When I first started playing with a off grid setup solar was very expensive you could get a 400 watt wind turbine for 1/2 the price of a 60 watt solar panel. It made sense to have a wind turbine. I didn't have the privilege of moving water so Hydro was out but I would have loved to had that option. I moved to 24 volt so my 12 volt turbine is now obsolete (not that it produced much power anyways) I has contemplating adding a 24 volt wind turbine. However now I'm not sure, the prices have comedown considerably for solar panels while wind turbines have climbed. (at least in my neck of the woods) Some areas are suited more for wind but if your totally off grid like my place then you can only bank so much power. In the end I went with more solar panels over a new wind turbine. November, December will tell if this was the right way to have gone. The extra savings I made adding panels over the turbine I'll put towards another tracker. A tracker isn't really needed in the summer months here but I can have the battery bank fully charged by 9 am. The sun I get here in the winter is limited to 5 hours on a good day so it may not help much then, however I figure if I can get 2 hours of direct sun light it will be better then 3 hours of indirect.
I’d like to add a couple vertical fin wind generators since I am shaded here half the day. We almost always have some air movement and the small verticals I read can start making /some/ useable power at 5mph Interesting survey results
