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| quote: | Originally posted by ********
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You're kind of all over the place here.
Solar cells are expensive and large and the typical cost really is about $5-$6/W. Sometimes you can find something on sale because of government rebates and such, like this charging kit (throw away the garbage included charge controller), $320 for 60 W - still over $5/W.
Wind power is pretty sketchy. Huge risk factor there. If you want to invest in that, make sure you're only using it at a supplemental level and that you can gather up enough juice from other means if necessary.
You could, in theory, buy a whole whack of car batteries and just switch them when they run out, but the problem is (a) you don't know when they're going to run out and might suddenly lose power, and (b) you still have to generate as much power as you're consuming or else you'll eventually run out of batteries. And trust me, you do not want to have to be swapping car batteries all the time; even if it's only once every couple of days, it's going to drive you crazy.
My advice, if you really want to do this and have the coin and a big enough boat to support it all, is to get:
- 2 car batteries or heavy-duty camping-type backup batteries (in case one dies unexpectedly); 3 if you're paranoid but any more is a waste of money;
- 2 inverters, with low-voltage disconnect (again, in case one blows up, you don't want to be stuck without power)
- 1 UPS rated at at least 1 kVA (which will only give you about 500 W; this is just to give you enough time to switch the main battery if one does run out; it also serves the secondary purpose of helping to clean up the power you get)
- At least 300 W worth of solar cells (keeping in mind that most of the time you won't actually get anywhere near 300 W out of it)
- Your 200 W wind generator (which would hopefully give you some extra juice as night, but might give you virtually nothing on some days)
- A charge controller to actually charge the battery and prevent overcharging; do not cheap out here, get something good like the TriStar that is designed for wind power and can actually divert the current)
- A small propane or diesel generator (so you have a reliable emergency power source - you can find a 5 kW one for as low as $600-$700, and you WILL need it at some point)
- A good multimeter, to help put the beast together and do some diagnostics when something goes wrong
And there are probably a few other things I forgot, things which would become very obvious when setting the rig up.
You might be able to spend less on the solar cells and/or dispense with the wind turbine, depending on how much power you really need. Again, measure, don't estimate. The $20 for a Kill-A-Watt is well worth it.
This shit is a lot harder than it looks. It's easy enough to charge a battery, but running continuous power off the rig is another story entirely. That's why most people just shell out the $3000 or so for a big-ass marine generator and call it a day. Setting up a reliable rig of solar and/or wind power is greener, I guess, but it's going to end up costing just as much, at least in terms of cap ex.
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