How to Connect a Wind Generator to a Backup Battery
- 1). Make a list of appliances and lights in your home that will need to be powered in the event of an outage. Include the operating amperage and peak load amperage for each appliance, which usually can be found on a label attached to the appliance. Multiply the operating amperage for each appliance by the number of hours you anticipate using it in a day. The result is you daily amp-hour total. The number of batteries you will need depends on your total daily amperage requirements.
- 2). Wire the batteries together with 8-gauge AWG cable soldered to eyelets that can be attached to the battery terminals. You also can use standard battery cables. Connect the positive terminal of one battery to the negative terminal of the adjacent battery. Continue the process until all the batteries are wired together except for the positive terminal on one battery and the negative terminal on another.
- 3). Wire the last two remaining battery terminals to a power inverter, making sure the inverter is turned off. The power inverter converts the direct current from the batteries to the alternating current used by appliances. The power inverter should be sized to the voltage of the battery bank, which is found by adding the voltages of the individual batteries. The inverter's amperage rating also should exceed your daily amperage needs. Turn on the inverter only when you are using electricity from the battery bank.
- 4). Connect the last two terminals of the battery bank to a charge controller by using a screwdriver to attach 12-gauge AWG cable to the input terminals on the charge controller.
- 5). Connect the secondary output terminals of the charge controller to a dump load with 12-gauge AWG cable. The dump load will disperse excess electricity produced by the wind turbine. Dump loads can be found online at stores that specialize in wind turbines.
- 6). Solder the 12-gauge cable to a blocking diode, which will prevent the batteries from feeding into the turbine when wind production is low.
- 7). Attach another 12-gauge cable to the blocking diode and then to the wind turbine. Connection ports vary among turbines. Some have screw-in connections and others require soldering.
- 8). Test the battery bank to make sure it is storing electricity. Monitor the charge controller, which will tell you whether electricity is flowing to the batteries. You also can hold an AC tester beside the battery cables to check for electricity flow. If the AC tester lights up, the circuit is live and electricity is being stored in the batteries.
Source...