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Wind - Photovoltaics hybrid systems
Many people have begun to power their house with renewable energy and why wouldn't you? It's a great idea! There are a few options in what type of renewable energy you might have attached to your roof. The most popular of which are solar photovoltaics and small scale wind turbines. Solar photovoltaics generate electricity by collecting photons (little packets of light energy) and converting their energy into electricity specifically through the use of light responsive materials. The wind turbines used domestically can scale all the way from a small drag type wind turbine used as an anemometer (a device for measuring wind speed) mounted on the roof of a house all the way to a semi-industrial 50kW wind turbine, think of a large scale offshore wind turbine and scale it down a bit, that sits at the end of your garden. TESUP turbines are a happy medium between the two rated from 800 to 5000 Watts of power.
Photovoltaics (PV)
Photovoltaics (PV) are great for powering your house, particularly with falling prices and rising efficiencies. With new advances in materials science when applied to photovoltaics, the efficiency (how much of the sunlight energy is converted into useful, electrical energy) of solar panels is increasing, particularly in the more expensive, industrial scale turbines. More importantly for consumers is the recent improvements to the manufacturing of photovoltaic material which has drastically brought down cost over the years. Combine this with the increased efficiency of these solar panels and you have a recipe for a good deal of localised power generation.
But what about on an overcast day? You ask. There won’t be enough sunlight to power my house properly! You say. Well this is where hybrid energy systems come in! By diversifying the energy systems you use to generate electricity you can benefit from all sorts of weather conditions, avoiding excessive downtime and improving the consistency of power generation.It would therefore be a good idea to diversify your power generation, as what usually happens when the sun goes away? It starts being windy of course! Investing in a wind turbine would be a good way to help make sure you always have power generation available.
Have a look at this article!
CCC? Common Charge Controllers of course!
In a lot of domestically applied PV systems, as long as you know what you are doing (i.e. have electrician qualifications / experience in the industry) , a wind turbine can be easily integrated into your domestic power system with a minimal amount of extra hardware, allowing an easy transition from a PV only system to a hybrid system! PV systems, when connected to an external electrical load (set up to charge a battery for example) require a charge controller to ensure the correct voltage is applied to the system, ensuring the safety and reliability of the electrical components.
Luckily for aspiring hybrid systems owners, wind turbines and photovoltaic systems use a similar charge controller setup! How great! Although PV systems produce DC power (voltage stays constant) and wind turbines produce 3-phase electricity (voltage oscillates slightly), when the PV generated electricity is passed through the charge controller it is converted to 3-phase!
If you are interested in what TESUP has to offer for charge controllers look no further!
TESUP’s already busy operating in the hybrid industry
In fact, TESUP wind turbines are already being put to use in the hybrid domestic renewables industry. They are being employed in the field by the company Ewa Energie to provide their customers with a more robust domestic energy generation system! Ewa Energie is a German company which provides its customers with domestic power setup consultancy, helping the customers decide how best to power their home with renewables. They are a past customer of TESUP, employing TESUP wind turbines to several of their projects, on both domestic projects and small businesses.
TESUP has been recently working intimately with a company looking to employ a hybrid renewable energy solution to their problem. The company, Agderport is installing automatic road barriers, operated electronically and need a way of providing consistent power to their electrical systems. As these barriers are to be installed in the wilderness of Norway, sourcing power from the grid is quite a difficult task! Instead of running long, expensive cables to the site Agderport has wisely decided to employ on site renewable energy power generation to get the job done.
Agerport Specifics
The system decided upon uses a combination of two solar panels (to capture all angles of the sun as it is setting) and an 750 watt AtlasX wind turbine. In this way the system can generate energy from multiple sources, providing more consistent power to the system and ensuring the barrier always has the power to operate properly. When the sun is shining, the solar panels charge the system up and while the sun is away and the wind is blowing, the AtlasX starts spinning and takes over the power generation and charging of the system!
Of course the project is also in dire need of a robust charge controller to ensure the power is properly managed and does not damage the equipment, after all it would be no good to constantly have to drive out and repair the system! Agderport have of course selected a TESUP charge controller to implement into their system. This compact controller fits snugly into its protective box and ensures the system charges correctly. TESUP is very excited to be working with Agderport on such an interesting and very useful project!