What Batteries Do I need For 300W Turbine

[Ireland-or-bust]

Hi all,

I have a 300w 24v turbine that i have'nt put up yet.
I believe i need to have batteries installed before i can let it run.

I have 200w worth of lights in my house, and a 65w water circulator for the heating. As the lights are mostly off and the heating pump is winter only i would like to try and run those items from the turbine.

Can someone tell me the best battery configuration i can use?
I was thinking about 2 x 12v 44Ah AGMs.

Also, is there anything in it between AGM and GEL?
Any other battery advice please!!

I'm on a budget and hope for this project to pay for itsself at some point so need to keep the figures "real."


Mark

[contadino]

It depends on the wind that you're likely to get at your site.

Also, you have the choice - oversize your battery capacity, or undersize it but make your dump load more useful (i.e. security lights rather than an outdoor heater.)

[Ireland-or-bust]

Hi,

The turbine is 300w at 6m/s so i'm hoping to get full whack most of the time as that's the irish national average and i have a large SW facing aspect.

As for the dump load, its built in to the charge controller so i don't have many options for that. I could hotwire it and send it to an emmersion heater i guess, but not sure of the efficiency over distance. I think i would end up with a tepid wire running 24v to the house from the shed.

Mark

[Wombat]

Hey Mark!

It alspo depends on how long you have to go without wind for. If it is blowy all the time then you would not need so much storage otherwise you will need to allow for still periods.

We run all our lights on 12 volt but I don't think we would run to 200 watts worth as we use high efficiency fluoros. We have two 440 amphour battery banks and can go for a week with little charge but after that we are in trouble. I suggest getting as big a battery bank as you can afford.

Nev

[John Headstrong]

I am a few months behind you in getting wind sorted

I am going to be getting some of these
http://www.tayna.co.uk/M85-Premium-Numa ... P3717.html

I have looked around and that is the best price I can find

[DominicJ]

I did some numbers but lost them in a power cut, along with about three hours worth of work, damn you accounts server.
Anyway.

I think run your lights for 4 hours you would need about 2 hours 40 minutes of good wind to run them for 4 hours without wind and only depleting your batteries by around 10% you would need a 600ah battery bank.

[Ireland-or-bust]

Hi,

Maybe i'm missing something here.
440Ah? battery bank.

The biggest batteries i have seen here are 100ah.
And if i bought 4 it would cost a months wages.
If i only have 300w total load (thats where every light in the house on)
i don't see how i could either A, ever charge them with a 300w turbine and B, ever need that much power.

Could someone elaborate on this pls?

My turbine was 150 pound, its unlikely i'll spend 800 on batteries.

Mark.

[DominicJ]

Yep my numbers look horribly wrong.
Thats what I get for trying to remember something.

[Andy Hamilton]

Ok so not what you are looking for but... CAT used to have a battery bank then decided to go partially back on grid, selling energy to the grid and buying it at the odd times that it was needed. They said that this was a much more efficient way of using energy.

[ENIGMA]

Hey Mark,if you are on a budget or tight like I am,go to your recycling depot or scrapyard and buy old car batteries for 5 pound each.Pick out the heaviest ones and check they have minimum 12volts in them.
If you can test them with a voltage load tester,all the better.

[Ireland-or-bust]

Hiya,

i could go down the car battery route but i fear its a slippery slop to false economy. I have found a fellow on ebay selling 105Ah AGMs.

Here's the link..

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0129447168

The ones i'm thinking of buying are slightly better than the ones in the auction...

I can get them for £115 ea and £32 postage for the pair to ireland which is quite good.

The best price i found in ireland was 300 euro for 2 x 43Ah batteries
Which makes ebay about half price Ah for Ah.

THey are only 300 cycles though. I thought i had seem AGMs with more than that. But at 70% with my intended load i think they'll last a long time.

Mark

[DominicJ]

300 cycles for a 70% discharge sounds pretty nomal

Will elecsol deliver to Ireland?
http://www.elecsolbatteries.com/index.php

[Wombat]

Hi,

Maybe i'm missing something here.
440Ah? battery bank.

The biggest batteries i have seen here are 100ah.
And if i bought 4 it would cost a months wages.
If i only have 300w total load (thats where every light in the house on)
i don't see how i could either A, ever charge them with a 300w turbine and B, ever need that much power.

Mark.

Hey Mark!

I run two banks of 2 sets of 2 x 220 ah 6 volt batteries. I keep them charged with about 20 amps of solar charging capacity - soon to have 400w wind charger. When I get cloudy weather about this time of the year (winter solstice) I can run out of power. We run a collection of 20watt downlights and 12 volt high efficiency fluoros as well as a couple of the standard 12 volt fluoros. With the other pair moving out it will make things easier but I am getting a 12volt fridge made up and will want to run stuff that will use more power. The wind generator should obviate these problems. You really shouldn't let your batteries slip below the 12 volts of charge mark.

Nev

[Ireland-or-bust]

Hi,

All i could find were 105ah batteries on ebay. They were still going to cost about 260 euros delivered and thats only going to give me 105ah at 24v.

So it seems its not economical to run.

The turbine charges at 12.5a max by my reconing.
I'm not sure if i'm missing something here but i still can't see how i will ever be likely to charge 105ah and use it at the same time.
So 'm not sure that upgrading to 200ah would make matters better.
I think it might charge it but it will surely discharge by 70% quite offten.

I can see this turning into an eco-folly. :-(

I think it would take 5 years to pay for it's self by my maths.
Thats with 105ah worth of batteries. nearer to 8yrs with 210ah.
I am not that hopful that the turbine will last that long, being made in china.

I think I'll have to shelve this project until i can find batteries for a reasonable price. I phoned everyone in the phone book last week and none of them had ever heard of AGM batteries!

Never mind, back to the grid
M.

[Ireland-or-bust]

elecsol deliver to ireland for £75 freight per battery.