Off grid power options and what do you use?

[Biggkidd]

I have been off grid for 16 years now. For the first couple years we relied mainly on generators. For the last 14 or so years mainly on solar with a gas generator only picking up any shortfalls. Now I'm looking hard in to wind power to pick up where solar leaves off. The wind has been blowing like crazy here this spring and today is so windy it makes it hard to even work outside. I live in Virginia where we supposedly don't get enough wind to make viable power. But I also live in a small micro climate that may get a little more wind than most in the general area. It's hill and valley country so there's most always a little breeze except maybe in the dead of summer and winter. Does anyone here use wind power? If so what can you tell me about your system and how you like it / how it works for you? What kind of expense was it? Are any of the less expensive wind generators any good?

Back in I think it was 2012 I also played with steam power generation and made a small working system from scratch out of junk. It never went anywhere because it had to be constantly babied and monitored. I did post a couple short videos on youtube back then if anyone wants to see they are under biggkidd71. IIRC the best I ever managed with what I had put together was about 30 amps at 12 volts nominal. It showed me if I had to I could make power that way. It's not the route I'd choose though, more of a last option.

I have also been playing with thermoelectric power generation and storage for the last few years but not having the best of luck so far. I'm not done with this yet but this time of year that project has to be put off to the side for now.

What I'd like to know is how others produce power and if you have more than one what option has worked best for you? What is the most cost effective and longest lasting?

What I'm really interested in is other ways to make power when the sun isn't shining. We get a fair amount of cloud cover and in summer the idiots in charge load the sky with chemicals that really dull the sun and cuts my power production by half or better. The summer heat also cuts solar power output. The hotter the panels are they less power they produce.

We have two creeks on the property but they aren't viable for power production on several levels. The main one being they just don't have enough fall in the allowed distance. They also flood very violently every time it storms. The water level rises about 5 feet and goes from nearly no flow to a tremendous flow!

Please help me out here ladies and gents how do you make power for life off the main grid. Maybe I should say on your micro grid because in reality that's what we all have if we have a home power system, as it is our own tiny micro grid.

 

[12icemaker]

If you have a flowing stream and 5 feet of fall you can build a dam and have enough to do a water wheel flywheel type system you can also build a spilway diversion gate system simply by making the entry into your pool the same size as the exit and building a stepback wall to prevent flood water from over running your system.

 

[Biggkidd]

If you have a flowing stream and 5 feet of fall you can build a dam and have enough to do a water wheel flywheel type system you can also build a spilway diversion gate system simply by making the entry into your pool the same size as the exit and building a stepback wall to prevent flood water from over running your system.

The creek that flows year round not just when it rains, only has about 1 inch of fall per hundred feet. I only have access to about 180 feet of it and to make matters worse it's 24 feet wide where it joins my land.

 

[Tirediron]

If you decide to go with wind, horizontal axis squirrel cage is exponentialy better than airplane propeller crap (big government/ big business mess. a swather reel type horizontal is quiet and really doesn't care about turbulence. but don't tell the experts

 

[viking]

I did some research a few years ago and I came across vertical axis squirrel cage wind generators, from what I understood they are commonly used on sailboats, I like the idea but where we live, winds are infrequent and don't last long enough to do any backup charging. I'd love to have a water source up on the mountain that has enough output to run a Pelton wheel for generating but they are rare and far between here in S.W. Oregon. The best thing I have come to understand is the use of higher voltage output solar panels and using a MPPT solar controller to make the best use of those higher voltages. Yesterday I checked on the electrolyte levels in the battery banks and checked on the solar array output voltages late in the day and they were putting out 80 VDC just a short time before sunset and I've seen voltages in the 70's on cloudy days. A real plus in running on higher array voltages is that you don't have to use heavier wires to keep from having large voltage drops. If you have bought any copper wire lately you know that it's gotten expensive.

 

[Mountain trapper]

I did some research a few years ago and I came across vertical axis squirrel cage wind generators, from what I understood they are commonly used on sailboats, I like the idea but where we live, winds are infrequent and don't last long enough to do any backup charging. I'd love to have a water source up on the mountain that has enough output to run a Pelton wheel for generating but they are rare and far between here in S.W. Oregon. The best thing I have come to understand is the use of higher voltage output solar panels and using a MPPT solar controller to make the best use of those higher voltages. Yesterday I checked on the electrolyte levels in the battery banks and checked on the solar array output voltages late in the day and they were putting out 80 VDC just a short time before sunset and I've seen voltages in the 70's on cloudy days. A real plus in running on higher array voltages is that you don't have to use heavier wires to keep from having large voltage drops. If you have bought any copper wire lately you know that it's gotten expensive.

I'm running 10ga wires from my new panels to my charge controller 200 feet away. I'm getting plenty of power this time of year. It's been about 3 weeks since my generator has had to start. These new panels have really been paying for themselves in diesel savings.