Have a homeowner who is interested in installing a small residential style wind turbine. BO said something about for farm use only? Anyone deal with these yet? any pointers or things to look out for?

Thanks

p.s. - I put it in the FBC forum but welcome NEC issues as well! For some reason I can not post in the general discussion area. (Ruben!)

Don't know why Rob the settings look correct.
Any user that is logged in should be able to post and reply in the general discussion area.
I will give it a try myself.

I had to reset the permission setting on that forum. All the settings were correct but it would not work for you so I just clicked on them again and it is working now.

Maybe something was corrupted so I will need to go over all the forums and resubmit settings just in case.
Thanks for the Heads Up.

Our Zoning department has height restrictions for wind turbines.

You know I guess it is the thing today about turbines. But!
It is a fact that Florida does not have the sustained winds to support Wind Turbines.
Wind Gusts yes, but that is it.
In a time long ago you used to see some shallow well pumps run by wind mills for things such as cattle watering holes. They were needs that did not depend on a constant source day to day.
Fill the pond for a couple hours, cows drink water then in a few more days the winds pick up and add more water to the pond.
So what if the pond did not fill for a few days. There was still some water left.

I agree with Ruben. I don't see wind turbines being all tat effective here in Florida, and especially as small as those you see on residential properties.

From a code standpoint, I would be mostly interested in seeing the installation instructions and the listing instructions / labeling.

Structurally, it woul need to be designed to withistand the windloads per code much like any other "tower", sign, or large stand alone object.

Electrically, I would treat it like any other optional standby system such as a generator.

Well Rob I really think this is the right place to post because I see a installation as more of a issue with FBC, meaning wind codes than the NEC.
Depending on where you are if the deed restrictions allow. How do you install the thing taking into account coastal winds.
Maybe Don can chime in with some feedback.

I think the hard part for the homeowner will be getting the engineering for the structure, easing the environmental concern for bird strikes and the zoning that allows the "eyesore". (see the Cape Wind debacle)
I think the electrical component will be trivial.

Below is a link to some information concerning residential wind turbines from the American Wind Energy Association

http://www.awea.org/faq/rsdntqa.html
here is a qoute from that site
"A residential wind turbine can be a relatively large device and is not suitable for urban or small-lot suburban homes. Except for very small wind turbines (i.e., with rotors one meter or less in diameter) on very small towers, a property size of one acre or more is desirable.
The economics of a wind system are very sensitive to the average wind speed in the area, and to a lesser extent, the cost of purchasing electricity. As a general rule of thumb, if economics are a concern, a turbine owner should have at least a 10 mph average wind speed and be paying at least 10 cents/kWh for electricity.

Residential wind turbines have been installed in at least 47 of the 50 states, but the majority of the units have been installed in the Northeast and the Midwest."

This site provide information specific to buying and installing a small wind turbine in each of the U.S. states. Note: Florida is not listed.
http://www.awea.org/smallwind/states.html

I agree with most of the comments here and believe the electrical issues will be minor compare to other issues. The first issue would be overcoming the zoning or development issues within a residential area.
Probably then if approved, it would become a structural design issue, ironically enough, the designing for "wind load".

Just another item to consider is payback here in Florida.
I do know the PSC mandated Net metering in Florida for Investor owned utilities. But I an not sure what the Co-op utilities are doing.
Rob just as a fyi Net Metering is where the turbine is connected to the meter. So it will slow down per say or turn backwards depending on load served to the house from the utility in combination with the turbine. Or fed back to the utility if the house has no load at the time.
This is usually the best option for the customer since the net difference on reading the meter is what is billed.
If the customer presumes they will be paid for excess power exported to the utility. Usually the utility will require a separate meter and they will be paid not on the retail price per KWH but I believe what is called avoided cost. Big price reduction here. So if the customer is paying say 10cents per KWH. They may only get paid 1 cent per KWh for exported power.

Also most all utilities have a requirement for interconnected equipment to the grid. Which usually has its own requirements and legal contracts to abide by. This is usually the case due to say the feeder goes down in the area from the utility. There must be some isolation relays to drop the turbine off the grid because the feeder will attempt to draw off the turbine to supply the feeder with power. So what happens is say a 6MW feeder is supplied by a 10kW turbine and it will go down the tubes as far as voltage and or burn up the customer equipment including other customers on the grid that are not using the turbine.

I have to believe any decent controller would detect the overcurrent on the output of the turbine and take it offline. A regular breaker would do that but someone would have to reset it so I imagine this is electronic switching.
The grid, with no power coming from the utility side, will pretty much look like a bolted fault to any consumer scale generation capacity.