SolarDIY

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SolarDIY is a vibrant community dedicated to embracing the power of solar energy. Here, we encourage you to showcase your ingenious ideas, innovative projects, and inspiring stories, while also seeking valuable advice, fresh ideas, and fostering meaningful connections.

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Wind (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I know this is solarDIY, but it seems like a good place for this anyways. Tl;dr is there a good way to integrate wind and solar without spending a bundle?

Sun only shines during the day, and as distances from the equator increase, day lengths get shorter, and cloudier, and angles get steeper. However, my location has steady prevailing winds. So much so, there’s a wind farm practically in the back garden.

Which has me thinking that instead of a ton of panels and a big battery bank (to make use of sunnier days), a little 1kw or so turbine would go a really long way - especially for steady and/or long-running loads like router/server/modem, refrigerator, heat pump…

I understand that wind turbines make some dreadful power and it tends to be AC. They’re also a bit of a pain to situate but that’s sorta secondary. Let’s say I spin up 10kw of solar, a pile of LiFe batteries, and an eg4 AIO with grid-tie. Is there a reasonable, and safe way to integrate wind? I know one guy who just hooked it straight to his batteries but they were lead acid, and they cooked in a storm. Gave him an excuse to get a big life system instead.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Pardon if this is a naïve question, but the mention of hooking a turbine straight to the batteries makes me ask, why not just use a hybrid wind/solar charge controller?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Didn’t really occur to me that they exist; everything seems so focused on solar these days. But I’ll do some searching around.

I also am pretty stuck on grid tie at the moment, and grid tie AIO inverters are pretty cheap compared to piecemeal solutions. But perhaps that’s the flaw in my planning.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Ah, yes, I come at it from the boat angle, so I didn't think of the grid-tie AIO inverter being the cheaper option! It might be less expensive, then, to simply add in a wind charge controller. There's no issue with running two charge controllers in parallel to the same battery bank. They sense state-of-charge by voltage, so if one is running, the voltage is high and the other backs off. I think that makes the system slightly less effective, but probably not enough to notice.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

There's no issue with running two charge controllers in parallel to the same battery bank.

That’s good to know, and definitely helpful, thank you! Somewhat obvious in retrospect. Just need to find the equipment…