Having a remote farm in Cornwall sounds idyllic, but with a £50,000 fee to connect to the grid, generators used to be the only option for electricity supply. As farmer John Drake found, a hybrid wind and solar energy system is an excellent alternative – it’s green, requires little maintenance and in this case, benefits from a 6-year return on investment.
LE-600 Wind Turbine
We like to specify a British designed and built Leading Edge wind turbine for the off-grid systems we install. In this case, the LE-600 provides enough power at night to reduce cycling of the batteries, significantly increasing battery life.Ian Emberton , MD at Xerogrid
Xerogrid, specialists in off-grid solutions, fitted John Drake with a hybrid wind and solar energy system. This off-grid power solution comprised the Leading Edge LE-600 wind turbine and 7.8kW of solar, both charging the 48V battery bank comprising 24 x 1000Ah 2V battery cells.
The 48VDC power is then converted to 230VAC, using an Outback Flexpower 2 6kW inverter charger system. The system is programmed to auto start the generator when the batteries get low, or when big loads like the compressor or the water pumps come on.
The addition of an Outback Mate 3 controller lets Xerogrid monitor the system remotely with the Mate 3 connected to www.opticsre.com. By tweaking the settings on the generator, Xerogrid was able to reduce generator usage significantly.
With well developed and reliable power systems now available , living off the grid is becoming much more acceptable.
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