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RE: More Power from the 400 Watt Wind Turbine with a Hybrid Wind/Solar MPPT Charge Controller
That's interesting about the extra efficiency when they are colder. One of the issues with winter is that it gets dark about 5PM - the family's usually awake and using power until 10PM or so, while in the summer it doesn't get dark until after 9PM, so there's limited time using the power after dark. It's often cloudier in the winter up here has well :) We only have to use the generator for the darker 2 months of winter for an hour a day to top up the batteries. Other than those 2 months we rarely use the generator. I'll be adding more batteries and panels soon to curb the generator use :)
Yeah. The daylight hours are roughly the same here. I used a generator some last winter when I only had a twenty watt solar panel (and ten watt wind turbine) but after the generator went a bit haywire, burned up some gear and I started sinking money into it to fix it..I made a choice to no longer invest any money in fossil fuel oriented ways of generating electricity. I have not exactly regretted the decision but it has not made anything easier. With a family I would probably feel different about it but it is just me so I just work with what I have. This winter I have a 208 watt panel so maybe it will work out a bit better. My entire system is a complete hack job and the three batteries I have (not in a bank of any kind) are rather inadequate but it is all what I have so I just make the best of it. I see some of the setups of other folks and I am like 'whoa that is like having a power plant compared to my rig'. The last time I calculated all my monthly power needs it was the equivalent of one sixty watt light bulb being left on for an entire month.