Here are some photos of a recent workshop in Estonia. They built a 3.6 metre grid tied machine from the Recipes. More galleries are here: ONE TWO THREE
“We are happy to report that we have successfully finished another course here in Estonia. Over the last 4 years this was now the 3rd course. This time, however, the project was not only aiming to educate the students to build a turbine, but also the final prouct was important as we had financing also for the tower, cabling and all electronics required for feed-in.
“It was installed in Ruhnu island harbour, on the South coast…primarily open to winds from E to SW. The tower is 12 meters high plus the height of the seawall (approx. 2 meters). We are expecting to see average winds from 5-6 m/s.
“An interesting fact is that the island is offgrid from the mainland in Estonia as it is quite far off. it has 2x150kW diesel generators providing power….and no other means (not even a single solar panel) – until now….now hopefully we can get at least 3000 kWh/year from the new wind trubine.
“Unfortunately, as it is sort of a one-off project, we can not really talk about a reasonable payback period (this is also because, diesel-generated electricity is sold to the islanders at a price which is equal to the price on the mainland). Even if the material cost for the turbine was about 700 euros, the cost of the tower (approx. 2200EUR), cabling and electronics (1500 EUR) and foundation (2000 EUR) costs make the project quite expensive (especially if compared with the price of a solar system).
“All the best Hugh and many thanks for the inspiration that continues to thrive across the globe,
“Madis and Criss from Estonia”
Your books I ordered arrived today in the mail, in spite of South Africa,s poor postal service. A question, I intend to build your 2F Wind turbine an would like to use an MPPT controller I already have, max 100volts input and 15 amps input to a 48 volt battery bank. What can I use as a voltage regulator to restrict the maximum voltage input to the regulator to say 80 volts.
It’s quite a challenge to find suitable devices for over-voltage protection. I can’t think of any that would work at 80 volts that you can buy. I recommend you connect the wind turbine to the battery without MPPT. The benefits of MPPT are marginal. It would not work for controlling battery charge anyway. For that you need a diversion load controller.
cheers
HUgh