Time to put the hand up I guess.
I run 2 systems concurrently off the one poor windmill. I have plenty of wind.
First is the electric vehicle. It is 36 volts. It runs off the nominally 48v 4m mill, which stalls limits it very considerably... but still put out 1.5kw in peaks, and 300-500w generally.
When it is charged it can divert to the 96V system. I found a circuit board (and nothing else) down at the tip. It turned out to be a 96v 2000VA pure sine wave ups. After patching up the broken board, and replacing a few fets, it worked perfectly.
So buy using rubbish dump quality batteries at 96v (108v mostly) the mill (48v) drives the batteries very well. They peak at 4.5kw at about 110v, 40 odd amps.
When it runs the house, it easily drives 2 freezers, a big dual door fridge(inc ice maker), the TV, the computers and the water pressure pump, lights... and well everything except the stove, and hot water and the big microwave, or the 2400w kettle.
Mostly it does this on between 4-6 amps at 108v. (I only measure the amps,... I would have thought 2 freezers, a fridge and the little tv would draw more than this... but apparently not).
I have noted several things.
Lousy batteries that wont work in a 12v/24v system any more @50-100 amps, work just fine in a HV system where they are expected to only drive 1-10 amps.... no problem for marginal batteries..... means cheapies from the tip work well for HVdc
Freezers and fridges are no problem to start, and in fact start better when there is already 1 running. (I guess the running rotor acts as a current source for the second one to start. The capacitors in the HV 96v inverter seem to withstand the 20A surge much better than 12v 200a surges... surprise surprise.
HVDC..... I use no switching in the DC circuit, so can't comment on the fear surrounding this subject. I decided to use no DC switching as it is not necessary.
All switching is done on the HVAC side of things... either the 240vac from the inverter (ie in the house circuit), or the 110vac 3ph from the mill. I don't understand all the excitement. I use big 150A anderson plugs to connect to the inverter DCinpuit from the batt bank.. no switches, and the same plugs to connect the EV to the mill.
I would not go back to Low voltage DC.... seems so stupid in every way.
A HV system has every advantage, and no obvious disadvantages. Use the battery bank on a proper plug connection. When disconnected. this gives no load or complete circuit when wiring it up, so very small chance to get caught between potential... there is none.
When wired up, then plug it in... this completes the circuit, now all battery connections are HOT, but before plugging into a load, are basically benign.
Don't use DC switches, and no arcing is possible.
Run your dump from the wild AC side of the rectifiers... triacs are cheaper and tougher than FETS..... and you can zero cross switch them if you feel like less noise.
If you are going to use relays, they will need only be little AC ones... 100v@20A will be overkill. The relays from microwaves will do the job no problem. Solid state ones are good to go as the currents are quite within the bounds of normal consumer gear. Remember, we are only switching the AC side.
The AWP over here is a 240vac nominal mill. There are no problems with HV AC up the pole (up to 600v sometimes). Transmission is simple stuff at these voltages.
All the HVDC problems outlined in other posts are from trying to use HVDC like HVAC, or LVDC.... there is no reason to use it that way, and so avoid all the problems in the first place... HVDC is a slightly different animal, so treat it differently.
Use care but I see no need for blind fear.... I'm still here.
............oztules