I’m starting to think about diversifying my energy prodution. I have a solar panel array (5kWp) on the roof for a year now. I see that adding more panels does not make much sense as the production in summer as is is already hard to consume it all, and in winter the production is rather symbolic while consumption is through the roof.

So I thought of looking into wind turbines. There is plenty of wind the whole year where I live. But, rather then buying a big 5kW turbine which is quite expensive on its own (plus a pole and all the other stuff) I thought, how about using multiple small turbines (up to 1kW) connected together, similar to how solar panels are. Either into one inverter or using microinverters. Does anyone have any interesting links to follow or some experience in similar setups?

  • perestroika@slrpnk.net
    5·
    10 months ago

    IMHO the foremost questions are:

    • How much space is available?

    • Is it a flat place, or a cluttered place? In a cluttered landscape, wind is turbulent. If wind is turbulent, a turbine spends a lot of time turning into wind, and less time producing. Also, good quality laminar-flowing wind is high up then, typically out of reach for a single household. :(

    If the landscape is flat, that favours trying with wind.

    A wind turbine’s power is determined by the wind speed and the swept area (the square of the radius). Efficiency is determined by flow qualities (laminar is way better than turbulent) and airspeed on the airfoil (long rotor blades are more efficient, but bigger, more dangerous, more difficult to handle, etc).

    I second the advise to check out a wind atlas, and see the turbine designs of Hugh Piggot - if not to copy, then to learn what is worth buying. :)

    Myself, I rely on vertical solar panels in winter. They do produce a lot less (from November to February, I have to charge my car in town). I have only one experimental wind generator, which is sadly a joke. It’s a vertical axis turbine on a 5 meter mast with an e-bike motor at the top. Wind is collected by an array of stainless steel salad bowls. Due to low swept area and low airspeed, it’s enough to make a few flashlights work. :D

    • muppeth@scribe.disroot.orgOP
      3·
      10 months ago

      Thanks a lot for the input. I live in NL (so pretty flat) and also have quite some open spaces around the house. This does provide quite some winds (usually north and south) so this is why i tought about it in the first place. As mentioned below, I plan to setup two weather stations in two potential places. I want to monitor it for the duration of the year to have good insight into what winds am I dealing with.

      I was just wondering if such idea, of putting like 5-8 smaller wind turbines connected to inverter/microinverter and then to the grid (so autoconsuming or pushing to the grid when not enough consumption). I was wondering if this is something people do as I did not see much when searching the web. Most people use it to charge batteries.

      • perestroika@slrpnk.net
        1·
        10 months ago

        Regarding the connection scheme - I have not come across wind power inverters with multiple inputs. I think they are rare.

        I think people solve the problem of multiple generators either with:

        • parallel inverters, coordinated among each other (with one inverter or an external controller acting as a coordinator)
        • parallel inverters, uncoordinated (each inverter only syncs to the grid frequency and dumps load independently)
        • with a battery buffer, so there are parallel chargers but a single inverter

        Basing on intuition, I would pick the latter option. I think it might result in a less complex system.