In North America the boom in battery recharging small wind turbines together with the coming of age of photovoltaic modules has made it possible
for many to live of grid. Together with the photovoltaic industry it serves the needs of an increasing percentage of the off-the-grid community.
Rising energy
prices and environmental awareness led to an increasing demand and availability of alternatives to build off the grid systems. To compensate for the fact that the sun
is not always shining, the sales of Micro and Mini wind turbines are booming. The use of wind energy dramatically improves the performance of the off the grid
systems in winter. But as we will see there is more.
It is said that more than 85% of the total number of these systems are now a hybrid between PV and
wind.
Hybrid Wind and Solar Systems - The Perfect match
Micro or mini wind turbines combined with solar arrays are an ideal
solution for "off the grid systems". Used together they add an enormous amount of reliability to the system, but are also more cost effective.
Depending on
the geographical circumstances an attempt to become less dependable on the utility companies starts either with a wind turbine of some sort. Or a few photovoltaic
panels. The latter is a convenient start in the more urban areas, while wind energy is mostly chosen in the more rural part of the country.
Even in the very
sunny parts of the USA wind energy has an added advantage as energy source. Although the efficiency of Photovoltaic increases rapidly the fact that wind has a
higher power density then the sun. This means that even in relatively "low-wind" areas a considerable amount of energy can be produced. This decreases the
capacity requirements of the expensive storage equipment. Instead of depending solely on battery power at night, you can now utilize you wind generated
energy.
This cost reducing factor is even more important when we look at the efficiency of the system. We minimize the energy loss in the system. First we
eliminate part of the loss that occur when loading our batteries, secondly we also reduce the loss of inverting our DC battery power to the 110 AC we need for our
home appliances.
