will also improve your system efficiency, economics and reduce the size of your diesel storage tankage while diminishing the environmental impacts caused by burning and storing diesel fuel.

Where and when you would add a wind diesel system?

The Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System can be installed on almost any site that has a currently operational need for diesel genset of at least 40kVA and a wind speed in the range of 4.5m/s. A Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System should be considered when there is a need to reduce the fuel consumption of an existing power system.

What are the installation requirements and system expansion considerations?

The Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System was designed to be modular and portable. Using locally available equipment the Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System can be installed anywhere from a remote island to a mountain top without the need for a crane.  While the Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System was initially designed for the integration of a single wind turbine and a single diesel, it can be adapted to handle multiple wind turbines and diesels. Therefore, you can start with a smaller system and add wind turbines and diesels as your loads increase.

How do we contact to get more information? For more information on the Appropriate Energy Wind Diesel System and a free initial consultation on whether your site is applicable, please contact Ralph Belden at Appropriate Energy, Inc

Ralph Belden
Email: ralphb@appropriateenergy.com