I purchased a 400 Watt wind turbine a little more than a year ago - after living off-grid for a few months. After having the turbine for a year, I didn't feel I was getting the most out of it, so I've replaced the standard PWM wind charge controller with a MPPT hybrid wind/solar charge controller.
Why MPPT Charge Controllers ?
Wind or Solar charge controllers connect to wind turbines or solar panels. The charge controller changes the voltage coming from the turbine or solar panels to 14 volts if it is for charging a 12 volt battery bank. It takes a larger amount of power to charge a larger battery, so if the turbine or panels are not providing enough power, the battery will not be charged. A MPPT charge controller has a capacitor that the low power from a turbine or solar panel input slowly fills. When the capacitor is full, it is able to push the larger amperage of power stored in the capacitor into a large battery.
Why Wind Power ?
I already had 1000 Watts of solar panels on the roof of the cabin, a 60 amp MPPT solar charge controller, a 800 Amp hour bank of batteries, and a backup gas generator with a battery charger for multiple cloudy days. The reasoning for adding the turbine was that at night when the sun is not shining on the solar panels, if the night is windy then the turbine will trickle power to the batteries. There are less hours of daylight in the winter where I live, but it is also much windier than in the summer. It is also often windier in other low light conditions from overcast or storm clouds. Turbine power is a good compliment to a solar power system if there is consistent wind flow where the hybrid wind/solar system is setup.
For more information about off-grid solar power systems and sizing, this previous post goes into more detail: Off-Grid: Complete Solar Power System Flow.
Hybrid Wind/Solar MPPT Charge Controller
In the first picture below you can see the PWM wind charge controller the 400 Watt turbine came with - next to a standard PWM solar charge controller. Both charge controllers have positive (+) and negative (-) terminals to connect the the battery array. Wind charge controllers have 3 alternating current inputs for the 3 alternating current wires coming from the turbine - the alternating current wires an be connected in any order. Solar charge controllers have positive (+) and negative (-) terminals to connect to the positive (+) and negative (-) wires coming from the solar panels.
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In the second picture above you can see the new hybrid wind/solar MPPT charge controller. The large green cylinder is a heat-sink to prevent the charge controller from overheating. The heat-sink is connected to the two outside resistor terminals on the top of the charge controller.
In the picture below, on the top of the charge controller, you can see the 3 terminals for the 3 attached alternating current wires coming from the turbine. This MPPT charge controller model is rated at 300 Watts, they recommend a wind turbine rated for no more than 600 Watts. My 400 Watt rated wind turbine will not over power this charge controller.
In the picture above, you can see on the bottom of the charge controller, the positive (+) and negative (-) terminals with the wires from the battery connected. To the left of the battery terminals are the terminals for connecting up to 200 Watts of solar panels. To the right of the battery terminals are the load terminals for providing 12 Volt power to electrical devices directly. One of the load terminals are for connecting water heaters, fans, pumps, or other useful devices for when the batteries are full, the charge controller will dump the excess power by powering the devices on this load terminal. Other wind charge controllers, like the PWM one the turbine came with do not have a load dump feature and will apply brakes to the wind turbine when the batteries are full - this is wasteful and potentially damaging to the turbine.
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In the first picture above you can see the charge controller and head-sink mounted to the wall inside the cabin. The charge controller has 3 display modes - battery voltage, wind charging amps, and solar charging amps.
For more information about selecting charge controllers and solar panels, Tech Talk: Solar Panel Wattage Selection for your Emergency or Off-Grid Needs
400 Watt Wind Turbine Mount
You can see I have the wind turbine mounted to a topped juniper tree. I found it easier than mounting a pole in the ground. I have another tree trunk lashed to the rooted one, rising above the topped juniper tree. Three tow straps are ran from stakes in the ground to the top of the pole for stabilization. I used a 25 foot extension cord to run the 3 alternating current wires from the turbine to the charge controller inside the cabin.
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Turbine In Motion
A little breeze finally picked up and I was able to witness the wind charge controller in action. The red charging light was fully lit, the fan display icon was spinning away. It only spun up to 1.3 amps (Amps X Volts (12) = Watts), which is on 15.6 watts, I'll have to wait for a windier day to see the max power I can get out of this turbine.
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Turbine's are a great idea, but larger size turbines are expensive and in most places the sun is much more predicable and consistent than the wind. For anyone building a off-grid power system, I would recommend focusing on the solar side first, then add a turbine later if appropriate.
Have a great day!
@jackdub I wish you all the best ..... I have been there done that. My wind turbine is still 25 foot up and still spinning, but there really is not that much power that can be harvested from these small turbines. I will leave it up, it does make some power, and a little is better than none. I would just discourage anyone to put one up. The money they spend on setting one up could be spent on adding to there Array..... All the best @silvertop
resteemed!!!
Oh crap @Silvertop... After reading Jack's post just now I was thinking (again) and convinced it would be a good idea to get a small turbine. I was thinking 700 watts and up around 45 feet, we are also on a hill and our area gets a lot of wind when there is wind.
Still think money is better spent on expending solar? I guess it really depends on the situation of the property
Thats exactly true, but I can tell you that where I am, In the NW, we get storms that make Tornado's look like a gentle breeze. I have a ( 500 watt ) turbine, and at best during that storm I have seen 350 to 375 watts. It won't keep my batteries charged. If your hat blows off all day..... look into a turbine... maybe. If not I would put my money in panels
Yea, that's what I'm hearing from everyone... solar is just cheaper in the end I guess! I'm still stuck at understanding batteries for the moment. Which reminds me I have to look into the specs for the charger that came with our trailer...
Have a good day
Thanks - I totally agree with you, for the $1000 i have into the turbine and mppt charge controller, i would much rather have another 600 watts of solar panels. Great idea in theory, but the small turbine power falls short - I just had to see for myself :)
I totally agree @jackdub, I also wanted to dip my toe in the 3 phase pool 😀
Ok so you guys have me all turned around now.. hmmm well like you said in the post anyway.... focus on solar power first. No matter what, we have to upgrade from our 75 watt panels next year.
That is a really nice setup you have @jackdub! I found the same thing with wind turbines although mine is much smaller it would have been better to just invest in more batteries or solar panels. In high wind areas I am sure they are great but solar and hydro just seem way more viable and dependable.
One thing worth noting about solar panels in the fall and winter months is that even though there is not many hours of sun...the solar panels being cold/cool dramatically increase in efficiency and power production so it sort of evens out compared to the hotter months when the efficiency of the panels drop due to high heat.
I was doing some research recently on the subject of using mirrors to direct more sunlight onto solar panels and that lead me to reading about people that water cool their solar panels and in some cases nearly doubling the wattage output by doing so. One very interesting example of this was someone that used coiled copper on the back of the panels to heat water.
Anyway I enjoyed your article and have a great day!
That's interesting about the extra efficiency when they are colder. One of the issues with winter is that it gets dark about 5PM - the family's usually awake and using power until 10PM or so, while in the summer it doesn't get dark until after 9PM, so there's limited time using the power after dark. It's often cloudier in the winter up here has well :) We only have to use the generator for the darker 2 months of winter for an hour a day to top up the batteries. Other than those 2 months we rarely use the generator. I'll be adding more batteries and panels soon to curb the generator use :)
Yeah. The daylight hours are roughly the same here. I used a generator some last winter when I only had a twenty watt solar panel (and ten watt wind turbine) but after the generator went a bit haywire, burned up some gear and I started sinking money into it to fix it..I made a choice to no longer invest any money in fossil fuel oriented ways of generating electricity. I have not exactly regretted the decision but it has not made anything easier. With a family I would probably feel different about it but it is just me so I just work with what I have. This winter I have a 208 watt panel so maybe it will work out a bit better. My entire system is a complete hack job and the three batteries I have (not in a bank of any kind) are rather inadequate but it is all what I have so I just make the best of it. I see some of the setups of other folks and I am like 'whoa that is like having a power plant compared to my rig'. The last time I calculated all my monthly power needs it was the equivalent of one sixty watt light bulb being left on for an entire month.
I had no idea about the heat factor on the panels. Thank you for the info. Now, how to keep them cool? It's usually very warm here. Maybe misters on a timer? I'm going have to put a bit of a think on that.
I have not experimented with cooling them but there is a lot of info on the internet about doing it. I would advise misting the rear of the panels and using a tray to catch the evaporated water so that it can be reclaimed. I would also advise being careful to not use chlorinated water, water that contains salt or anything that might otherwise corrode or cause buildup on the panels. The real boost to efficiency comes from using mirrors (or other means of reflecting sunlight onto the panels) and Then water cooling them. The cooling itself only increases the efficiency (according to my research) by 10-20% but cooling and reflecting the sunlight gives a boost of 75-100%.
So best bet would be distilled water. How would one catch evaporated water?
With all the crap they spray in the skies any boost would be beneficial.
If you use mirrors, I'd imagine you would most definately need to cool them. I would be concerned about starting a fire.
Maybe 'evaporated' was not the best word to use. I am talking about the water that collects on the back of the panel and drips off. Perhaps an air-conditioner or water heater drip pan would work well for collecting the water. Most of them have a drain on them that can be attached to with standard plumbing fittings.
Also any reflective surface would work and you would not necessarily have to use mirrors. That is definitely a valid concern about fire but I think that it can be done safely. There are a lot of images of various reflective surfaces/material that people use to reflect more sunlight onto solar panels. Perhaps a simple online image search will show you some examples.
Distilled water would probably work best but I think as long as you do not have a lot of iron, calcium, sulfur or minerals in the water it would work fine.
My panels are all on the roof so reflecting something is not really possible.
Oh man... everyone says no to wind turbines....! Ok, I don't have the money for it yet anyway but what's this about heat and cold changing the efficiency of a solar panel? I had no idea about that and it sounds like it really could offset the sun hours missed in winter. Very interesting stuff, I want to look into it now too. Been looking for a new water heater
thanks for that info @jacobpeacock
You are welcome. You really need sustained high winds for wind power to be viable. A good test is to get a sixty dollar small wind turbine from Pacific Sky Power and see how often it actually spins before investing in a large scale turbine. As for cooling the panels look up reflecting sunlight onto them with mirrors as well because between doing that And water cooling (which is a must if you use mirrors) is where the real boost to electric production comes into play.
Ah man I almost forgot to look into that! Thanks for the reminder and really good idea about the 60 dollar turbine as a test. Thanks
You are welcome @senorcoconut.
Good to know how your development is moving forward.
Energy efficient is the new way to go.
Keep on postin'
Thanks - that's one of the benefits I found from going off-grid, I became much more power use conciensous. It's very nice not having a large monthly power bill as well :)
I found it cheaper also because you become more conscientious of how we use electricity...consumption and time too.
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Really fun stuff. These are the kind of things I wish I had an excuse to play with lol. Is your turbine big enough to be a noisy or a danger to birds? There are some really big windfarms near me and they complain about those two issues.
We have lots of birds around here, I havent noticed any birds on the ground from the turbine. A little rattle sound at certain speeds, but it's not much of a bother. It seems like it's the lower frequency sounds coming from the huge turbines that seem to bother people :)
Wow, what a thoughtful and very information post on the wind turbine ! I think we don't see them at all (or very rarely) here, but solar has taken off well :) Thank you for a great post ! Love all the photos/gif, also <3
Looks like a great system now you have a complete and combined WIND/SOLAR MPPT unit.
They should be able to run themselves with minimal input at all, although i bet the turbine has it's wind limitations when it comes to strength and speeds.
Great low profile wind prob by the way.
This is really useful information for off-grid power system.
I appreciate this post! I will read over it again with my husband to understand everything better. But our long term goal is to live off grid with solar energy as this! Thank you for all of the visuals too! This is sooo cool!
Ive always wondered which is more efficient, solar or wind but u pretty much answered that for me.. props for living off grid, hopefully one day i will be able to be self sufficient and off grid..
Thanks @moderndayhippie - I've had a lot of fun living off-grid. Among other benefits, the wind and solar power had really tuned me into the weather, the path of the sun throughout the seasons, and even the moon cycles - on a clear full-moon night, the solar panels actually pick up enough moonlight to trickle charge the batteries :) Solar's definitely the way to go - turbines also have moving parts so they would wear out much quicker than solar panels.
Very interesting, well researched and well written. This is not a subject I know anything about, but I know more now than I did before!
I love it @Jackdub, you're following a very similar path than the one I've chosen for us! I'm mush less organized than you are and things are taking us three, four times longer than expected but at least I can watch what you're doing.
I'm glad to see it works pretty well. Funny, I always thought of putting a wind turbine about that same size up on a tree too!
Thank you for the info, I understand a little better now the difference between MPPT and other charge controllers. I do remember having this conversation on disccord on your channel which was a good learning experience too.
Interesting to know that some controllers have a load Dump feature and others don't, it's a good thing to know.
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