1kw wind turbine project

[Highlander]

[Spandex228]

Very impressive

[Timelord]

Overall cost?

[Nix]

Excellent stuff!

Not sure why you have the isolation switch for the grid though? Surely you feed the batteries and then dump to the hot water via the inverter so where's the connection to the grid?

The other thing you may want to consider is a further dump when the hot water is at it's max and trips out. Unlike solar, turbines need a dump unless you have control over the turbine fan speed eg braking system?

Looks a really good job there and I'm jealous! Can't put mine up cos of neighbour proximity.

[Bulletscott]

Living the dream, I would love to live off the grid in a small holding and undertake projects such as this, instead I'm in this urban prison.

Well done though mate looks great!

[Highlander]

Overall cost?

TL,... round it off to £3000

Excellent stuff!

Not sure why you have the isolation switch for the grid though? Surely you feed the batteries and then dump to the hot water via the inverter so where's the connection to the grid?

The other thing you may want to consider is a further dump when the hot water is at it's max and trips out. Unlike solar, turbines need a dump unless you have control over the turbine fan speed eg braking system?

Looks a really good job there and I'm jealous! Can't put mine up cos of neighbour proximity.

Sorry I didnt explain well,.. If we had a power cut, and we turned onto battery power,... there would always be a chance that the person fixing the grid power down the road would get a shock from the power we were producing from our turbine,...so by law there must be a way of turning the mains power off before you use any other sort of power, be it Wind, solar or generator

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Living the dream, I would love to live off the grid in a small holding and undertake projects such as this, instead I'm in this urban prison.

Well done though mate looks great!

We do not live off grid all the time,... maybe this is also what you mean Nix,.... The batterys are there for two reasons, to give us power during a power cut, and to use the dump to help with the hot water.

We are on mains power just like everyone else aided by our 3.5 solar power, but come 6pm every night, we switch over from the mains power to the battery's [ provided we have enough wind and full battery's of course,.. when we go to bed we switch back to mains power

We have four freezers, these are on timers, so that they go off from 6pm to midnight,.. from 6pm the batterys give us enough power for a few lights, the fridge, central heating pump, the telly and the computer

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The other thing you may want to consider is a further dump when the hot water is at it's max and trips out. Unlike solar, turbines need a dump unless you have control over the turbine fan speed eg braking system?

This is of interest to us,.. we did think hard about the dump, clearly we didn't want to waste power so thought that the dump to the hot water was best, we then wondered about what happens when the fire [ which also does the hot water ] reaches the thermostat temp and cuts out, what happens to the dump then

We were told by `Future Energy` the people we bought the system off,...that a 48v dump wouldn't generate a great deal, and not to worry about that,.. we were never quiet sure about that answer

I didn't know that you can have two dumps, so thank's for that we will look into that, any other info you have there would be very welcome

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Nix,.. we know that you can get hot water tanks that have two thermostats holes, so in this case one would be for the fire central heating, and the other for the dump,.. then its possible to lower the thermostat from the fire a bit, and the other thermostat from the dump to continue heating,.. it would never reach extreme temps,..this maybe the better way forward

[Tigs]

fantastic work NI

[Nix]

Hi Highlander - still confused about your turbine set up. Obviously you have a solar grid tie set up via Future Energy at 3.5kW (14 x 250W panels) so that's a given? Therefore, the way I see it, it's one of two ways:

- either the grid tie system allows for you to tie in your turbine as well which means you are already G83 compliant with regards to isolating your energy generation to the grid in the event of it going down

- or your turbine is "off grid" ie not tied into the grid in any way in which case you have no worries about isolating it in the event of a blackout cos it's an independent system running off batteries and your own 24v inverter

I'm assuming you are running the dump via a 24v immersion coil? Either that or through your own off grid inverter to something like a 1kW mains coil like I do?

I would definitely consider a second dump option. When my system is powering the hot water tank, it will reach maximum temperature in about an hour and a half. If your fire is also heating it, albeit at a lower thermostat setting, it will only mean that the dump has less to do and top out sooner. Should be relatively easy to circuit in a 2nd dump to cover this eventuality. Don't underestimate the power of a 1kW turbine on a windy day! I'm surprised the installation company were dismissive about it.

Sounds like you have a fantastic set up going there m8ty!

[Highlander]

[Nix]

Ok, that's making a lot more sense. So, your turbine is powering your 24v inverter with the battery bank acting as a regulator and back up. When the mains goes down, a manual switch then allows you to isolate the grid and switch to back up both at the same time thereby making sure no mistakes are made. Can't see a problem there.
But where I do see a potential problem is in the dump. Most turbines are designed so that if they don't have a dump load, they can over speed and self destruct ie they must have a resistance load to work against at all times. If your batteries are charged up and the hot water is at maximum, you could damage the turbine without an additional shunt controller at work, unless the turbine has it's own safety brake?

Just curious, how exactly are you heating your hot water when using the battery back up system?