Bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to wind turbines and here is why...

There are a lot of wind turbines that you can buy ranging from the small micro turbines that we use at Mannerfarm to big grid connect units. We actually looked at big and small and settled on the small for a few simple reasons.

#1 Bigger is not better.. for us...

Because we use a combination of solar and wind turbines to help charge our batteries you need to consider just how quickly you can or should charge those batteries. Depending on its chemistry type and what the manufacturer states, batteries can only accept so much energy at any point in time. If you exceed its maximum rating you will kill that battery very quickly by essentially boiling it. Our battery systems sit in the typical capacity range for caravan, tiny home, shack, shed or off-grid home. There needs to be a balance between solar input and wind turbine input and selecting the correct sized turbine is therefore important. We found the best turbines for our application where the micro turbines which effectively means any turbine in the 200 watt to 1000 watt range. 

#2 Cost and Complexity of Installation...

The bigger the turbine the harder it is to mount. For the big grid connect turbines you need some serious engineering to build a tower suitable to take the loads that turbine will generate. You cannot get this part wrong because it can seriously cause some damage or kill someone if it fails. Also we just didn't have the capital to spend on such a big turbine given the likelihood of a poor return on such an investment. Then there is the matter of maintenance and repair. at some stage either you have to go up to it or it has to come down to you. With that much weight again you need some solid engineering one way or another to haul those things up or down.

#3 Redundancy...

You might hear us say this a bit. When you rely upon your battery and charging system to supply your energy needs you need redundancy in your design. Inevitably something is going to break, its just the way the world works. The best solution to this is to plan for it. Having solar and wind as a charging source gives you this redundancy. This also includes redundancy in the form of weather events like prolonged periods of no sun or no wind (or both).

With charging batteries you can have one or more independent solar arrays with their own controller and multiple wind turbines all connected to the same battery bank. This design therefore gives you a large degree of redundancy. So rather than having a single great big turbine having several smaller ones in our view is a better solution.

#4 Maintenance and Safety...

This is why we built our portable wind turbines and why we now sell them. Smaller turbines are way easier to manage and maintain. Our turbine towers give us this ability for one person to quickly, easily and safely raise and lower a turbine. Also due to their relatively low price if one fails it can be quickly replaced or repaired and put back into service.

Charge...

Its pretty easy to install and use a wind turbine and there are so many good ones to choose from. If you are interested in adding one to your system feel free to contact us if you need some advice or help. Did we mention we build and sell a cool turbine tower? No? Well we do take a look here.