Ready to build a system. Plan is to install early in spring. Location- On a ridge in South western Wisconsin. No obstructions, trees, etc. there is solid wind and gusts are common. Past few weeks have seen winds up to 48mph. Will be mounted on a stand alone tower. Ideal will be roughly 20' high. Prefer no guyed tower but can make that work. Goal- build a reliable grid tie system that can be very low maintenance. Budget is roughly $3-5K complete. Prefer to stay on low end but what does the extra money get? System will be grid tied and needs to be able to deal with power outages ( unknown frequency and duration). Looking for the balance between kwh generated, noise, and ease of running. There will be periods when the system will operate for weeks without anyone being there. Looking for what you would use - turbine/ blades - tower system - controller - inverter - remote management system? - anything else? Thanks and look forward to what the dream team comes back with for a new system. Mf66
Hi Mark, That's alot of work to design a system. First thing you may want to do is make sure the wind is a really good resource for you. Second thing is how much would you like to off set your utility bill? Third is what size turbine will help you get to that goal. If you are just doing a turbine system for a hobby then we can skip that part and get right to it. LOL Larry
Mark, Are you doing all the work and buying all the parts? Larry, How much are the GCI-1.5k Ginlongs?
Guys, The plan would be to work with an electrician friend but yes I am looking for something I can work with myself. There is plenty of wind. I am buying a Davis recorder but there are large scale wind turbines within a few miles and several more being built right now. Being on top of the ridge means we have full access to the available wind. Ideal state would be to make 200- 400 kwh / month. I guess this puts me in the hobby class. I was thinking of something in the .8 to 1.5 kwh range. Much beyond that the equipment gets big fast. Windtura or HY1000 ? Mark
If you look at the power curve, at 24V, the Windtura 750 produces 90w at 12mph. 90w x 24hrs/d x 30days/m = 64.8kWh/m. You might do somewhat better than this with grid tie. Going the other direction, 200kWh/m = 277w average sustained production (all day everyday). Looking at the power chart, that does not come until 18.5mph. I don't think your winds are that high. 200kWh/m machines at 12mph are ones rated about 1.8kW at ~25mh. That said, the Windtura is a great value for what it produces. A very high watts/$. Perhaps buy 2.
Mark the WN 750 and WM 1kw seem to preform pretty close.I think you may find the WM has a better stat up because of it's 5 blades, however once the WN 750 gets going as well as the WM i think both are neck in neck on the top end production. WM doe s have a more complicated warranty where windy's is not. I also think WN has better customer support considring they have a forum with unlimited answers. no matter whch one you chose atthe end of he day the wind is the most critical part. I have posted a wiring diagram that you may want to gauge your system to for a simple non UL GTI system. http://www.windynation.com/community/threads/wiring-methods.381/ Anywhere from $1000 to $1800 depending on were you buy them in the US. Direct from China may be cheaper. Mark does have an alternative to tie the turbines in series but i am not sure how that would work out with the Gin Long and full production or any other data.
I don't like the idea of tying non-identical power sources in parallel or in series. If you use the solar panel example, in parallel the panel with the lowest voltage defines the overall voltage. In parallel, the one producing the least current defines the current. I don't think it is possible to program an MPPT wind charge controller or GTI if you have 2 turbines in parallel or series. Good point, having 2 turbines suggests 2 strings of inverters. Is the $5k out of pocket?
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Looking for one turbine not two to start. Maybe I get there but not off the bat. Ay other recommendations?
My recomendations: A. Raum 1.5 kw grid tie UL with dump control and tower with usb connection. 8,000.00 B. 1 kw48v Windmax posb to work with a Ginlong or Aruroa inverter UL and usb connection $3,500.00 C. Winmax 3kw " " $9,000.00 D. Windynation 750 (28v) with Sun G 1kw inverter $1,400.00 E. Windmax 1kw 24v with 1kw Sun G 1kw inverter $1,600.00 F. Skystream 3.8 UL with inverter and USB connection with tower $12,000.00
It would be nice to know the RPM and the wind speed range covered by the 22-60V SunG for both the 750 and the 24V HY1000 (both with 3-blades). 48V turbines need a higher volt GTI. The compromise with those is to use a small 48V battery bank driven directly and use a 48V Outback GTI set to sell at ~58V. Those are $1700 but UL listed. A secondary dump load would be needed for the rare occasion that the grid goes down and the bank is full. Might be easier to have the stop switch trip when the grid goes down. Perhaps WN can run a test on their PMA(s) on their engine set-up using SunG GTIs for us.
With regards to the Ginglong Grid Tie Inverters (GTI): These would be compatible with 24 volt wind turbines because the "cut in" voltage for the Ginlong GTI's is 30 VDC. Our Windtura 750 is a 24 volt wind turbine. It reaches 30 VDC in about a steady 8 mph wind and would thus turn "on" a Ginlong GTI in about an 8 mph wind. Note to newbies: Wind turbines are not designed to harvest power in wind speeds below about 8 mph because there is little to no power available in the 0-8 mph range. Another interesting note about the Ginlong GTI: I spoke with Ginlong and they said as long as the wind turbines are identical, multiple wind turbines can be wired in parallel into one Ginglong GTI. So, two or three Windtura 750's could be wired into one of their GTI's. When you look at the cost of buying multiple SunG's and corresponding dump loads, the cost of a Ginglong GTI is not that bad .... and it is UL listed. Minnesota, I will do that test for you if you can wait until mid-February. Just remind me in early Feb. and I will get to it
Cool. The concern is that the real benefit is of GTI comes from allowing the voltage to rise keeping the current down. The losses in the stator go up with a square of the amps, so we don't want GTIs that "lock-in" at lower voltages. The MPPT wind Charge controllers that are around allow a the voltage curve to be entered into a table that the GTI follows. This voltage is generally about 90% of the open voltage curve. Wouldn't that be sweet? If we find the SunGs stubbornly lock-in at lower voltages, then we might want to work with them to make changes rather than have us design tricks externally to make them work "better." For all I know, they might do pretty well already, but an engine set-up test will help verify that.
Thanks for all the feed back. Like the idea of the ginlong Inverter. Eats up most of the budget but it has more fail safes than the Sun G types. Also allows me to add some solar on as wanted. Windmax vs windtura? Anyone with data here? Recommendation? Looking for a non guyed tower. Anyone with a good recommendation? Anything else? Appreciate the discussion and debate. Mark
Windtura. Bigger, very efficient, furling tail, supported, and warrantied; plus you have us here . The mount is very strong and it's powder-coated. I just ran some calcs and it captures a higher percentage of the wind's power (over 30%) in the 11-14 mph wind range than turbines that are much more expensive. This will improve further when grid-tied. The Windmax is nice, but who ya gonna call when you need parts or service? Steve L. has his on a monopole. Nice low-cost solution. You could contact him for details. http://www.youtube.com/user/OTGproducts
I will look at the monopole. What about blades for the turbine? Any data on best performer vs noise vs ? Aybody have a nose cone or way to make it look more complete? No offense to the Windy folks but without something on the mounting flange ( nose cone or other) it just looks homemade and cheap. I think Blue J may have something? Mark
Stock 3 blade Windgrabbers imo. Yeah, the look is pretty mechanical/functional/unfinished currently. A makeover is long overdue. A streamilined Windmax look is what people want. Sales would skyrocket, imo.
