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diy solar

Wind turbine

RV Jim

Newbie needing help
Joined
Mar 29, 2022
Messages
39
Location
Odem Texas
I plan to connect my 400w Solar panels to my system BUT can I add a wind turbine to it also ? We are in south Texas and the Wind rarely stops here...cloudy days are somewhat common and enough to prompt me to ask about wind turbine. Yes I understand that this is a Solar forum but I am sure I would not be the first to consider wind in conjunction with solar. Thank you for your help and patience with my lack of knowledge.
 
IMO you can’t connect wind on a small scale in any practical way. If you have a lot of wide open space with no trees to break the flow of the wind or could put a tower up over the obstacles, and the wind is blowing, then maybe you can make it work. I gave up on my idea.

The best forum I found for wind is fieldines.com. A wind turbine recipe book by Hugh Piggot is a decent way to get an idea.
 
I am no expert but from what I understand a wind turbine needs a wind charge controller and also needs to be able to dump excess.

To me this means you could get a separate charge controller, for the wind, that connects to a dump and also possibly hooks the output into your system (I have no idea how and this idea may be awful).
 
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I am no expert but from what I understand a wind turbine needs a wind charge controller and also needs to be able to dump excess.

To me this means you could get a separate charge controller, for the wind, that connects to a dump and also possibly hooks the output into your system (I have no idea how and this idea may be awful).
This is correct.
And to the OP, yes you can put wind on your setup even on the same battery bank but separate controller and dump. But crisski is correct, I live in Texas too, but the wind really is not constant enough to justify a turbine. I used those funds to expand my solar setup.
 
We have a WIND forum here, it's just above OFF TOPIC.

I'm still trying to figure out why most turbines say they need about 30 mph winds to work well.
 
I'm still trying to figure out why most turbines say they need about 30 mph winds to work well.
I tried to decipher that code and find out why takes so much wind and how getting wind turbines to work better would be possible for a house. I came to the conclusion that many people much smarter than me had tried to make wind successful for an individual, and either never report back results or are usually unsuccesful.

May find some long term results here:


which from glancin through leads me to believe needs to go on a 60’tower.
 
Small wind has a bright future...(deep sigh).. and always will.

The laws of physics will always get in the way of small wind. It has nothing to do with a entirely new rotor design or super powerful magnets, etc. It's like talking about making a solar panel work better at night. Even if you do have a solar panel that is 50% more efficient at night the math still results in zero more power.

To try to help folks understand this I compare wind to solar. Anyone with PV already knows there's no solar energy available after sunset and pretty much zero energy available on rainy days.

Wind Power vs Solar
10 mph or less is night and there's no usable energy there to collect.
10 to 15 mph is a rainy day. There's just enough there to make your charge controller/inverter turn of and on every few seconds trying wake up.
16 to 18 mph is the 30 minutes after sunrise and before sunset where you system is running at 5% or less of rated output
19 mph to 25 mph are the incremental hours leading to solar noon where your solar finally hits it rated output
Over 25 mph is that aggravating fault that randomly shows up and shuts down your system.

With solar 95% (my best guess) of the population of the world gets a full day of sun at least 300 days per year.

With wind 95% (again, my best guess) of the world's population has an average wind speed of something substantially less than 15 mph and only sees 16+ mph well less than 200 hours per year. Don't forget it's completely random and unpredictable.




1654128195967.png
 
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So, the wind has my attention as well but as @OzSolar puts the numbers, and I pretty much agree; it just ain't there without a really big stick.
There is no way I am putting a 60 foot tower up in my yard. The neighbors already laugh at me.

The OP on the other hand lives in an area where the wind rarely stops.
Odem, TX is just inland from Corpus Christi. I spitballed the wind in Odem over the past 72 hours and the average was about 22 with less than 16 a great deal of the time.
Here is what the NWS is forecasting for June 2 & 3 and then again for June 6 & 7.
I can see why @RV Jim is interested. They typically get good steady wind blowing off the gulf. I have no idea how many big wind generators are in that part of Texas but there are a whole bunch.

A consumer size wind generator that produced well at 15mph would fly off the shelves. I would already have one.

wind odem tx june 123.PNG
wind odem tx june 6 7.PNG
 
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