Wind or Solar?

[valterra]

My Solar and Wind ammeters sit side-by-side.

During the day, I watch as my little Ametek puts in a half amp or so - or maybe 2 on a really windy day.  Up and down it goes.  Sometimes nothing at all.  But there sits my solar.  Quietly pumping out the amps.  Zero maintenance.  It Just Works.

So I think, My NEXT $100 should go into Solar.  It's just so much easier and more reliable.  The sun always shines.

Then the sun goes down.

The evening winds kick up, or a storm blows through.  6.85A at 15.9V from my "45 watts is all you'll ever get" tiny Ametek.  Solar?  Zero.

So I think, My NEXT $100 should go into wind.  It's just so much easier and more reliable.  The wind always blows at night.

[Flux]

If you live in a land where the sun always shines then solar is likely to give you the best results. In other areas wind may do far better than solar.

Here in middle England we don't get the best of either and the grey miserable foggy days are often without useful wind or solar. At other times the two work together quite well, with wind being more effective in winter and solar in summer.

As you get towards the northern parts of the UK I suspect that wind will be far more effective on some of the good coastal sites.

Also it may not be fair to judge things from a rather indifferent small wind turbine, there are better things about than Amteks.

Flux

[DamonHD]

Hi Flux,<p>
I can confirm that in deepest suburban London my puny wind farm generates significantly more in winter than otherwise, given my measurements so far.<p>
http://www.earth.org.uk/off-grid-stats-historical.html<p>
Not quite enough to do without Sizewell B, ... um ... by a factor of about 1E+9.<p>
Rgds<p>
Damon

[gotwind2]

I have also cosidered this many times.

I too live in middle England, not that far from Flux, and I run an ametek with 4 ft blades and a 55 watt solar panel.

In my location, urban with large trees solar wins hands down over an average 24 hour period.

At my brothers farm, 6 miles away - a flat open space the ametek beats solar easily over an average 24 hour period - it's really down to the location of the wind turbine.

I agree, solar is far more simple and unobtrusive however.

Ben.

[TomW]

valterra;

My personal, real world observations lead me to believe that solar is by far the lowest maintenance. Install it and forget it. It is also the most expensive and least DIY capable [electricity production].

The wind is by far the more maintenance hungry option. It is also the most DIY capable. Cheaper per rated watt, too.

The ideal system should incorporate both. We are looking into doubling our solar from 300 to around 600 watts. Just need to hunt advice on what products to buy today to play well with our SP75 Siemans panels. I recently more than quadrupled my wind sources by adding a 10 foot turbine to the 6.5 foot conversions input. Total cost of that is unknown but the gift turbine and salvaged tower parts only left some welding work, hole digging and a dozen sacks of Quickrete. Probably 1/10 of the cost of doubling my solar for 4X as much rated output.

Every home should use a solar or ambient air water pre heater. Ditto solar heating if nothing more than lots of sun facing glass. Those likely have a much shorter payback period.

What you have is the commonest connundrum of RE, "Which is the best route for me?"

Good luck with it.

Basically just do it. Thats actually the easy part compared to decided on a course of action.

Good luck unraveling it.

Tom