Solar and Wind Energy systems are in many ways complementary. Where one falls short the other excels. This is a world of unimagined potential for investors, our ecological system and the off the grid community.
In North America the boom in battery charging small wind turbines combined with the coming of age of photovoltaic modules has made it possible for many to build their own live off grid systems. 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 new and more efficient systems. To compensate for the fact that the sun is not always shining, the sales of Micro and Mini wind turbines is booming. The use of wind energy dramatically improves the performance of these sustainable energy systems in winter.
There is a clear reason for the efficiency in winter. The Photovoltaic's will produce at a low, but the need for heating usually goes hand in hand wind an increase in wind speed. Think about the chill factor and you know what I mean. The output of wind turbines is not linear to wind speed but increases logarithmically with such an increase. Perfect, when our need for energy peaks, the output of our wind turbines peak as well. But as we will see there is more.
It is said that more than 85% of the total number of the off grid systems are now a hybrid between Photovoltaic's and Wind energy.
Micro or mini wind turbines combined with solar arrays are an ideal solution, used together they add an enormous amount of reliability to the system, but and are 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, at least through our present technology. 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. The possibility to store energy as Hydrogen, opens the possibility of a happy marriage of three renewable energy sources.
The problem with batteries are the fairly high cost and the losses that occur in converting energy back and forth between the Solar Array, Chargers, and than from the low voltage direct current (DC) to the 110 Volts alternating current (AC) that we need to feed our home appliances.
Packing it all together this whole sector looks very promising, both for the off the grid community, our ecological system and the pocketbooks of those savvy individuals smart enough to invest in these double digit growth sector.
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