I have a 36v wind turbine, a 48v Forklift battery bank and 3000w of solar panels.

StevieD

How do I get all this working together

BB.

Welcome to the forum Stevie.

Forgetting the wind turbine for a moment... Can you tell us what is your basic equipement?

• Amp*Hour (20 Hour rating) of your 48 volt battery (is this 2x 24 volt in series, do you have any parallel battery strings)?
• Charge Controller (do you have one yet)?
• Solar panels... What Vmp / Imp rating (Voltage max power / Current max power) and how many?
• What are you loads (AC inverter, how much AH or WH per day do you plan on using)?
• Do you have the battery bank on some sort of AC charger? Generally, if you let flooded cell batteries sit for > 1 month without charging, they will sulfate and die not too long after.
• Have you check the electrolyte levels in the cells? Do you have a Hydrometer to check specific gravity (what is the SG?)? Do you have a good volt meter to tell us what the resting voltage of the bank is?
• Do you have a backup charging source (AC mains or genset + AC Charger)? Again--Flooded cell lead acid batteries do not last for long if left sitting.

Where, roughly, is the system installed (nearest large city)? If you are in Dublin Ireland, roughly the "hours of sun" per day look like:
http://www.solarelectricityhandbook.com/solar-irradiance.html

Dublin
Average Solar Insolation figures

Measured in kWh/m2/day onto a solar panel set at a 37° angle from vertical:
(For best year-round performance)

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
1.08	1.79	2.48	3.42	3.91	3.76
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
3.70	3.42	2.93	2.06	1.42	0.94

Not really great sun... Below 3 hours per day gets difficult to have a cost effective solar array.

For example, January with 1.08 hours a day of average sun will give you (very roughly):

• 3,000 Watt array * 0.52 typical off grid system eff * 1.08 hours a day (Jan) = 1,685 Watt*Hours per day (January typical)
• 1,685 WH / 48 volts = ~35 AH @ 48 volts
  

Regarding the 36 volt wind turbine--No easy way to make that 48 volts. Do you have any sort of Wind Controller with that? Brand/model of wind turbine? Does anyone in your area have a well running wind turbine setup? To get "useful" amounts of power--Typically it needs to be pretty miserably windy, and the turbine should be 20 meters (at least) off the ground (and 10 meters above nearby trees/buildings).

I am not a big fan of wind turbines--But with the right equipment in the right place, they can work.

-Bill