Solar or wind Power to charge battery

[Big Tom]

I understand that solar or wind is not really sensible (cost factor) to be used to charge the batteries for our e-assist, but when OFF GRID, I believe that a gas generator would cost more to charge the batteries to make them sensible to use the e-bikes.

I would like to know from the knowledgeable people from this forum what I would need to be able to charge a couple of e-bike batteries. The batteries in question would be 60V, 20AmP and a 48V, 10AmP. We have a 2400 gas generator and will be in Norther Ontario in September so not so direct sunlight for solar panels. A local Store has a sale on a 600 watt wind turbine http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/brow...rator,+600W.jsp?locale=en#tab_page_reviews_li and another local store has different watt solar panel kits for under $1000 http://www.princessauto.com/all-sea.../8355166-130-watt-polycrystalline-solar-panel

When we are off grid, camping in the middle of no-where, our camper has 12 volt deep-cycle RV-Marine batteries (X2) as a battery bank. we could increase it with another 2 batteries. Now what type of setup would be required to be able to charge both bike batteries on a daily basis. Just thinking about using the normal battery charges (for each battery) and inverters for this year.

Any ideas and suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks Tom

 

[acid]

gas is much cheaper and it would take days to recharge your batteries.

 

[dodjob]

HI there,
I will only speak from what I know good
The wind turbine. Don't buy it. for some simple reason: Never buy something without knowing what there is inside.
The machine is rated 600W but they didn't even take the time to put a windspeed/power curve or a certified average production/month
The point is that in the Windturbine segment there is a lot of funny people which are selling shit to people without knowledge.
If you want to have a wind turbine at home you need:
-place (the turbine should be a least 50m from your home)
-no tree or obstacle in a radius of minimum 200 meter around the turbine
-Annual wind report from your place
-complete informations on your turbine (look at a superwind or a airx)
-nice neighbor (or preferably none)
-some money. Because there is no cheap chinese crap which is holding the hell of nature as for now..
-and last but not least, trust phisics!!! read betz's law and look if the power of the machine match with the size of the rotor. It's a simple calculation and really helps to understand what you can expect from windpower.
If you live on the see cost, you have like a garden on the see. A wind turbine is a really interesting solution.
for the solar installation:
"High efficiency polycrystalline cells" moaaah ahah A 120W monocristalline cells panel (which are the real high efficiency cells ) WITH 250W MPPT charger (absolutely indispensable) should cost about 600-700€ here in Europe. There is a lot of website which indicate you how much you can get per m² and don't forget that if you are off grid you have to include the efficiency of your batteries
hope this helps
Gruß,
H.

 

[John in CR]

Harold in CR and I split 1000W of solar cells that we picked up for 50cents/watt or $500. We'll each spend as much as $200 more plus our time before we each have our 500W of panels, but I think you understand why $999 for 130W seems crazy expensive to me. 1kw of solar on top of a camper plus some bulk storage and a charge controller would be sweeeet.

 

[dogman dan]

Wind makes a ton of sense in some places, but in most places not. If you said camping on the barrier islands of Texas coast, wind would kick ass.

To charge one battery daily, you will need about 100w of panel. Plus a pretty good size storage. The storage batts will be huge and heavy, and two big 100w panels will cover the whole roof of the camper pretty much.

I'd say go more moderate, about60- 80w of panel on the roof, then supplement that with a small and quiet generator, like the honda 1000w. The Harbor Freight solar kits come to mind for the camper solar. they are 45w. Bought with the max sale discount of course. One kit is sized just about right for your existing camper battery, so two of them plus one more storage batt makes sense to me.

A camper with room for 1000w of panel would be sweet. But usually they aren't called campers, more like motorcoaches.

 

[spinningmagnets]

For the raw wind-gen/solar-PV info, go to otherpower.com, and its "fieldlines" forum. The longtime posters live off-grid and they are very serious about the products they use.

Don't believe the ads about green products, the numbers they use are only under ideal conditions, instead of real-world averages. You may be suprised to find your city will not allow you to have a wind-gen. If its allowed, your house must be outside a fall-line from the tower, and after you buy a 60-foot tall tower, you may then find you have lots of wind at 75-feet.

Definitely do lots of home work first before spending.

 

[electr0n]

What about a small wood gasifier to feed your generator? Northern Ontario is pretty much the ideal location for a limitless supply of fuel. You could charge your batteries up fast and economically. You wouldn't need to erect a big tower like you do for wind. You wouldn't need to store power in a battery bank like you would with solar panels. If you went solar you'd probably need upwards of 400 watts to be able to charge that size of batteries in any reasonable amount of time, like overnight. You could also partially charge with solar and finish the job with the generator as someone else suggested that's probably the most straight forward thing to do aside from simply running the generator.

 

[scotticeberg]

The largest Photo-voltaic power-plant, in the world, is right around the 45th parallel, in Sarnia, Ontario. Point being that PV panels work perfectly well for us "northerners".

PV solar panels covering the roof of your camper should be sufficient. I don't know about a wind turbine. I do know there are small wind turbines used for marine applications, so strapping one to the camper would not be unfeasible.

I dream of one day living in an electric van, down by the river, of course. The roof would be covered with monocrystaline photo-volatic panels.
What can I say? I'm a weird dude.

 

[dogman dan]

Solar works nearly as well anywhere, If north the angle you want the panel set to changes. You'd have to be able to tilt em into the sun better once parked, the further north the more tilt. What actually affects solar more is simply weather. Here in the SW USA, the insolation charts put us in the area where insolation is the max. It's simply that no rain here means many days of no clouds. I was watching the log the other day on a freinds solar panels that just put 2kw on his roof. You can see the clouds go by on the meters.

For presumably summer use in Canada, solar should work fine. Crazy long days. Again, something moderate would do the camper and some of the bike charging. Then just run the generator while the bikes are actually plugged in charging if needed. I have an older model honda 700w generator. It purrs like a kitten, and sips gas very slowly. Perfect for charging two bikes.