Renewable energy battery charger

[richy759]

I have a shed which is quiet far away from the main building where I live. We built a pond last year and I wanted a waterfall, I thought it would be a good time to see if renewable energy sources are any good.

I installed a Rutland 913 wind turbine along with an 87W Kyocera solar panel and a Rutland HDX charge controller to run it all. This charge controller has 2 isolated battery charging terminals, so I have my leisure battery connected to one for running my inverter off (for the pond stuff) and decided to connect the other terminal to my Chim.

Before I did this I wanted to make sure the voltage drop across the length of cable to the car wasn't significant and instead of calculating it I thought i'd try it. I measured out more than enough cable (about 25m) and measured the voltage across the battery terminals and then after the cable. The voltage drop was 0.01V which is v.nice.
Seeing as I have an Accumate, I cut the 5m extension cable I bought with it and put the end of the cable from the charge controller which means that I can either plug the charge controller into it or the Accumate.

Job done. I have been running the leisure battery/pump combo for while now which works great, I hope this is going to work really well at maintaining the car battery, It's handy I can also monitor the voltage to make sure its not going down now.

If anybody is thinking of renewable energy then I'd definitely recommend the solar panel over the wind turbine, even on a dull day it generate power but the wind turbine takes a lot of wind to overcome its magnetic coils so only generates power when its really quiet windy (maybe if I was by the sea it would be great).

Wow, what a rant, not sure if anyone will be interested but I would have liked to read something like this before I installed all this gear. If anyone is interested please don't hesitate to ask any questions, I can also get some pics.
Cheers,
Rich

[Chimjunkie]

Voltage drop can only be measured when there is a load at the end of the cable. i.e a current flowing along the length of cable. Increasing the gauge of the cable will dramatically reduce voltage drop. There are also solar panels for trickle chargers.

[richy759]

Chimjunkie said:

Voltage drop can only be measured when there is a load at the end of the cable. i.e a current flowing along the length of cable. Increasing the gauge of the cable will dramatically reduce voltage drop. There are also solar panels for trickle chargers.

This voltage drop is with the charge controller running (i.e providing current), Ok it is only topping up the battery but thats all it has to do most of the time.
Thankfully I know all about cable gauges being an Electronic engineer
The solar panels for trickle chargers are generally very poor only providing a few watts at best, which I guess is better than nothing most of the time but are generally a bit naff if there is anything other than direct sunlight.

Rich

Edited by richy759 on Sunday 27th January 10:48

[Chimjunkie]

Great. Now just dont start the car because all that green environmentally stuff will be wasted. Could produce moonshine and run the car off that My ex birds parents installed a £26k heat pump and solar system in there home in France. Was the biggest single residence installation in the country at the time!! Mad. Surely that would never pay for itself?

[richy759]

Chimjunkie said:

Great. Now just dont start the car because all that green environmentally stuff will be wasted. Could produce moonshine and run the car off that My ex birds parents installed a £26k heat pump and solar system in there home in France. Was the biggest single residence installation in the country at the time!! Mad. Surely that would never pay for itself?

Have you got a chip on your shoulder or are you joking? (Bit hard to tell sometimes with just text)
The way I see it, I know my car isn't particularly good for the environment, but I don't use it everyday, in fact I walk to work (living there helps ) and even more reason to use renewable energy to offset the impact!
Certainly at the moment everything renewable is expensive but it's not going to come down in price if nobody uses it. With the prices of energy going up who knows low longs its going to be before installing a system in your home is going to be competitively priced.
I like the idea of having a bit of a head start with the technology before its main stream and it makes me feel good even to see the pond waterfall running off solar power (sounds sad I know)
Do you think your ex's parents installed the system to save money? I would love to have the money to install a system like that, but I wouldn't be doing it to save money.

Rich

[spend]

Chimjunkie said:

My ex birds parents installed a £26k heat pump

I had one in Germany, and it was brilliant, you get a big cold room (beer - lots) in the cellar as a very useful bonus. Fooling the lawn into thinking it is winter is also a plus in my book

Dave

[Chimjunkie]

richy759 said:

Have you got a chip on your shoulder or are you joking? (Bit hard to tell sometimes with just text)
Rich

Sorry Rich. Didn't mean to offend. Only joking of course. Drives me crazy how much energy people waste. Recon 90% of energy could be saved if people could be bothered. I consider myself to have a very low carbon footprint even with the Chimaera and 4x4 (needed for my job instead of a van) Great to see that you are making an effort. I have heard though that the wind turbine things arn't cost effective? Correct me if wrong.

Jon.

[richy759]

Chimjunkie said:

richy759 said:

Have you got a chip on your shoulder or are you joking? (Bit hard to tell sometimes with just text)
Rich

Sorry Rich. Didn't mean to offend. Only joking of course. Drives me crazy how much energy people waste. Recon 90% of energy could be saved if people could be bothered. I consider myself to have a very low carbon footprint even with the Chimaera and 4x4 (needed for my job instead of a van) Great to see that you are making an effort. I have heard though that the wind turbine things arn't cost effective? Correct me if wrong.

Jon.

no worries.
Yeah I reckon the wind turbine is a waste of time here (But I know people who live near the coast swear by them), thats why I thought I'd say something about my installation (wish I could just swap it for another solar panel). It has certainly been a learning experience, another thing, the wind turbine takes up loads of space with its guy wires!

Rich