Hi, I am working with a school in a diesel dependent Village in Alaska. They have a Bergey XL1 on a 32meter tower and a Xantrex xw 4000 watt inverter, 4 golf cart batteries. The batteries are not necessary because the grid is reliable.
I was told since the school has three phase power the Inverter was only hooked up to feed two outlets in the laundry room of the gym, and is not tied to the grid. Consequently the power is not used.
The site does not appear to have that good of a wind regime, I would guess class 2 or 3, but the grid power is $.60/kwh.
The science teacher got some funding to monitor power production with a ted or onset, but since no power is used the information will not be that interesting for the kids. We are going to use the tower to monitor the wind resource, but it would be nice to set up the whole system more effectively.
Could the inverter just be hooked to one phase of the three phase service?
Should they sell the inverter and find one better suited to three phase, or would that be three inverters?
Is there a Phase converter they could use?
I kind of have a sense they should sell the whole system and buy solar panels, but the system exists in the community, and it would be nice to get it working better.
Thanks for your input,
Todd