Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
small wind in America. While these small wind turbines with 600
W to 10 000 W peak output were not the most durable, they were
afordable and worked well in moderate wind areas.
Over a twenty-five-year period Kopka and Smiley installed and
operated six diferent windmills, mostly of the “Whisper” series, from
500 W to 3 000 W. All were battery-charging systems, integrated
with solar electric photovoltaics. Elliott Bayly of Whisper pointed
out that 95% of his small windmills sales included solar electric
charging, and the Whisper controls always included a solar PV
connection. Most systems were supplemented with small gasoline
or liquid propane generators to charge batteries during low wind,
low sun periods, and with the evolution of improved direct to
alternating current DC/AC inverters, home power systems went
from 1 VDC and 4 VDC up to the standard US 10 VAC, 60 Hz
home wiring. For many years Smiley operated a duel home electric
system with both 4 VDC and 10 VAC. Battery storage systems
working at 4 VDC allowed smaller DC electric wiring requiring half
the wire amperage capacity of the 1 VDC systems. One hundred
amperes at 1 VDC did not delivery much energy—1 00 W.
25.6
Living off the Grid
Susan Kopka left Purdue University in 1985 to build a homestead in
northern Michigan as a practical demonstration of bioregionalism,
or as the poet Gary Snyder put it, to “find home and dig in”. Kopka
was one of several women in Leelanau County living of the grid
when she met Smiley in 1991. Sharing a common philosophy of
providing a living demonstration of their renewable energy
principles, they continued to build a model integrated renewable
energy home. Their wind-powered home grew from a small, of-
the-grid 30 m
(30 ft
) cabin in the woods with a 500 W windmill,
to a modern 0 m
) integrated renewable energy home
and studio garage. The sustainable energy sources include 3 kW
wind power, 1.1 kW solar PV, 3 kW solar thermal, 30 kW biomass
heating, solar and biomass thermal storage, 34 kWh electric battery
storage, wood cook stove, passive solar, and six sugar maple trees
shading the home for summer cooling.
The home was completely of the grid for the first fifteen
years, and then connected to the electric grid as a back-up when
( 400 ft
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