This thread is not about electrical power back up systems but please indulge me while I correct information being given by those that prefer to flap their gums rather than actually inform us.
Here is what I am not doing:
1. Recommending to anyone that solar and wind power are the best electrical power back up system options for their particular situation.
Let's start with wind:
Savvy installers typically mount their wind turbines on towers 24 to 37 meters high. Sometimes as high as 55 meters. At those heights, the winds are substantially stronger than they are near the ground.
If the wind turbine is not mounted right from the beginning the performance will be affected.
Those that are just bit angry can spend time calling the people that run the system names all they want, I prefer to mount a wind turbine correctly, not joust at the electrical companies that fail to do what their core business requires from them: that is generate and distribute electricity consistently.
Batteries
If you discharge a sealed AGM battery to 50% capacity you will get on average 500 charging cycles.
Now, I'm not very smart according to many posters here on DR1 (I will not name names to protect the guilty).
Let's do the math...
5 years will give you 100 cycles a year
12 months in a year will give you 8 cycles a month
That gives you two outages a week where you can discharge your batteries down to 50% capacity without degradation.
The key is fully charging a lead acid battery again after a discharge cycle.
Please, I am not an engineer. And I am not giving advice.
It is now an exercise left for the reader to tell me what "you are hardly using them" means. It should be noted that
@bob saunders made a post that said his batteries lasted for 7 years.
Now, I have my electrical engineering friend come over each year and he puts that "ting a ma jig" on the battery terminals and it gives a read out of some type and he tells me the health of each one of my batteries. Actually that how found out I needed to replace my last set. You see when I am not smart enough to do something, I find someone smarter than me and pay them to do it. 🤪
How does that expression go?
Those who THINK they know it all, really do irritate the ones of us who actually do.🤣
Should any of us have to know any of this stuff? NO‼️
In fact, other than the basic laws of electricity I didn't know any of it before I moved to the 🇩🇴.
@D'Arcy (Apostropheman) mentioned something about needing to be a rugged individual if you live here in the 🇩🇴
I have found this to be true.
Doing things on my own as a man of action has proven much more useful to me than spending my time
wishing things were different.
I use a battery back up system to provide power to my buildings that are on grid (in a grid down situation). And I use batteries to provide power to my buildings that are off grid (period). I am familiar with solar and wind energy generating power systems. And I do not suggest they are the answer for everyone.
But to deny that they are option that might work for some people is make an attempt to nullify my personal experience. Now I understand that is desirable outcome for some. Unfortunately for them they cannot do it. So, I will continue to contribute the options and experience that I have accumulated over the years of living in 🇩🇴 to the content of
DR1.