Wind vs Solar

I was thinking of exploring some wind turbine options and I was curious if anyone here uses them as well?

For areas that don't generate a lot of sun / have limited space for PV & night time generation capability, it seems like an interesting solution but I know nothing about them.

Can a regular solar charge controller be used with these items or do they require specialized equipment?

Wind Turbine Generators need their own controller because the voltage and amperage fluctuates a lot during run time. Also, it needs to be able to put a constant load on the turbine to keep its rotational speed in check so it doesn't blow itself apart.

Wind Turbines are a tricky area to tackle. There are a lot more factors to consider when putting one up. How many trees around, how high can you put one up, how close is the nearest bunch of trees/shrubs/etc, how many buildings are around, how tall are the building, what direction does the wind come from and how do all the above effect the speed, direction, strength, etc of the wind. And there are more beyond these.

But, generally speaking, if you have a large open field, go with a HAWT (horizontal axis wind turbine; classic fan on it's side design). But, if you live near a lot of trees, buildings, close to a forest area (like within a couple hundred meters or so) then you should go with a VAWT (vertical axis wind turbine). The VAWT's can handle much more turbulent wind and varying speeds than a HAWT can. Plus, has the added benefit of "always" being turned into the wind.

Now, you don't have to use a HAWT in the open field areas, you can use a VAWT and it will work just fine. You would just need to check the costs associated with each.

I plan on building a VAWT for my setup. I have the aluminum sheets I'm going to build the fins out of. I believe daromer has a turbine or has started research for his project. And there are a few others here as well. Oh, and AverageJoe dabbled in the turbines as well.

Solar and wind for the UK make for a very good pairing as the winter windy season balances up the loss of solar. Makes a battery sing happy...

A 1kW wind turbine in a good area will put out over 3x the solar output on average. Winter it will be closer to 10x. Depends a lot on your location.

A lot of the smaller turbines end up being paired with the wrong controller and then there are complaints the output is bad.
Think oif the turbine blades like aeroplane wings.
Too slow (mpp voltage too low) you lose power and fall out the sky.
Too fast and the wings will come off.. if the unit does not set on fire first.
Some of the smaller units are also really poorly built and was surprised that a few of them are not even basic waterproofed with corrosion and water pooling. My plan is to get a 1kW unit, waterproof it and then add a stepper based yaw control rather than the bad approach the smaller units have for gyyo/tail turning out the wind and flicking around.

The VAWT are interesting and a well built tank design (100mph+) would be great... they seem to be priced higher than they should be and the few I have looked at dont seem to be setup to cope with very rough weather.

Take a look at this. https://www.leadingedgepower.com/sh...es/le-v150-vertical-axis-turbine-1121392.html

For supplying the night use, it ought to be enough, and it can take a hell of a beating. Problem with small 3 blade turbines is that they constantly hunts the wind and seldom catches it fully, thus output over the year is disapointing. For small 3-blade turbines you have to have a good site, lots of stable wind in the 4 ms or mere wind speed and stable. Start with bying an areanometer and chek conditions (logging for 6 - 12 months). Often wind is much less that expected.

This is the one I'm gonna be building: http://solarflower.org/tutorial.php?lang=en&tut=vawt

It's cheap to build, easy to do, and very good instructions on how to build it. So, that'll be my first go

Korishan said:

This is the one I'm gonna be building: http://solarflower.org/tutorial.php?lang=en&tut=vawt

It's cheap to build, easy to do, and very good instructions on how to build it. So, that'll be my first go

Click to expand...

If you put a separate generator on the pole rather than a hub generator the unit may have issues with vibration due to uneven wind flow from some angles.... great design though for a electric hub wheel.

Korishan said:

This is the one I'm gonna be building: http://solarflower.org/tutorial.php?lang=en&tut=vawt

It's cheap to build, easy to do, and very good instructions on how to build it. So, that'll be my first go

Click to expand...

If I had anapocalypse DIY build file... that would go into it.

Crimp Daddy said:

If I had anapocalypse DIY build file... that would go into it.

Click to expand...

Take a look at his other videos. He's got some neat ideas for water/air heating on the cheap, too.

My opinions:

The main problem of VAWTs is that you cannot take them out of the wind, and usually having more surface exposed to the wind when stopped.
So in a very strong wind (more and more usual nowadays) they are doomed. Specially the "half-tanks" designs will fly for sure yes or yes in a very strong wind.
They are also much less efficient needing more surface for the same power than a HAWT.

If HAWT is possible (most times) it's usually a better choice (Korishan did a good explanation of the use cases).

I would go for a coreless axial flux generator and a mechanical furling tail system.
This is in my opinion a good guide for DIY or to know wich kind to buy: https://scoraigwind.com/pirate oldies/Hugh Piggott Axial-flow PMG wind turbine May 2003.pdf
You can start from that web and you will find many other sites about wind turbines theory and DIY.

There are also commercial ones with this setup, but avoid radial flow generators and electromagnetic braking systems with fixed tail.
Radial flow generators with stator-inside/magnets-outside are better that normal ones, but still better is a coreless axial.
electromagnetic braking systems + fixed tail = burnt generator in strong winds.
electromagnetic braking systems + normal radial generator = magnets out of their place = burnt generator.

And of course, you need actual wind, something like average wind speeds >5m/s, very good if you have many days of >7m/s.

A DIY wind turbine, like li-ion batteries can be very dangerous if you don't know what you are doing!!
Even commercial ones have some risks.

Yeah, i've seen a few videos on the mechanical furling. that's an very neat way to build them.

Coreless is definitely a great way to go. Especially since it cuts down on cogging, if not out flat cancels it completely.

I live in a very wooded area, so a VAWT will be more practical for me. Plus, putting a HAWT up high enough would require several permits to get approval. Most likely since I live near an airport (though, that's 10miles away as the crow flies)

DK100 said:

Take a look at this. https://www.leadingedgepower.com/sh...es/le-v150-vertical-axis-turbine-1121392.html

For supplying the night use, it ought to be enough, and it can take a hell of a beating. Problem with small 3 blade turbines is that they constantly hunts the wind and seldom catches it fully, thus output over the year is disapointing. For small 3-blade turbines you have to have a good site, lots of stable wind in the 4 ms or mere wind speed and stable. Start with bying an areanometer and chek conditions (logging for 6 - 12 months). Often wind is much less that expected.

Click to expand...

That turbine will output 15 W most time with normal winds, around 100 W with 70 Km/h winds (look the chart).
Depend on the winds in your area that could be something like 100-200 Wh/day.


If you want an average of some hundred Watts for 1KWh/day in normal winds you need something like 2-3 m^2 for HAWT, 4-5 m^2 VAWT.
This for a VAWT is something like 3x1.5 meters.. not an small guy.. imagine that in a >50km/H wind... it must be extremly strong, i mean it should resist thouthands of kg of thrust for very strong winds.
For a HAWT it can be 3 blades of less than 1 m.

If you live in a specially windy area it can be better, but real numbers are ussually around that.

Korishan said:

This is the one I'm gonna be building: http://solarflower.org/tutorial.php?lang=en&tut=vawt

It's cheap to build, easy to do, and very good instructions on how to build it. So, that'll be my first go

Click to expand...

Nice desing, but in the video: 100 Km/h wind???
Lol , that turbine will not survive that wind, i would say not even 50 Km/h wind.
Look the tree... is not even moving, have you seen a lonely tree that size in 100 Km/h wind??
Win speed is ussually not that steady as well, it goes up and down, specially at ground level.

There is a system to estimate wind speeds looking to how tree branches moves and things like that: https://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/scales/beaufort.html
In that video wind speed is probably less than 15 Km/h.

That kind of turbines without load start spining at less that 10 Km/h gusts.

But in a nice DIY project.

Santiago said:

Korishan said:

This is the one I'm gonna be building: http://solarflower.org/tutorial.php?lang=en&tut=vawt

It's cheap to build, easy to do, and very good instructions on how to build it. So, that'll be my first go

Click to expand...

Nice desing, but in the video: 100 Km/h wind???
Lol , that turbine will not survive that wind, i would say not even 50 Km/h wind.
Look the tree... is not even moving, have you seen a lonely tree that size in 100 Km/h wind??
Win speed is ussually not that steady as well, it goes up and down, specially at ground level.

There is a system to estimate wind speeds looking to how tree branches moves and things like that: https://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/scales/beaufort.html
In that video wind speed is probably less than 15 Km/h.

That kind of turbines without load start spining at less that 10 Km/h gusts.

But in a nice DIY project.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I caught that too. But in another video he shows how it was tested. They strapped it to the back end of car and drove the car down the road at that speed. And actually, he does show that due to the first design the turbine did fail. It flew apart. In the second design it held up. Now, granted, he doesn't have a tachometer on the turbine itself to measure the speed, but he does give quite a bit of information about it in the other videos.

So even though the trees aren't moving, the turbine is

Ok.. now i understand, i eat my words... :blush:

Anyway a wind turbine can experience a thrust something like 500 kg/m at 100 Km/h when it is under load.
And close to 1000 kg/m at 125 Km/h, less if it is free wheeling, but still a lot.
Take your hand out of the car at 100 Km/h... now imagine your hand is 1 m.

And strong wind is not steady like in a car, you can expect lot of turbulences that "shakes" the turbine.
Not easy to design something that can survive those forces for long time.

For example the design in a link of DK100 post https://www.leadingedgepower.com/shop/pr...21392.html
has top and bottom bearings, vertical form factor, hooked to very strong pole (in respect with turbine size) and is much smaller.
That design can resist almost everything, but it has it downsides, for example it doesn't work at low wind speeds.

It hsa one advantage more though. It dosen't "hunt" the wind. Wind is constantly shifting direction, which makes the 3-blade turbines hunt the wind alle the time. This leads to lower production. First step is to put up an anrenometer and log windspeed and direction at your site.
Most of the time people are disapointed over how little wind they actually got.
The VAWT produce lower due to smaller swet arear, but more stable, and more rugged. So for charching af powerbank they are not bad.

DK100 said:

First step is to put up an anrenometer and log windspeed and direction at your site.

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You nailed it... this is the real question:
What is the "average" wind speed in the place you will raise your turbine?

With this data you can calculate the rough power of the turbine for you needs.
Then you can search for something that fits that power.

Best is an anemometer, but you can use beaufort scale to do an estimate: https://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/scales/beaufort.html
Using that scale for one winter month (in your case) you can do a rough estimate to see if it's worth or not.
Just do an average estimate every day looking around, write it down. Then calculate month average.
beaufort scale is much more precise than it looks like for estimates. And you don't need exact values for this.

DK100 said:

It hsa one advantage more though. It dosen't "hunt" the wind. Wind is constantly shifting direction, which makes the 3-blade turbines hunt the wind alle the time. This leads to lower production. First step is to put up an anrenometer and log windspeed and direction at your site.
Most of the time people are disapointed over how little wind they actually got.
The VAWT produce lower due to smaller swet arear, but more stable, and more rugged. So for charching af powerbank they are not bad.

Click to expand...

Hunting the wind leads to lower production if it is bad placed compared with well placed.
And this "disadvantage" is also the advantage: easy to put off the wind; just missalign it.

And VAWT have a few downsides, some very difficult to solve:
- Up to 1/2 efficient than HAWT, so need up to 2x surface for same power.
- Need much more material and stronger parts: much more expensive.
- Low rpm: or you loose even more power in a multiplier or use a more expensive generator.
- You can't take it out of the wind (or extremely complicated).
- You can't stop or control the speed (or extremely complicated: very high torque).

The last 2 are the killers for most VAWT turbines in decent sizes.
Just think how many HAWTs and VAWTs have you seen working in real life.

LE-v150 in your link is a very nice yet extremely expensive turbine.
You can get 500W HAWT for half the price that can power the basics of a small house.
It is 50W rated at 13 m/s "standard", in average you get around 1/5 of rated unless you are in very windy area.
This device is good for very low power applications or for very very windy places.

VAWT are more rugged, and are widely used om remote places with wild wheather, on big sea bouys for instance. Power output is a function of windspeed and sweept arear. So for generating the same power VAWT must be large (Swept arear recembles a square).
BUT - VAWT's has more touque, most of them has a lower cut in windspeed, runs more constant, and therefore delivers surprising amounts of power over the year. Small HAWT's, hunt the wind constantly, but never catches it, end there fore has a disapointing low yearly output.
For op to 500 Watt I would go VAWT, and HAWT that can do something has to bee 2 - 5 kW peak.