What About... Just Supposing....

[sahlein]

Hi guys,

I'm still wrasslin' with this wind thing.

I really cannot see a "One-Size-Fits-All"  wind genny.

I CAN see using a variable and increasing alternator load as wind speed goes up.

What I do NOT see, as a concept, is the idea of having a really large battery bank

to take advantage of Storing power from high winds.

At this point I am probably considering what most of you would consider to be

"Too Much" battery.  Aside from fussing over it, I don't have a problem with that.

My chosen site in West Texas has, for the first time in 9 months, just now dropped below 5mph wind speed.

Is there ever truly... "Too Much" battery???

Another concept that I would like to introduce is that I want a system that will last me about 25 years.... After that, I will probably be in an 'Old Folks" home and my technical expertise will probably be long since eclipsed!

Any thoughts on this

Joe S.

[Experimental]

  Hello Joe,

    Personally I don,t think there is such a thing as --To many !!

    The only limit I see is -- COST and available storage area !!

  As for 25 years of service -- that really depends on the care and quality of those batts..

    At My age, I build everything on the "twenty year plan" -- because , after that, I figure I,ll probably be long gone !!

    One thing might be worth considering is, two banks of batts, of reasonable amperage and perhaps installed 5 years or so apart..

    The reason for this being, unless you buy extremely expensive batts -- most only have a guarantee of 5 to 10 years ..

    With two banks of differing ages,the older could be changed out, or if still testing good, used for standby !!

    Manufacturers, recommend not mixing batteries , of differing ages..

   Good evening to you, Bill H....

[sahlein]

Bill... Thanks!

I am not yet "Geriatric"...... but I am a REALIST!!

I do have concerns on how to keep batteries charged within the to 80%!!

I DO invite further comments to this post!

Thanks again,

Joe S.

[wpowokal]

Joe, A number of points come to mind with batteries, rule of thumb as I understand it is..

Calculate your daily usage in amphours, multiply it by 3. Now choose a bank with suficient amphours to not drop below 50% if there was no incomming power for 3 days.

Sounds like you have reasonable winds so the chances of having to start a back-up generator are probally slim.

I believe you can have too many batteries, why...

Well there is the up front cost.

There is the time needed to care for those extra connections.

Assuming lead acid batteries are used, they need some exercise(use) or will deteriorate, and of course using them is wearing them out as well, so you can't win either way.

A correctly designed system should only need bateries as described in my opening statment, you may choose a lesser % of discharge after 3 days but that depends on the probability of no incomming power for extended periods and how deep your pockets are.  

allan down under

[nothing to lose]

2 more reasons for too many batteries.

Batteries have a self discharge, the larger your battery bank the more power you will loose to self discharge and the more power you then have to make just to replace that power, even if your not using any power.

There is no reason to store more power than you can use, that would also be too much battery. Figure out how much power you use per day, then how long you want to have power if the winds stop and your not making any power. If that time is 3 days and you'll be using 500amps per day, you need 1,500 useable amps stored. Storing 10,000 usable amps then would be too much battery of course and then you have problem #1 where you have to replace all the self discharge on all those batteries all the time.

Sometimes there is the wrong idea that you should have enough batteries to store all the power you could ever make. The 2 things that make it wrong is first you have the self discharge on all the batteries all the time which means you have to make more power just to keep them fully charged. The second reason it's wrong is you don't need more power than you can use just because you can make it. Once you fully charge a large bank if you don't actually  use the power there is still nowhere for excess power to go because the batteries are still near full.

 Some-one I was talking to locally a few days ago had the idea of just add more batteries to store more power instead of using dumploads. He would have been trying to maintain uneeded batteries year round just to store a few rare days of excess power, his was just a little cabin idea and he would never use the extra power anyway.