Which Hybrid charge controller?

[(unknown)]

Hi everyone. New guy here.

I just closed on a 5.8 acre property outside Atlanta today. The property has excellent wind and sun - and I'm stoked about getting away from the Utility ball and chain.

I've been doing a lot of reading and I really want to create as seamless a energy system as possible.

The fridge, stove and water heater won't use electricity.

I plan on running a 2kw Wind turbine and up to 6 75watt Solar panels with a diesel generator as backup. My question is, what kind of controller and inverter will I need? I see wind controller, solar controllers and occasionally a hybrid (with a very low wattage rating) that will handle both, but I do not see a controller that will handle the solar, wind and genny. Basically, I'm looking for something that will start the diesel genny up if the wind and solar isn't enough to keep the batteries charged. Am I missing something or not looking in the right place? I want to run at least 5kw inverter for this house. It is a small house and we plan on running wood burning stove (Aga if we can afford it) and Servel of Danby Solar fridge/freezers.

Thanks in advance

[ghurd]

Atlanta? Propane fridges make a lot of heat, and use a lot of propane.

SunDanzer fridges or freezers use a little bit of DC.  Might look into them.

The fridge will (honest to goodness) run from a 75W panel and 125AH battery.

SunFrost has more than enough bad reviews, QC problems, and former dealers that refuse to sell them, that I would avoid them myself.

G-

[scoraigwind]

Your inverter can manage the generator and control the charge form the generator.  I recommend using an FX inverter from Outback power systems.  Or a Xantrex SW or the like would also work.

For solar you can use a simple or a complex controller but it doesn't have to divert or dump any power unless you choose to do so.

For wind you will usually need to dump power into a dump load or something useful like a water heater (that's what I'd recommend).  You can use the same controller for both sun and wind provided it is in 'diversion mode' and dumping power.  I prefer the morningstar tristar controllers for this.

It can be a headache to make the inverter and controller agree about how to charge the battery and from that point of view you might wish to also use an outback power controller.  They do a rather fancy wind controller lately but maybe only for the Abundant renewable energy turbines.  I think that their controller can talk to their inverter and they can agree whether to boost or float the battery.

[SparWeb]

You might want to look at magazines about people who have done this stuff, like Homepower magazine, and catalogs of equipment suited to RE uses, like AEE Solar.

Not wholehearted endoresements, because projects in Homepower are often very big and expensive, and I prefer to build my own stuff instead of just buying it all retail (otherwise it wouldn't be my hobby, after all).

[bob g]

an alternate opinion not shared by many others and damn few manufactures:

i personally do not like an integrated all in one unit, yes when they are working

they are a nice neat/pretty/well designed and functioning unit, but

when any single facet fails the whole unit has to go back for repairs or warranty.

most of us remember the days of the console entertainment center, the one with the television, turntable, radio all in one beatiful piece of furniture. if the amplifier went out, the thing was worthless and needed repairs before any of the functions worked properly.

after that rage, came the modular systems, where you had a tuner, a turn table, a preamp, an amplifier and seperate speakers, along with tape decks and all that

if anything quit you could simply remove that component and replace it an be back up

in no time while you waited for the unit to get back from repair or warrantee.

yes a modular approach is not as simple, and maybe not as clean, but

if you are going to be truely offgrid???

i know i do not want an inverter/charger/controller all in one unit in my offgrid

installation.

not when there are very good modular options that can be made to work together just as effectively, and in some cases more efficiently in my opinion.

thats my story and i am stickin with it

bob g

[TomW]

bob;

Excellent advice. Nothing worse than an entire system down for a $3 warranty part and the trip to and back from the repair facility.

Never liked the all in one approach to much of anything.

Just an opinion but I like to tinker and electronics was my work for decades.

Tom

[scottsAI]

Welcome to otherpower.

Interesting first post you made, sounds like you found a great place to locate your home.

Researched this stuff while designing a Net Zero Energy Home. Not built. Layoff.

Lets start with the roof:

Rain water collection, Skip the well.

www.arcsa.org and www.harvesth2o.com

www.Builditsolar.com use $1000 system solar collector design for half your roof. Heating and hot water.

PEX piping is freeze damage resistant, many other benefits.

www.ppfahome.org/pex/faqpex.html

Gray water - www.oasisdesign.net/index.htm

Reduces load on septic system. Not costly to implement.

Two stage septic system first stage standard (anaerobic) septic followed by Aerobic Septic System. Output is used to water your lawn in many locations.

www.inspect-ny.com/septic/altaerobic.htm

Wind induced ventilation. Tightly sealed homes require outside ventilation, use the wind.

Fridge: use standard high efficiency unit with coils in the bottom of unit. Add couple inches insulation around unit, give it the built in look. Save a bundle $. Propane fridges costly to operate.

Last, lets not forget papercrete. Waste Paper + concrete building high R value & strong walls. www.livinginpaper.org

I could go on, not sure what your interested in?

The more you learn the better choices you make and the happier you will be with the outcome!

Have fun,

Scott.

[jimjjnn]

Colrado has just voided the no rain water collection laws due to rainwater wasn't reaching the rivers as was thought from times past.

So, for all you outside the law rainwater collectors in Colorado, You are now legal

[scottsAI]

Jimjjnn,

Thanks for the FYI.

I only learned about the water problem out west from movies, more recently when looking for water solutions for my sister in NM.

Took a while to understand their thinking. Which I believe is seriously flawed.

The original writing of the laws were about water flowing down rivers, as USA will do they reinterpreted it to any water flowing into the rivers including the rain. The rain interpretation is in direct violation to the whole purpose of land ownership. As a land owner you own all resourced on it (unless they have been sold). You own the rain on your property until it leaves by the definition of owning property. You can grow crops without a problem (?), yet if you delay the rain your a bad guy??

Second problem with the rain as water is the UN has a treaty world wide forbidding countries charging for using AIR (they may protect the air from polluters). Rain is air until it hits the ground to my way of thinking. Else we would call it water falling!-)

Third problem, what am I going to do with the delayed water...

Good thin I do not live out west, I would be raising such trouble over MY properties rights being violated by perversion of laws.

Fourthly, water rights should only apply to the property they below. NO selling, the water must be used ON the properties they were given. Heck, you could apply for the entire flow of the river if your the first there. Denial of water down stream going forward. The rights should have been for a purpose, if that purpose is no longer being used then you loose the rights to the water. People with old water rights make more money selling them than using them. The intent of the water rights was to make sure one person did not hog all the water, a river is a community resource. With the perversion in our laws the water hogging is exactly what did happen.

Have fun,

Scott.

[(unknown)]

Thanks for the advice, everyone!

I completely agree with the opinion that integrated systems are generally not wise in a vital part of your home. Modularity does have something going for it.

Based on that, and the issue of getting the solar and wind controllers to talk to each other nicely about how and when to charge the battery banks, I think I would have to run a 2 tiered system.

Get solar on it's own grid and run lights/ceiling fans/ ventilation off it.

Run appliances off wind/genny.

To be perfectly honest, the house standing on the property now, will be very temporary. We plan on building a much more efficient home within the next year or so.

The propane and kerosene fridges looked promising, but we decided to go solar on the fridge and freezer. Hot water is going to be handled by AGA wood burning stove. The AGA stove won't heat up the home at all, if their literature can be believed - but that is one expensive sucker SIGH.

Once again, thanks for the help!

[cyplesma]

let me warn you about the stove. I have mine setup for propane, but it still uses 3 amps of electricity. My propane home heater is the same way. It's used as a safety measure to help control the burning of the propane.

The top burners only need the few sparks to light them. but the oven needs that 3 amp glow rod to be on for the stove to turn on the gas to heat the oven.

[cyplesma]

ok, so I read your using a aga wood stove, never mind