Have Wind Turbine plus a little Solar--what next

Re: Have Wind Turbine plus a little Solar--what next

Northernboy,

I have moved and created a new thread for your post--should make things easier.

In a nut shell for Solar:

1. Conserve (insulation, energy efficient appliances, turn things off, etc.)
2. Understand your loads. Peak Watts (i.e., well pump starting load). Average watts (radio+tv+lights, etc.). And how much time things are turned on (100w*2hours + 50w*6hours = 500 Watt*Hours).
3. Size the Battery... Generally, recommend that the battery be 6x your daily load (allows for 3 day of no-sun, and 50% maximum discharge for longer battery life).
4. Size the Solar Array (or Wind-System) to provide for your Watt*Hours of usage per day * 1/efficiency of your charge controller, battery bank, inverter, etc.
5. Picking Battery Bank voltage--typically, I recommend a maximum of about 100 amps through your battery bank--heavier currents require larger wires/fuses/breakers/etc.--gets hard to work on and expensive... So if you are ~1,200 watts load or less--12 volts is fine. If you are more than 2,400 watts, then look at 48 volt bank.
6. Backup generator--try to size the generator to your loads (run your shop, maximum sized battery charger, etc.). Try not to use a 10kWatt genset where a 1,600 watt one will work.

We can supply all sorts of links and formulas to help you size your system... But it will be much easier if you tell us your rough location (for solar power), daily loads (in Watt*Hours or Amp*Hours at xx Volts), how much power you expect to get from your wind turbine (or just assume zero for now), when will the cabin be occupied (year round, summer, winter, etc.).

With real numbers, we can work through the basic sizing issues very quickly, then discuss the details of what batteries, what charge controller, inverter, how many watts of solar panels, etc.

Also, you put your first post originally in a Tankless Water Heater thread... That may work better if you post your TW questions in a separate thread to lessen confusion--the subject (solar electricity vs water heater) don't overlap very much.

-Bill