Wind turbines.

[Matthew]

My travels in london town today took me to the south side of the Thames a fair way out East and in the background on the other shore, were three wind turbines.

Massive bloody things but all happily spinning away.

How easy would it be for say a post-apocolyptic community to make use of such things ? Do they require constant maintainence or do they tend to pretty much look after themselves once they start spinning away ?

Would somebody with only a basic knowledge of electrics be able to somehow hijack them ?

[edwin]

Certainly the 12 volt amateur generating sets that are dotted around could be used but I imagine you would need a transformer to get down to 240 volts from the big turbines. They may be 240 volts and stepped up to feed into the National Grid as happens with the 12 volt DC of our roof voltaic cells.

But to use the biggies I reckon would need an electrical engineer and regular maintenance. The 12 volt sets have to be lubricated at least.

[edwin]

I can imagine a group becoming almost slaves to the Turbines or to any other generating system. Ultimately all in vain unless a wire drawing etc etc etc infrastructure is recreated.

[tq168]

They wont be of use at all post-apocolyptic community, as not geared up to supply mains voltage

TQ

[edwin]

I think we all need to read and absorb the information in this
www.cpdee.ufmg.br/~elt/docs/EltSep/Facts/ABB/voltage%20and%20power%20quality%20control%20in%20wind%20power%20applications%20by%20svc.pdf

In fact I am rather surprised that anybody hasn't already.