400 Watt Wind Turbine

Derik

I am looking for a inexpensive wind turbine to suppliment my 9 215 watt solar panels.

We get plenty of sun in the high desert of San Diego County but when we get a storm front it normally lasts for 3-4 days and the wind always blows. I can make power in cloud cover but am looking for something I can keep the batteries full in overecast conditions.

I have a 24 volt system, can I simply mount a wind turbin next to my battery bank and hook up two wires and that's it?

I have a Outback Flex 500 with FM 80 Charge controller, and mate. Will the system recognige the batteries are full and simply stop charging once the wind power has filled the batteries during a windy spell?

I normally dont use my washer and dryer and dishwasher during the night or even run my 600 watt heater fan just because I don't want to stress my 12 -L16 batteries, will a small wind turbin allow me to do so with confidence if the wind is blowing 25-40 mph as it does during an overcast period.

Thanks

Derik

MisterB

Re: 400 Watt Wind Turbine

You have the right idea but 400 watts is not going to be enough for you. My experience in hybrid systems is that the wind generator has to have the same or more capacity as the solar array. You've got an array that's got 1935 watts of rated capacity. You'll need a 2 KW wind turbine minimum to compensate for the cloudy weather. Siting is also a factor and you should have at least 30' of clearance above anything around the turbine. Being in a wide open space or on the top of a ridge is best. Buying a cheap anemometer to measure actual wind speeds at a given height before you invest in a turbine would be a good idea and give you a more realistic idea of what you might actually harvest with it.

Wind generators are mechanical devices that move and wind energy is never as simple and easy as solar but it does work well in a hybrid system if done right. It is not going be as simple as hooking 2 cables to a battery. You are going to have to have a seperate controller for the wind turbine. Starting at 24 volts is good because there are a lot more options at the power rating you'll need at 24 volts and the cable size is reasonable.

Derik

Re: 400 Watt Wind Turbine

I am not looking to charge my battery bank on a daily bassis, only suppliment what I don't make when it is cloudy. We have just 15 days a year where we have clouds so just a few months during the winter an then for no more than 3-4 days in a row.

I feel like I am over sold on the solar as is and am capable of making way more power than I will ever use, in most cases. I only use about 4Kw of power a day and my solar can make about 3-4 times that, but when it's cloudy I only make about 1.6KW so I figured 400 watts of wind power going directly into my batteries for a few hours would keep my batteries full..

If I need 2K of wind power to do that then I am out, I'll just get a good propane genertor. I thought the wind would be the most bang for the buck in my case, I didn't realize they were that inefficient.

Thanks for the feedback.

Derik

MisterB

Re: 400 Watt Wind Turbine

You'll get something out of a smaller turbine but it will only suppliment your solar array not fully substitute for it in cloudy conditions. For just a few days a year, a propane generator would be the way to go. You can't always rely on the wind to blow when you need it. Right now, there is a light rain outside and the wind is blowing enough to float my batteries but I just went through 3 days of rain/snow cloudy weather with almost no sun and wind only on the first day and I had to reduce my loads to 2 10 watt halogen lights by the second night or run my generator. I was in the mood to read a book anyway, so I went for 20 watts of light and quiet. The weather cleared and the wind started blowing the third night and the following day, yesterday, I had both sun and wind and my batteries reached float by 10am.

Derik

Re: 400 Watt Wind Turbine

Yes that is what I was looking for, I may get the 600 watt turbin based on what you said. It's only a few hundred dollars more and I think it kicks in at lower wind speeds.

I am off site now but will check my batteries tomorrow and see where they are, they have been getting fully charged about every 3-4 days for the past week and running down only to about 75% or 3/4 full. My thinking was the wind turbin may kick them up to 90-100% On those days they aren't getting fully charged. It's all temporary since once March hits we have almost unlimited sunshine.

We may have similar weather if your in Arizona. I am on the eastern edge of San Diego County at 3,300 feet. Lots of wind when the storms come in from the west as they are now.

System2

Re: 400 Watt Wind Turbine

I slightly disagree with this advice. The use of the wind gen. was as an Addition to the current solar arrays, not a Replacement for them. Thus, a 400 watt wind gen. will work well, IF the winds will be in the 15k and higher a good deal of time.

These generators start making more than 1 amp at 12-15 mph, and the output curve increases in a logarithmic fashion; you have say 1A out at 13 mph, but at 15 mph, you will be seeing say 5A, but by 20 mph, you will see 18-20A. The most I have ever seen on my AirX Marine is 38A, in 35 kts of wind.

Hooking up these 400W generators is rock simple. Simply connect up to the bank directly.. They all have a very advanced internal regulator that incorporates a 3-step charging protocol for deep-cycle batteries, and if the winds are blowing sufficiently to cause overcharging, the regulator in the wind generator will feed the excess output back into the field winding, causing it act as a brake on the blade, regulating the rpm to the maximum that is required for the battery. Once full charge hass been reached, the regulator goes into float mode, keeping the voltage up around 14.1v, and the current very low, to form and hold a surface charge in the batteries. No external regulator is needed with these.

Where your advice is correct is with wind generators that are larger than 400W. Some depend on a lot of external electronics for proper control, and I would use a regulator there, as the manufacture may n ot have even built one into the design. As always, buyer be forearmed with knowledge of what you are looking at Before buying.

Sailor
Lake Superior

MisterB wrote: »

You have the right idea but 400 watts is not going to be enough for you. My experience in hybrid systems is that the wind generator has to have the same or more capacity as the solar array. You've got an array that's got 1935 watts of rated capacity. You'll need a 2 KW wind turbine minimum to compensate for the cloudy weather. Siting is also a factor and you should have at least 30' of clearance above anything around the turbine. Being in a wide open space or on the top of a ridge is best. Buying a cheap anemometer to measure actual wind speeds at a given height before you invest in a turbine would be a good idea and give you a more realistic idea of what you might actually harvest with it.

Wind generators are mechanical devices that move and wind energy is never as simple and easy as solar but it does work well in a hybrid system if done right. It is not going be as simple as hooking 2 cables to a battery. You are going to have to have a seperate controller for the wind turbine. Starting at 24 volts is good because there are a lot more options at the power rating you'll need at 24 volts and the cable size is reasonable.

System2

Re: 400 Watt Wind Turbine

I can highly recommend the Air-X brand of 400W Wind Generators, as well as KISS wind generators. Amazing work has been done on blade design, power curve modeling and generator electronics, which make these little critters pretty much fool proof.
Built into the design is an automatic electronic blade braking system that uses the excess power that may try to be generated in the generator, to actually brake the blade down until it is barely rotating in 70 kts (saw this myself on my boat). The also have a "smart" 3-step charger built into them, so that no overcharging would be allowed to happen.
Heck, mine will even perform an "equalization charge" on command, which is required for long battery life.

They can be bought for something in the 6-700$$ range, with discounts at various solar power places, marine outfitters, etc.
They have a most interesting slip yoke that transfers power from the power head to the tower mounting, so that the generator can rotate 360 deg without end. They use a set of brushes on a finely machined slip-ring, that showed minimal wear on my unit, after 5 years of heavy use, mounted on my boat 360 days a year. In fact, it is hopefully running at this moment, keeping my 3 banks topped off over our long winter in NW Wisc.

Let me know if you have problems finding the units I mentioned.

Cheers,

Sailor

BB.

Re: 400 Watt Wind Turbine

Is this the Wind Generators Kiss High-Output Wind Generator website?

Kiss Energy Systems
Tropical Marine Complex
Chaguaramas, Trinidad

-Bill

MisterB

Re: 400 Watt Wind Turbine

I slightly disagree with this advice. The use of the wind gen. was as an Addition to the current solar arrays, not a Replacement for them. Thus, a 400 watt wind gen. will work well, IF the winds will be in the 15k and higher a good deal of time.

My advice was based upon my personal experience living with a hybrid system for a number of years. I started around 1989 with a 175 watt solar array of 35 watt Arco panels and a 250 watt Windseeker wind turbine. I didn't live on this property full time and when I was there the system really rocked and the wind generator would keep my batteries charged during winter storms when the sun disapeared for days. On windy spring days, I would get energy feasts of 300-500 watts. I've been spending more and more time here and starting about 6 years ago, I've been here living off the grid pretty much full time. The system started to get old and I needed more power so I bought 2 125 watt solar panels and a new wind generator rated at 500 to 600 watts. The panels were rated at 7.29 amps of current at 20 volts and I get 8+ amps from them. This combined with the old array gives me around 25 amps at 12 volts from the solar part of the system and I bought the windgen with the idea that I would get around the same current on a good windy day but it hasn't worked out that way and, due to an aerodynamic issue, I get good low wind performance but I can't get a stable current at high wind speeds and the windgen has ended up being a supliment to my solar array but it can't carry me through a snowstorm the way my old setup did and I have to reduce loads a lot more when it's cloudy and windy.

If I think in the abstract about the factors in a hybrid system, there has to be a balance between charge sources and loads and storage. If the system is lightly loaded in comparison to it's charge capacity, then a smaller wattage windgen would be a good supliment to a larger solar array but if the system is more heavily loaded, it would be better to have the charge sources aproximately equal in capacity. I am loading my system more than I used to and I need to be able to have both power sources be able to handle the loads equally and charge batteries as well.

I live in a totally off the grid situation and I don't like running a generator for extended periods of time so more energy from the wind turbine is always better. I wouldn't mind having a surplus of power to burn an array of halogen lights on cold windy winter nights. And these days, I am using a lot of power tools in the daytime so having cold windy spring days with my system cranking out 800 watts from both sources would be nice.

mike95490

Re: 400 Watt Wind Turbine

Sailor wrote:

......
Hooking up these 400W generators is rock simple. Simply connect up to the bank directly.. They all have a very advanced internal regulator that incorporates a 3-step charging protocol for deep-cycle batteries, and if the winds are blowing sufficiently to cause overcharging, the regulator in the wind generator will feed the excess output back into the field winding, causing it act as a brake on the blade, regulating the rpm to the maximum that is required for the battery........

Wow, that's an improvement, the old Air-X was a simple regulator like in a car, charging or not, with a manual "STOP" switch for high winds.