Do you run solar panels or a small wind turbine?
- Thread starter ZZman
- Start date
7 kw solar power system
4wd
$50 site donor 2026
Only a panel on the RV …
Tiny ones on electric fence chargers, irrigation controllers, etc..
Full roof installation.
I’d say 7 kw seems to be the most common installation around, at least where I am at 50 degrees north latitude and given “ average” sized roofs up here.
The garden shed is powered by a 90 watt panel that charges a 1 kWh LiFePO4 battery. An inverter drives battery chargers when needed but the lighting is 12 Volt DC LEDs.
The house has 14 kW of panels (35 x 400 watt) with individual microinverters and is grid tied. The roof facings are less than ideal but it does manage to produce over 12,000 kWh per year.
The house has 14 kW of panels (35 x 400 watt) with individual microinverters and is grid tied. The roof facings are less than ideal but it does manage to produce over 12,000 kWh per year.
AZjeff
$50 Site Donor 2023
Does anyone have a residential wind turbine these days? They were a thing a long time ago but they broke and the companies went out of business.
In the past I considered one because there was a house near by that had one - but I never saw it run even on windy days. When I asked the owner about it he said it worked well for the first 2 years but then it broke (something in the gears) and the maker went out of business so he has not been able to get whatever he needed to fix it - so it just sits. He said it cost him around 15k after all the concrete, windmill installation and hookups were complete and it did power his entire house. This was all around 5+ years ago and it's still not running. So guess you have to be sure the company is solid and been in business a long time. He said the one he bought the company was only in the market a year or so when he bought.
Likely no longer efficient compare to the bigger ones. They are now go big or go home kind of install.
I have something better than a solar roof. I have a north facing roof and I have a neighbor blocking my sun from the south. Very little need for AC in the summer and my electric bill is lower than most of the people I know.
We could have gone larger, but I did not want the array to be seen from the street or be largely visible from the cove out back. Our installation was driven by the available subsidies which made the decision simple. We also went through an independent installer and own the panels; wouldn't even speak to the door-to-door solar reptiles.....with all due apologies to fine reptiles.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Still working on my personal CANDU.
After watching several YouTube videos on this the conclusion was that unless you could get the windmill high enough to keep the trees from blocking the wind, it wasn't economically viable. Now if your area doesn't have trees you might have a chance..
Yeah, the taller the better for them.
Our last community, which is pre-retirement and larger homes. Solar systems were not allowed.
10 cents a kilowatt hour you really don’t need them however, after about 10 years, the restrictions were changed to allow solar panels on the back roofs as long as they could not be seen from the street.
Anyway, your post caught my attention!
