Wondering about turbine makes made in China

[Richard Marble]

Hi, I'm a new member.

I'm planning on putting up a turbine on my farm this year. Something between 5KW and 10KW.

I've been looking at all the wind turbine makes out there. Some made outside the US have a lot lower price tag. So are they all junk? If not, which makes are good and which should I stay away from?

Is there a listing like UL that I should be looking for and if so what listings should I be looking for? Is there a list of turbines people have been using that are working well somewhere?

Thanks for the help.

[Ric Murphy]

Hi Richard,
Welcome to the forum. I can't specifically answer your question but have a few cents worth of opinions I can share! Much of what we buy today is manufactured in China. It all can't be junk but alot of it sure is (my opinion). There was a time when anything Japanese was considered junk but I don't think that belief is valid today. I suspect most product manufactured today in China is not designed there. So in my mind there's 2 considerations:
1) Is it a good design and,
2) Was it manufactured well
Both of these may be difficult to answer. I've owned a small Chinese built wind turbine for about 4 years now. I believe it was designed in the USA. It has failed at least 3 times and been out of service for a total of close to a year since originally installed. Although each failure was different, in my opinion they were more likely design flaws than manufacturing errors. In all cases the Canadian distributer covered the repairs so other than the loss of flying time and cost to return the unit for service I wasn't out any $$$. So the best advice I can offer is this.
1) Warranty - what is covered and for how long?
2) Repair locations - how far will you have to ship the unit in the event it fails (either during warranty or after warranty expires). If you have to lower the unit, pack it for shipping, pay to send it half way around the world and then wait for parts I guarentee you'll be very frustrated. In my case the turbine is small, the service location was 4-1/2 hours away and they usually stocked every part that could ever be needed. The size of turbine you are considering is no small unit so warranty and service issues will be significant.
HTH,
Ric