Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Have to agree if you are going to go 24v battery bank..
- go 24v solar Panel.. thru a 24v regulator.. A good regulator will make sure that you don't over charge your batteries..
- Also there are quiet a few 24volt Wind gen sets..

ME I'm looking at one of these...
http://www.urbangreenenergy.com/products

I'm liking the 4000w system But I will go the 1000w system if that is all I'm allowed..

Annual Energy at 5.5 m/s 6000 kWh/yr
Sound level at 12 m/s according
to IEC 61400-11: < 38 dB
A very quiet turbine..

- Also don't quote me but I think the URG will work in what is called Dirty air..
Dirty air is what you find around ground level, and where their are object's that cause turbulence..
- on average they say you need to be 10m higher, than any ground object to be in clear air..

If you place a turbine you need to take into account the trees in the area.. They can affect the turbine's performance..
- On a side note.. There are a few wind anemometers that give strange reading because the tree's in the area have grown up and block/affect the wind...



Hope this gives you some idea's..

Juergen..

A 12v solar charge regulator will normally take an input voltage of up to 30v.
You should use a regulator off a panel to a battery anyway.

Juergen:
Have you used a weather station yet to ensure wind power is suitable at your house?
Last time I looked at those style VAWT's the 1kw turbines cost around $8k.
That will get you a 5kw solar system now...
And with solar there is less maintenance or risks of complaints from neighbours, coucils etc.

It might sounds nuts, but going of the local data, yes it is viable..

I can't get a rebate on a 5k system as I have a system installed and at the time I screwed up by not investigating what it would cost for a bigger system..

- on thing.. The rebate at the time is only really good for a 1.5-1.7k system.. any thing bigger it goes up logarithmic..

juergen

How much do you get for power sent out to the grid?
We get 7c/kw here now, so 6000kw per year generates $420.
So at $8k it takes 19 years to pay off.
Dont get me wrong, I would love to have a 1kw wind generator on the roof, however anything I have heard about them shows me they take way too long to pay off to be viable.
How much would $8k worth of solar panels generate? An extra 3kw of panels will generate roughly the same amount of power every year as the 1kw wind generator, and there is no question over whether it would work or not

Have not gotten our fist bill yet.. But from what I know we are on the 60c/kwh..

Before that we just got the general saving of the old school meter going backwards..


3k of panel and a new Grid Connect system.. I have not priced..

Juergen..

60c/kw?!
The best we got here in the west was 47c, and the 40c has recently been canned, so any new installs get 7c now.

That is why I want my wind turbine.. at 60c/kwh nice little income..

Maybe should price the cost of running a small diesel gen....??

Juergen

On side note..

The system has collected over 1500kwh of energy so far.. Maybe higher but I'll give you the figure so far tomorrow.. Not even a full year..
J

Actually its shorter than that since during the day your not using power from Western Power at their rate.

I thought the 60c rebate had been canned in all states now for new installations.

I haven't bought anything yet*, but want to learn some power generation. I figured at some stage down the track I'll end up with a stack or random devices (as yet uninvented) all contributing at different rates, and thought there might be some sensible way to tie them all together.

This stuff isn't for a grid connected system or anything, just a few small experiments that I'll try to power my (planned) absurdly low energy system with.


*actually I just bought my first solar panel. nearly 1 square inch and it powers the tiniest motor ever. It looks like this next to a standard bic biro for scale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... xwHdzhUFrA

searching for switch mode power supply as I type

The sensible way will be to have all your power generation devices at the same voltage range. Be it 12 or 24v.

Not for the feint hearted IMO.
I wouldn't even start without a decent scope.
Analog, ewww

This would be the only way. Unless you had some charging controller that disconnected devices or could take multiple inputs.

For the switch mode PSU, there are dedicated chips that should make it fairly easy to, and a decent datasheet should hold your hand through it all.

I have been running my system for three months now, 130w pump amd 30w airpump FD system and we got our first powerbill.with a 3 kw system on the roof we are $112 in credit for this bill. Pretty efficient house but we do have young children who are home all day with the wife.