PV gets a lot of praise. It is cheap(er), predictable, and simpler to install and maintain than wind (though much less fun to watch). Yesterday we logged ~13 kWh on our solar output, so despite having wind, I ran the turbine only for a few hours when I got home. We've only had to run our generator once this winter, since this fall when the same engine gets exercised to split wood. Still, I can pretty much tell by the weather report what the panels will do. At best though we have about 9 hours of daylight to work with this time of year, and we get a lot more cloud cover, snow, etc.
On the flip side, we've had some pretty strong winds and winter storms rolling thru since late December, with another one poised for tonight thru Sat. I'm still mostly in a mode of operating the turbine predominantly during the daytime and when I'm there. Lately we've had some night winds that are just downright scary. None the less I've recorded some of our best days overall for production. The furling is spot on now. The balance across the two controllers is about right, though clearly the first controller does the heavy lifting here. I've jotted down a handful of our better wind days, noting: the date peak output (watts, controller A, B), peak input voltage (from the rectifier), peak battery voltage kWh , and kWh on the PV.
01/09/18 3118, 1,384
115.7V, 6.6 kWh (PV 2.0)
01/06/18 2850, 988
117.2V, 55.4V, 8.3 kWh (1.2 kWh PV)
01/5/18 2959, 1498
118.2V, 54.2V, 4.5 kWh (0.8 kWh PV)
12/20/17 3217, 2094
137.8V, 64.3V, 4.0 kWh
12/19/17 3192, 1559
119.4V, 55.4V, 3.2 kWh
12/13/17 3427, 438
118.4V, 54.7V, 5.5 kWh
The furling actuator is also working really well now. Last night I closed it in when the turbine was doing about 1,500-2,000 watts. It takes about 30-secs. for the actuator to fully furl the tail, then another few seconds for the inertia of the rotor to fall off, then the blades stall, and the power drops to precipitously (~100-250 watts). I close in the load bank and it drops to 5 or 10 rpm (cut-in is about 90 rpm and 59V) and stays there regardless of the wind speed. It's all very soft which I like, and done from the mudroom, which I like even better. My only complaint is that the actuator is rated to only -25C (-13F). When it goes sub-zero - we were recently below 0F, with lows bumping -30F - I have to resort to my hand winch. Otherwise, all's good.