Buchanan1
Member
- Location
- Vernon BC Canada
A year ago, my contractor installed a 10 kw Wind Turbine (mfg'd in China),
two 6 kw Aurora inverters send AC power to the grid on a net metering agreement with BC Hydro.
One aurora inverter didn't work right away (even tho wired parallel), but after a month it "kicked in", and things were fine for about 10 months or so.
During a huge windstorm overnight two months ago I heard the turbine's blades spinning faster and louder than ever before. I sensed something was wrong because the turbine blades were not turning out of the wind (as they're supposed to do).
The next day, the turbine blades were not turning, the two 6 kw Aurora inverters were OFF, no power lights, no nothing.
Contractor came out, after checking the "controller box", he thought the "resistor block" was dead. Then he said "no, both inverters are fried".
Pictures can be seen at my Flickr site:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/southslope/sets/72157617702085418/
PowerOne in California, after 5 weeks, sent us one new inverter (the other was apparently "fixable" here). Contractor hooked it up yesterday, and after about 4 hours of wiring, declared that the new inverter didn't work! He phoned Power One and demanded a new one be put on Air Express, as I'm ready to send EVERYTHING back.
Nobody seems to have any idea WHY overvoltage entered the inverter(s). The wind turbine doesn't have a "memory", but from the sound it made that stormy night, it must've been HUGE voltage from big RPMs.
One important thing: The property has 138,000 transmission line running approx. 300 feet from the wind turbine. Turbine's tech cables were trenched underground, crossing underneath the transmission line into the shop where the controller box and inverters are located (including a heat dump).
My question (and the contractor's) is: during the storm could "pick-up" (induced voltage) from transmission line's 2 circuits, 3 phases each, have "momentarily frozen" the wind turbine's safety controls (via static? or ?) so that overvoltage to the inverters occurred?
B.C. Hydro won't tell me anything, but I need to know what happened so the contractor can prevent it occurring again. The inverters were still under warranty, as was the wind turbine, but nobody is saying anything!
I will ask my contractor to join in this conversation, because I have NO elec know-how (as though you hadn't guessed! ).
thank you for any ideas of what caused what, and how I can prevent this happening again.
two 6 kw Aurora inverters send AC power to the grid on a net metering agreement with BC Hydro.
One aurora inverter didn't work right away (even tho wired parallel), but after a month it "kicked in", and things were fine for about 10 months or so.
During a huge windstorm overnight two months ago I heard the turbine's blades spinning faster and louder than ever before. I sensed something was wrong because the turbine blades were not turning out of the wind (as they're supposed to do).
The next day, the turbine blades were not turning, the two 6 kw Aurora inverters were OFF, no power lights, no nothing.
Contractor came out, after checking the "controller box", he thought the "resistor block" was dead. Then he said "no, both inverters are fried".
Pictures can be seen at my Flickr site:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/southslope/sets/72157617702085418/
PowerOne in California, after 5 weeks, sent us one new inverter (the other was apparently "fixable" here). Contractor hooked it up yesterday, and after about 4 hours of wiring, declared that the new inverter didn't work! He phoned Power One and demanded a new one be put on Air Express, as I'm ready to send EVERYTHING back.
Nobody seems to have any idea WHY overvoltage entered the inverter(s). The wind turbine doesn't have a "memory", but from the sound it made that stormy night, it must've been HUGE voltage from big RPMs.
One important thing: The property has 138,000 transmission line running approx. 300 feet from the wind turbine. Turbine's tech cables were trenched underground, crossing underneath the transmission line into the shop where the controller box and inverters are located (including a heat dump).
My question (and the contractor's) is: during the storm could "pick-up" (induced voltage) from transmission line's 2 circuits, 3 phases each, have "momentarily frozen" the wind turbine's safety controls (via static? or ?) so that overvoltage to the inverters occurred?
B.C. Hydro won't tell me anything, but I need to know what happened so the contractor can prevent it occurring again. The inverters were still under warranty, as was the wind turbine, but nobody is saying anything!
I will ask my contractor to join in this conversation, because I have NO elec know-how (as though you hadn't guessed! ).
thank you for any ideas of what caused what, and how I can prevent this happening again.