affordable grid-tie wind?

[ivan]

Are there any affordable grid-tie wind turbines for sale yet?

MCS killed off most of the developing wind turbine market that might have evolved into small-scale grid-tie wind, unfortunately and the last time I looked I couldn't find anything even remotely cost-effective for domestic use.

[Saladin]

If you use a hybrid inverter you can grid-tie anything that charges the battery.

Scoraig Wind Linky

[Swwils]

It dont exist, it's a spinning thing and the maintenance removes all cost effectiveness at this scale (and larger scales too sometimes).

[ivan]

That's an interesting point - using a grid battery to integrate wind into a grid-tie system. But what would you use as a Liion charge-controller in that situation?

Yes, you're right - wind turbine maintenance is an issue, but if you can do it yourself, it's not quite so bad. The biggest problem was the fact that you couldn't buy a grid-tie wind turbine for under £18k, which puts the economics completely out of the window before youve even started!

[Stinsy]

I've seen WTs that are designed to attach to a solar inverter via MC4 connectors. However, it should be noted that small-scale wind is a folly in almost all circumstances.

Just fit more solar...

[ivan]

I know where you're coming from - but I've got 37kW of PV, soon to be 43kW.....Even with that, we don't produce anything at night and we don't produce enough during December and January. Even a fairly modest (0.5 - 2kW) wind turbine would make quite a contribution, as it's very windy a lot of the time here during the winter months.

[Saladin]

Linky

[Marcus]

Speaking from the smug position of having hydro, I can certainly support your view on the value of having something other than solar in midwinter: just having enough to cover background loads overnight makes a huge difference.

I can't really advise on which wind turbines are good for grid tie, and even something I'd choose like a 2nd hand proven or similar still needs a 'wind' gti, which are quite thin on the ground i believe.

But as you have batteries I would suggest dc coupling via a MPPT controller that supports wind turbines, such as Midnight Classic. That's the way I'd go.

[ecogeorge]

Hi Ivan -long time since i've seen your name ..........
Have you considered the Iskra AT5-1 ??? decent 5kw. ... no idea of price tho.......
I like Ruttand Marlec FM1803 - 2.5k plus tower/inverter -why not 2 or 3 ??
Or even Ruttland 914 -low output but fairly bombproof - get several coupled to chinese grid tie inverters.........
49w 24/7 = 1 kwh /day -thas 10% of my electric......
However looking at your system i say more PV and batteries.............
or buy a stream and go hydro .........
George

[Moxi]

I suppose if you were going to do the maintenance then why not go the whole hog and build a Scoraig Wind WT ? Andy the portaloo chap rfom the other place seemed to get good results from his iirc and they seem to be one of the few WT's you see on various utube channels etc that have sensible real world output figures - plus if you built it maintaining / repairing it would be second nature. Borrowing from another WT user you could also consider a telescopic mast such as that used on mobile plant floodlights a bit like Biff used, then you can lower the turbine in more "salty" winds to reduce the risk of damage etc.

I have a really exposed windy position and at some point I will try a WT if only to "get it out of my system" but at the moment I have too many places for easy solar so that's my priority.

Moxi