Your Questions About Wind Generators For Home Use For Sale

admin answers:

I’m a permaculture farmer, on a 40 acre farm. We are slowly moving our entire farm to becoming off grid. So far the water and the heat are off grid. Next is the power.

We’ll be using both wind and solar, because on days the sun doesn’t shine, it’s usually windy. If you go with a grid tied solar system as another person suggested, it will save you more than 1/2 the cost. However when the grid power goes down, so does yours. If you have no batteries and no inverter, you have no power.

I really like the solar systems that Costco has been offering for sale. The nice thing about them is you can start small, and ad more as your budget allows. For your batteries, you want to look at marine batteries (for boats), or golf cart batteries. This next part is really important, so pay attention; BATTERIES GIVE OFF TOXIC GAS, AND MUST BE VENTED TO THE OUTSIDE! So no batteries in your house. Plan on building your batteries a protective box OUTSIDE. Also realize that you should not talk to ANYONE about your batteries and off grid home. Why? Because it’s valuable, and has immediate resale value for those who steal and turn items in for scrap and recycling. You could come home and find your entire system, including the valuable and expensive batteries gone.

Since the batteries have to be vented to the outside, theft is a real possibility. What do you plan to run, in terms of appliances? A laptop takes little power. A desk top computer is a power hog. A refrigerator from an RV can be run off propane, and will use no electricity. CFL or LED lights take very little power. You can install a gas powered stove, so again you need no power for it. We are going to use an on demand water heater, so no power needed for the water. We are currently building a 600 sg ft house, with propane powered fridge, stove, and water heater. The actual power needs of the house are very minimal. We’ll be heating with a wood stove.

You might actually find you don’t need 2000 watts if you choose the right appliances. Of course if you go for full electric everything, you’ll need a lot more than 2000 watts. If you live someplace where you have to run A/C you’ll probably need more than 2000 watts. In our climate, a ceiling fan is more than sufficient.

So sit down, plan your house, and what your ACTUAL electrical appliances will be. Go to YouTube, there are lots of great videos on there about people living in little solar powered houses.

~Garnet
Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

admin answers:

Solar arrays are quite expensive and the payoff period is measured in decades.

Re the link, 45 watts is not much. It will power 1 or 2 CFL lamps, that’s all, and that is when the sun is shining. And exactly at right angles to the array. Typical output is probably half that.

You will need a charge controller, and one or more large sealed marine lead acid batteries, as well as an inverter. A good charge controller is essential, as the voltage and current output of a panel varies a lot. A good charge controller has a DC-DC converter that presents the optimal load to the panel to get the maximum power from it, and converts that to the right DC voltage to charge the batteries.

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