A Wind/PV System Fred & Linnea Rassman with son Dylan In 1971 I bought 10 acres in central Allegany County, New York and started building an A-frame house. I used all hand tools since there was no electricity available. After I completed the house, I checked on getting the power line installed and found out the power company wanted $10,000 to bring in the lines. Then they wanted a monthly rate even if I didn't use any power, since I was the only one who would be using that line. Well, that was out of my price range, so I gave up on commercial electricity. I used kerosene lamps for light, an old Servel gas refrigerator, a hand powered pump for water, and a portable radio and cassette tape player that I ran off my truck battery. Enter Wind Powered Generators I started playing with homemade wind powered generators around 1975. I found the most I could get from car alternators was around 300 watts. Even when I rewound them to run direct off an 8 foot diameter blade they just didn't supply enough to keep the battery charged. So, I started writing around the country. Mike Hackleman told me that Martin Jopp out in Princetown, New Mexico might have a Jocobs windmachine he would sell. It turned out he had a 1949 Jacobs 2,800 watt, 32 Volt DC wind generator that was still in the packing crate, brand new and never used! He wanted $2,500 for it, which was still a lot of money for me back in 1977. I managed to get a loan and drove to Princetown, New Mexico to meet him. What a character! He was in his seventies and still running his farm on wind power, as he had since 1920. He used two Jacobs, each putting out 60 Volts to charge a 120 Volt battery bank. He taught me a lot of DC stuff, including how to rewire 120 volt appliances and tools to run on 32 Volts. I packed up my Jacobs, five or six 32 Volt motors and drove back to western New York. Then I tried to find a used tower. All I could locate was old water pumping towers that were 20 or 30 feet high. They wouldn't support the 15 foot diameter blades of the 600 pound Jacobs. So I bought a bunch of used 2 inch pipe and sucker rod from the oil fields and welded up my own 50 foot tower. The pipe and welding rod came to $50.00. I bought a keg of beer, some food, and invited some friends to a tower raising party. We used two tractors to stand the tower up while we cemented it to the ground. I used a tree surgeons bucket crane to put ole Jacobs atop the tower and in July 1977 had a system operating. The Jacobs didn't seem to be putting out enough juice so I wrote to Marcellus Jacobs in Florida and asked him what was wrong. He wrote me a nice long letter explaining that the brushes had to be timed. The only way to properly do this was when it was blowing at top speed. It was pretty hairy, with me hanging on to the back of ole Jacobs with the blades whipping so fast I couldn't see them. Anyway, it didn't kill me and I finally got the sparking down to a minimum. When I told Marcellus that my Jacobs was unused in the packing crate he wanted to buy it back from me. He offered me a deal on his new 10kW. alternator model. I said no thanks, but we kept in touch until his death. Lead- Acid Batteries I started out with five 6 Volt golf cart batteries and soon found out what deep cycle service really is! First of all, when Jacobs was putting out its full power of 70 Amperes at 40 Volts it was too much for the 180 Ampere-hour batteries. Then when the wind didn't blow the batteries would be discharged for a week. So I built a gas engine/car alternator battery charger for windless periods. But even so, in a little over a year a couple of the battery cells were badly sulfated and useless. I had actually been undercharging them when I thought I was bringing them up to full charge. I found out you have to ruin a set of batteries before you learn how to charge them! See Home Power #9 for details on battery recharging and sizing. In 1979, I finally found some used telephone batteries out in Indiana. I bought 64 C&D, 500 Ampere-hour cells and a diesel engine starting set of Goulds 310 Ampere-hour cells that were put in use in 1958! I'm still using the Goulds as my primary set. In 1982, I ran into 66 more C&D 300 Ampere-hour telephone cells, that I got for hauling them away. With 130 C&D cells I had to build a shed with a strong floor to hold over six tons of batteries. I split them into 8 separate sets of 16 cells and connected them with knife switches. I can use them either for powering the house or barn and charge each set separately. When the wind blows for a couple of days I still had too much power to store in batteries. So I bought three 32 Volt, 1,000 watt immersion water heaters and built a relay setup that would switch the windmill power to the water heaters when the voltage reached 41 Volts and kick off at 36 Volts, so the heaters wouldn't draw directly off the batteries. It sure is nice to take a hot shower or wash dishes with free Hot H2O. I super insulated the tanks so when I get the temperature up to 190¡F. it stays warm for 4 or 5 days. Along the way I rewired my 1/2" drill, 1/4" drill and an old vacuum cleaner to run direct off 32VDC. I also built a couple of voltage regulators to run anything from 0-32 Volts, like a 12V color TV, 12V cassette player & radio, 9V record turntable I built from an old Garrad and numerous cordless items that range from 1 1/2 Volts to 16 Volts. Inverters I bought a Best 3,000 watt inverter from Elliott Bayley out at Whirlwind Power Co. in 1980. I still use it for big power tools. It's a nice inverter, but it was always on draining power with no load, besides the efficiency when operating is around 80%. Two years ago I bought a Trace 32 Volt, 2,100 watt inverter from Bob McBroom at Kansas Wind Power and it's ten times the inverter that the Best was! I really love it. I still try to use most appliances directly off of 32 Volts and use the inverter sparingly. I'm not in the best wind site, so for June, July, and August I still had to run a gas engine charger. I built a big one using an ambulance alternator coupled to a 2 cylinder 16 horsepower Wisconsin Bailer engine by a sprocket and chain drive. I tried V-belts, but kept burning them up, no matter how tight they were. I left the alternator diodes original and hooked up a variable field voltage control. It puts out 120 Amperes @ 45VDC continuously. I got married to a wonderful woman, Linnea, in 1985 and started a family. I soon found out that the energy requirements increase with a wife and kids! I was forced to run the gas engine charger 5 hours a week during the summer months and that was too much. Photovoltaics In the summer of 1986 I got into photovoltaics. I had always wanted them, but couldn't afford them before. I wound up with a system of 12 ARCO M65 panels and a Zomeworks 12 panel passive tracker that I bought from Bob at Kansas Windpower. I bought the smallest (32 series cells) panels because I had to wire 3 panels in series to charge 32 Volts. See HP3, page 10, for more information about different voltage PV panels. I figured I didn't need the larger panels designed for 36 Volts and wind up wasting extra voltage. Even so, the first time I put them on line I got more than their rated power. On paper the PVs were supposed to produce 11.6 Amperes. I was getting 15 Amperes on cold days and 12 or 13 Amperes on warm days. The amperage stayed constant even as the batteries climbed up to 41 Volts. It's not often you get more than manufacturer's ratings. Plus with 90 solar cells to charge 32 Volts, I get 3 or 4 Amperes on overcast rainy days from 12 solar panels. It figures out to that when the solar cell voltage reaches .355 Volts they start charging. It's really astounding to walk into the battery shed on a sunny day and hear 6 tons of batteries gassing at 41 Volts from a meager 12 Amperes. It sounds like it's raining. System Specs All 8 sets of batteries, plus the Goulds wired up so I can charge one set off the solar panels, another set off of the Jacobs and run the house and barn off a third set, or any combination of two or more sets connected together. Since I started using the ARCO's in the summer of 86; I haven't had to start the gas engine charger once. Most of the time ole Jacobs is used directly for heating water. Photovoltaic power is simply amazing. I'd recommend it to everyone interested in alternative power. Wind generators are great IF you have plenty of wind the whole year and IF don't mind climbing a tower once a year or more to perform maintenance or repairs. It seems that the only time they break down is when it's 0¡ and blowing 40 MPH. The only wind generator I'd recommend is the Jacobs, most of the ones today are overpriced and won't stand up for more than 5 years. I spent two years in the early 80's traveling around the country installing towers and wind generators. I've seen the new models trying to work and know what I'm talking about. They don't produce rated wattage until a wind speed of 25 or 30 MPH which is rare. The ole Jacobs reaches rated power at 18mph. Most of the new models shut down completely after a certain wind speed, so you get no power when it's blowing 35 or 40 MPH, while the Jacobs still continues producing full power up to 60 MPH. As for system cost and monthly usage in watts I'll have to give general figures because over 15 years I've purchased various motors, relays, switches and appliances that I don't use any more. I've got a brand new Rohn SSV-80 foot tower that is still in the packing crates, never used. I paid over $4000.00 for it and I won't be using it now. I'd like to sell it and buy another 12 panel PV system. Anyone out there interested in an 80 foot tower? I'd sell it for $1,000.00 less than the current price. Anyway, here goes a cost breakdown: INSERT COST BREAKDOWN As for power usage I'd guess around 150 to 200 kWh/month depending on the season. The solar panels produce an average of 60 kWh/month. And ole Jacobs produces an average of 200 kWh/month. For a total of 3,120 kWh/year with the extra power going to heat water. My electrical usage according to voltage is: 12 VDC ¥ 9" color TV ¥ 12" Black & white TV ¥ radio & cassette player ¥ curling iron ¥ cordless vacuum ¥ cordless toothbrush ¥ cordless Makita power tools ¥ TV signal amplifier ¥ muffin fans ¥ ceiling fan ¥ small air compressor ¥ small water pump 32VDC ¥ all lights ¥ water pump ¥ 200 Amp Arc welder ¥ table saw ¥ band saw ¥ 1/2" and 1/4" drills ¥ hot water heaters ¥ 8 cubic foot refrigerator ¥ ringer washing machine ¥ Mullbank composting toilet ¥ small vacuum cleaner 115vac inverter ¥ VCR ¥ sewing machine ¥ soldering iron ¥ stained glass grinder ¥ blender ¥ Sunbeam mixer ¥ 8 1/2" Rockwell circular saw ¥ belt sander ¥ food processor ¥ 14" electric chainsaw ¥ small washing machine ¥ 5 gallon shop vacuum ¥ travel iron ¥ movie projector Fred Rassman, RD.1, Belmont, NY 14813.