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Bill

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Joined: 27/02/2007
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Posts: 1

Posted: 08:27pm 26 Feb 2007

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I am new to wind power, I have been reading about it for a long time now and have finally decided to get going with it. I am doing this to cut something from my electric bills. We have a farm and are running extra lights, immersion type stock tank heaters, etc which are adding to my electric costs. Even with floresent lights and timers I still have a hefty electric bill. So far my readings have indicated that I want to go basically with wind power. The average wind here is not strong but it is constant. Average wind speed is 4 meters/second at least 50% of the time and 20% greater than that. I am not planning on carving my rotor blades, with the cost and availability of blades now in the reasonable range I plan on buying the blades and putting them on a PMA alternator shaft or buying the whole windmill if I can get them cheap enough. The decision was to tie to the grid or not. The cost of tying to the grid is expensive and I have decided to go off the grid with this application. Once that decision was made then battery storage became an issue. I now have two forklift batteries, one 510 Amp/hour based on a 6 hour load rating and 680 Amp/hour also based on a 6 hour load rating. Both are 48 volts. All cells are believed to be good and the batteries can be 'divided' into 12 or 24 volts. Now that I have given the background can anyone give me some advice on the following question. Is the wind speed strong enough to run a windmill charging a 24 volt battery bank and what are the advantages and disadvantages with going 12 volt, 24 volt or even 48 volt battery bank. What I have read so far seems to indicate that you need a lot of wind power to charge 48 volt batteries.

Country life is the best

windman
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Joined: 02/12/2006
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Posts: 19

Posted: 03:18am 27 Feb 2007

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Hi bill,the short answer is yes you probably have enough wind speed to charge a 48 volt system. wind power should not be confused with voltage. On my my 48 volt machine it starts to charge at about 3.0 m/s, its all about matching rotor area and alternatorconfiguration to the prevailing conditions.The 48v turbine that I biuld has rotor diameter of 3.6 metres, RPM approx 420-480 max at 9.0 m/s 15 ampere and 60 volts

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