How do you create a wind farm?

[chrissow]

Hi there I am looking to set up a small wind farm and possibly add PV arrays to increase output. I radically thought that the best way forward would be to buy the biggest turbine I could afford and sit back and admire my hard work, however after delving into the subject with gusto and monitoring the wind speed in my field I found that it wasn't as windy as I thought and that smaller turbines would be more efficient. So I have opted for a 1KW Navitron and look forward to setting up this weekend!, my question is how can I tie more than one turbine together to increase the charge rate? can I link the charge controllers together at the battery rack (doesn't seem quite correct) do I need separate cells for each turbine? Can I link the turbine outputs together so giving me more current? How do they link multiple turbines commercially? is there a multiple input charge controller? why is the sun not shinning today?
Great forum and looking forward to see it grow.

[Ivan]

Hi Chris,

You have already guessed the way it is done - you simply connect together the DC outputs from the charge controllers at the battery. This is effective, as the rectified DC means the turbines will not interact with each other (you could in theory connect the AC inputs together - but if you did this the turbines would synchronise, and the faster ones would drive the slower ones like motors!). Make sure your battery can cope with the additional load of extra turbines (as a rule of thumb, it is better not to charge batteries at more than 10% of their rated Ah capacity. eg. 110Ah should not be charged at more than 11A for extended periods - although short periods of higher charge are not going to have catastrophic effects).

Commercial turbines all feed ac into the grid rather than dc into batteries. They have to be synchronised with the grid - this is why when you see a wind farm, the turbines are always spinning at the same rate.

Ivan

[chrissow]

Thanks for your reply Ivan. The Navitron 1Kw turned up today what a beast! wan't expecting it to be that large looks a really serious piece of kit and definatly worth the money.  Hope to errect this weekend on top of a steel container to gain a bit of extra height. Thanks once again. Chris.