Wind Power

[Cryozombie]

I need some help, hopefully someone can point me in the right direction. I have been researching the possibility of putting a small wind turbine on my house to generate some addtional electricity, cut down my dependance on the big bad electric company, and help me out when there are outages...

I found a lot of info on the components, and some setup info... but what I am really having difficulty finding facts on are the meat and potatoes of this: How much energy can I produce from how many deep cycle batteries using a standard "home sized" (say a 500 watt) turbine. I mean, if I have 10 12v Deep Cycle batteries, attached to an Inverter and dump load and then wired into my homes electrical system... what would I be able to draw from that? As opposed to 6? or 12? I'm just trying to do some research before I contact anyone to help with installation of a system, and unfortunately most of what comes up in a google search tend to be "Buy Our Wind Turbine Its the Best!" and not actually answers to the questions I have...

Anyone point me at a Doc/Page that might help me out?

 

[Tez3]

This is a British site but might be of use all the same.
http://www.bwea.com/ref/faq.html

 

[Cryozombie]

Thanks, that has some good info on mounting them etc... but pretty much has similar info to what I already have.

 

[jks9199]

You might look around for info about uninterruptable power supplies; they'll probably have the battery info and things like that you're looking for. The windmill at that point is just a generator to support the UPS system...

 

[Sukerkin]

The usual way of doing this is to have the turbine wired into the grid, Cryo. Then you are paid/rebated for the amount of net generation you add to the system and don't have to worry about storage of the produced power. That is the way of things over here in Britain at least; America may do things differently.

 

[Sukerkin]

By the way, as a result of another thread about wind generation recently, I did some more digging on the viability of the technology and have found that it's even less of a sound environmental proposition than I thought it was. However, in the current climate {Yay! Electricity and global warming pun attacks! } there may still be an economic argument for it as the consumer is not paying the full price for the hardware and is getting an over-market-rate return through government subsidy.

 

[granfire]

By the way, as a result of another thread about wind generation recently, I did some more digging on the viability of the technology and have found that it's even less of a sound environmental proposition than I thought it was. However, in the current climate {Yay! Electricity and global warming pun attacks! } there may still be an economic argument for it as the consumer is not paying the full price for the hardware and is getting an over-market-rate return through government subsidy.

LOL fun thing: IN Germany you are not allowed to use your own electricity...
Strange results: My cousin put solar cells on every feaseble surface on his farm (lots of big barn roofs) to sell it to the electric company to the tune of 40 cents a KWH, while paying around 12 per used one. :lol: