Hello Everyone

So I have moved the Grid tied wind turbine inverter to the Genport on the Parallel Solis S6 6KW Hybrid system and have activated the AC Couple functions. 

I am pleased to say that it now shows the Power Source as external inverter on the portal. See the Picture. 

However we have not had much wind for the past couple of days so now I am praying for some nice wind. 😅 

This will allow is to create some very nice data to illustrate the performance of the wind turbine on the Smart port of the Solis Hybrid inverters. 

I will enquire with Solis if I can have the External INV renamed to Wind Power. 

The moment I enabled the AC Couple feature GRID and GRID Load also appeared on the portal even though I have no grid and my inverters are in OFF GRID MODE. 

I will post pictures of my Power Station once I have tidied up the cables with some trunking everything is still very much in shambles because of all the changes I need to make to do all the different tests.

42 minutes ago, Powerforum Store said:

However we have not had much wind for the past couple of days so now I am praying for some nice wind. 😅 

Good luck with that and thanks, btw for the pricing info, it is too rich for me, specially since we don't get much wind that would allow this kind of installation to pay for itself, never mind help the batteries cope when we have a few cloudy days... like yesterday and today... batteries came up to 90% max yesterday by around 16:00 and downhill from there onwards, currently on 51% and seeing 370W from the solar panels, suffice it to say that 30kWh worth of batteries won't budge much with 1% of power feeding it :-(, anyway it is wind still out there pretty much, so here it is usually storming briefly with a thunderstorm and things get blow away/over, like a farmers' 2000l Diesel tank being mostly empty ending up in the water canal, back in 2008 during a thunderstorm, or no wind that would drive a wind turbine...

On 2025/02/21 at 10:09 AM, Kalahari Meerkat said:

Good luck with that and thanks, btw for the pricing info, it is too rich for me, specially since we don't get much wind that would allow this kind of installation to pay for itself, never mind help the batteries cope when we have a few cloudy days... like yesterday and today... batteries came up to 90% max yesterday by around 16:00 and downhill from there onwards, currently on 51% and seeing 370W from the solar panels, suffice it to say that 30kWh worth of batteries won't budge much with 1% of power feeding it :-(, anyway it is wind still out there pretty much, so here it is usually storming briefly with a thunderstorm and things get blow away/over, like a farmers' 2000l Diesel tank being mostly empty ending up in the water canal, back in 2008 during a thunderstorm, or no wind that would drive a wind turbine...

Thanks Yes the wind turbines are only worth it if you have the right wind conditions if not it's pretty much a white elephant and of no use if you don't have decent wind speeds.

However there are quite a lot of areas in South Africa that wind power is viable and will help with the batteries and sustain loads. 

In my area we have seasonal wind so Summer time low wind speeds but then my PV system keeps the batteries nice and full however in winter time we have average wind speeds in excess of 9 MS when my PV production is not adequate the wind turbine will come into play and keep the batteries nice and full we experience literally weeks of non stop wind during the winter and then I would be able to generate some nice data to share. 

Hey Everyone Just reporting in on certain functionality I have been testing on the SOLIS S6 6KW Hybrids.

Frequency Shifting Function. 

I can confirm that the frequency Shifting Function does work. 

My Grid tied wind turbine inverter also stops the wind turbine due to the frequency shifting of the SOLIS HYBRIDS. 

So what the Solis inverters do is ramp up the frequency that you can set to anything between 51.6 and 54HZ 

I had mine set to 53.1 HZ and when the batteries were full and the load sustained by the solar power the Solis hybrids shifted the frequency to 53.1 HZ and the Wind turbine inverter activated its internal brake to stop the wind turbine from producing power even though I had a nice strong wind blowing the turbine was standing dead still and the Turbine inverterter reported brake activated. 

So as you can see this is the settings to activate frequency shifting on the SOLIS HYBRID range inverters 

Inverters Like Victron and the Larger Luxpower Hybrids also support this sort of function for that matter any inverter that supports frequency shifting. 

Which makes integrating wind power into a system very easy utilizing our Grid Tied Wind turbine inverter controllers. 

These are some of their features.

· 32 point programmable, linearly extrapolated power curve, via inverter display, to match the output of a specific wind turbine.

· Ultra wide input voltage range from 20V up to 850V.

· Able to respond to very quick input voltage change and very fast output power response as well.

· Use current controlled /MPPT inverter technology.

· Compact and light design, one-person easy installation. · IP54/IP20/IP31 visually pleasing, suitable for installing in a domestic environment.

· Maximum efficiency greater than 94%.

· Use our wind turbine specific grid-connection controlling algorithm, running with high efficiency, safety and reliability.

· Stackable for possible parallel function.

· Highly reliable, numerous protection functions.

· Provides both LCD and LED displays for monitoring various parameters.

· Modbus and RS485 Communication with optional LAN/GPRS/WIFI communications modules with remote online portal.

· Quick and easy to installation, in according with IEEE929-2000, IEEE1547, UL1741,AS4777 regulations 

Edited February 22, 20251 yr by Powerforum Store

Hello Everyone

Just some feedback on how the system has been running.

So the frequency shifting function is working well on the Solis Hybrids however I have run into some issues with it as follows.

You have very little control over when the systems starts frequency shifting we have set the max frequency to 54HZ then the systems starts shifting frequency at 80% DOD if we set it to the lower end of the scale the frequency shifting starts at 60% DOD.

The problem this presents is that the excess wind energy is not available for the system to be used for loads and as soon as it starts slowly forces the turbine to generate less and less energy until it stops the turbine completely.

I am currently busy with SOLIS inverters South Africa to look at additional functionality on the frequency shifting function settings that can allow us to manually set when frequency starts based on battery SOC

We would also prefer if we could still make the wind energy available for loads instead of stopping the turbine.

Other functions we would like SOLIS to integrate is MPPT Power Curve settings on the MPPT that has a wind turbine connected to it this will also improve potential power production via the MPPT we have found the Solar MPPT algorithm limits efficiency when integrating with that method.

Currently I am testing the grid tied wind turbine inverter directly on the backup port of the system and have found that this method is the most efficient and it allows the turbine to generate power in the lightest breeze my concern however is when the battery is full and there is not sufficient load to consume the energy may cause the battery BMS to go into fault because the energy would inevitably go to the battery.

Especially in off grid mode when grid is attached you can send the excess power back to grid etc.

The other option is to utilize something like home assistant or Hubble Cloudlink to manage the production of the wind turbine.

The wind turbine inverter supports MODBUS and RS485 Comms and can receive instructions to stop or start the turbine.

This would allow turbine integration onto the backup port of almost any inverter using the grid tied wind turbine inverter with its perfect power curve.

Where you can start the turbine if the battery is empty or below 100% or where the load on the system is high enough to utilize the wind energy.

There are many potential scenarios and options then available to control the turbine and utilize the energy more efficiently.

I have access to all the modbus protocols for the wind turbine inverters and controllers and all of them support remote stop start signal via modbus.

Other methods could be to use ac contactors to connect and disconnect the ac side of the wind turbine inverter.

I am investigating these options further and will get back to everyone on the feasibility of these options.

When production is higher than load and batteries are full, can't you dump excess power to a dummy load maybe to heat your pool, geyser or something else?

1 hour ago, Powerforum Store said:

Hello Everyone

Just some feedback on how the system has been running.

So the frequency shifting function is working well on the Solis Hybrids however I have run into some issues with it as follows.

You have very little control over when the systems starts frequency shifting we have set the max frequency to 54HZ then the systems starts shifting frequency at 80% DOD if we set it to the lower end of the scale the frequency shifting starts at 60% DOD.

The problem this presents is that the excess wind energy is not available for the system to be used for loads and as soon as it starts slowly forces the turbine to generate less and less energy until it stops the turbine completely.

I am currently busy with SOLIS inverters South Africa to look at additional functionality on the frequency shifting function settings that can allow us to manually set when frequency starts based on battery SOC

We would also prefer if we could still make the wind energy available for loads instead of stopping the turbine.

Other functions we would like SOLIS to integrate is MPPT Power Curve settings on the MPPT that has a wind turbine connected to it this will also improve potential power production via the MPPT we have found the Solar MPPT algorithm limits efficiency when integrating with that method.

Currently I am testing the grid tied wind turbine inverter directly on the backup port of the system and have found that this method is the most efficient and it allows the turbine to generate power in the lightest breeze my concern however is when the battery is full and there is not sufficient load to consume the energy may cause the battery BMS to go into fault because the energy would inevitably go to the battery.

Especially in off grid mode when grid is attached you can send the excess power back to grid etc.

The other option is to utilize something like home assistant or Hubble Cloudlink to manage the production of the wind turbine.

The wind turbine inverter supports MODBUS and RS485 Comms and can receive instructions to stop or start the turbine.

This would allow turbine integration onto the backup port of almost any inverter using the grid tied wind turbine inverter with its perfect power curve.

Where you can start the turbine if the battery is empty or below 100% or where the load on the system is high enough to utilize the wind energy.

There are many potential scenarios and options then available to control the turbine and utilize the energy more efficiently.

I have access to all the modbus protocols for the wind turbine inverters and controllers and all of them support remote stop start signal via modbus.

Other methods could be to use ac contactors to connect and disconnect the ac side of the wind turbine inverter.

I am investigating these options further and will get back to everyone on the feasibility of these options.

The features you speak off for the solis, is already available via modbus. Home assistant and nodered would make it easier.

As the previous comment mentioned, I also use sonoff switches on both the geyser, when bats are full, and generation is in excess, it starts them until there is no more excess.

18 hours ago, Powerforum Store said:

he energy would inevitably go to the battery

I don't think this would be the case, unless the wind turbine can cause the charge Voltage to the batteries to go up, which it can not, the cells would not accept more charge, once the BMS; preset cell Voltage has been reached and the cells have saturated at this Voltage level...

18 hours ago, Powerforum Store said:

utilize something like home assistant

this may be a possible option... I would think the possible problem with excess power and no consumer use is that the Voltage, AC side could climb and this could cause damage to the Inverters as well as other AC appliances, depending on how high this Voltage rise may be...like the above comments, hot water is always useful and if your HWC is LARGE enough you can dump excess energy in there, problem would be once the HWC is up to 90degC or so and you still have loads of excess energy...

So, maybe a combination of RS485/Modbus control via HomeAssistant and dumping energy into water heating may be the best way of trying to keep things at an even keel...

You probably would have to stop the turbine once battery full and turbine can't dump enough into HWC and service loads without still having excess energy. Thus running off solar/battery and once battery is down to 80% SOC, start turbine again... rinse repeat...

On 2025/03/07 at 5:48 PM, TimCam said:

When production is higher than load and batteries are full, can't you dump excess power to a dummy load maybe to heat your pool, geyser or something else?

The controller comes with a dumpload that activates automatically in that scenario but I am sure one can send the energy to an element or something or activate the pump with a relay automatically if there is wind power available we are looking at a couple of options to automate this.

On 2025/03/07 at 5:58 PM, Pho3niX90 said:

The features you speak off for the solis, is already available via modbus. Home assistant and nodered would make it easier.

As the previous comment mentioned, I also use sonoff switches on both the geyser, when bats are full, and generation is in excess, it starts them until there is no more excess.

Yes the Modbus features however the additional functions for frequency shifting and power curve settings for wind turbines are not available yet they are working on that as we speak.

On 2025/03/08 at 11:12 AM, Kalahari Meerkat said:

I don't think this would be the case, unless the wind turbine can cause the charge Voltage to the batteries to go up, which it can not, the cells would not accept more charge, once the BMS; preset cell Voltage has been reached and the cells have saturated at this Voltage level...

this may be a possible option... I would think the possible problem with excess power and no consumer use is that the Voltage, AC side could climb and this could cause damage to the Inverters as well as other AC appliances, depending on how high this Voltage rise may be...like the above comments, hot water is always useful and if your HWC is LARGE enough you can dump excess energy in there, problem would be once the HWC is up to 90degC or so and you still have loads of excess energy...

So, maybe a combination of RS485/Modbus control via HomeAssistant and dumping energy into water heating may be the best way of trying to keep things at an even keel...

You probably would have to stop the turbine once battery full and turbine can't dump enough into HWC and service loads without still having excess energy. Thus running off solar/battery and once battery is down to 80% SOC, start turbine again... rinse repeat...

That is the Idea to stop and start the turbine depending on the required scenario based on SOC and running loads with the option to activate certain loads to utilize additional energy produced by the turbine. Risking overvoltage on the AC Side will definitely cause damage to the Hybrid inverter if there is nowhere for the energy produced to go hence the idea to use something like solar assistant to manage the turbine. However if the frequency settings functionality is improved this will also alleviate the problem and almost automate the process the current version of the software on the solis hybrids does present some Issues that we are working on. SUNSYNK/ DEYE MPPT integration works well however the powercurve is limited and I also hear that DEYE may be dropping the Wind turbine power feature on its inverters soon which would only leave two options for that product direct battery DC integration (Least Efficient) or Micro inverter function on the GEN Port.

4 hours ago, Powerforum Store said:

Yes the Modbus features however the additional functions for frequency shifting and power curve settings for wind turbines are not available yet they are working on that as we speak.

I see, might just be my understanding. But I do believe the AC and GEN port does indeed support frequency shifting already. V3.2 of the documentation makes mention of this as well.

But, it's good to see Solis is making an effort to rapidly improve on the product. Makes me feel better about going Solis vs Sunsynk

Will be following closely.

3 hours ago, Pho3niX90 said:

I see, might just be my understanding. But I do believe the AC and GEN port does indeed support frequency shifting already. V3.2 of the documentation makes mention of this as well.

But, it's good to see Solis is making an effort to rapidly improve on the product. Makes me feel better about going Solis vs Sunsynk

Will be following closely.

Yes as stated in my previous posts Solis Hybrids do support Frequency shifting however the functionality is limited causing frequency shifting to occur to soon based on the SOC of the battery we found at maximum frequency the systems starts to frequency shift at about 80% SOC and lower frequency setting the system will start to frequency shift at 65 to 70 % SOC.

We want to be able to set stop start at which SOC point the system frequency shifts. We also want to be able to set a function that allows for exclusive battery charging while using Ac Coupling and obviously a few other features that would make integration more efficient. But Yes SOLIS SA is actively working with us on a couple of additional feature sets for the HYBRID and Grid tied inverters.

Hello everyone just another update on the Wind Turbines and new things happening.

So its D Day for SOLIS to provide me with the new firmware release that will fix a lot of problems on the SOLIS hybrid inverters.

I attended the SOLAR Expo at Nasrec last week had some very good meetings with the guys at SOLIS also SolaX and Givenergy.

All three these manufacturers are looking at providing us with the facility to have programmable Power Curve settings on their inverter MPPT's

This will allow for much more feasible MPPT integration of the Wind turbines all of them will look at 32 Point power curve functions and the one manufacturer will be looking at providing us with a micro inverter for the different model turbines to do AC coupling integration with full pre programed power curves for selected turbines.

We also has meetings with Distributors and may have some nice surprises lined up for the future however at this point I will remain tight lipped.

We are also seriously looking at expanding our wind turbine range and have a special range of turbines built suited for very low average wind speeds.

These turbines will all be rated at 6 to 8 meters per second depending on the model.

The problem with building wind turbines for low wind speeds are numerous.

Low wind power production need large Blade Diameter the larger the blade diameter the lower the wind speed becomes for the same potential power production.

As an example our 1 KW turbine produces 1KW at 8 meter per second however for the turbine to produce 1KW at 6 meter per second two things need to be adapted.

Blade diameter needs to be scaled up from 4 meter to 4.8 meter this will allow then for a potential to produce 1KW at 6 Meter per second.

The second change that would have to be made is the generator. The generator will be turning at a lower RPM but with increased torque thanks to the larger blade diameter so the generator will need to be adapted to produce 1KW at lower RPM yet in the same required voltage range.

These two changes will have a few positive effects.

The obvious one 1KW production at 6 meter per second wind.

Reducing the RPM requirement for the generator will increase the power band of the generator and provide it with a much flatter power curve meaning the turbine will generate more power at a low wind speed of 4 meter per second than it would have in the original configuration when it was rated at 1KW 8 meter per second. The power differential will be significant.

The wider power band and flatter power curve would also mean the turbine would be able to start producing at a much lower wind speed.

There will also be a reduction in wear and tear because of the lower RPM ratings extending the potential lifespan of the wear and tear components.

The down side of these changes are Higher costs due to larger blades and a lower RPM generator.

The price difference would not be so high and justifies the massive improvement in power production at low wind speeds.

The other down side would be the increased size in blade diameter and weight of the generator.

However my belief is that this is the products we need to make wind power more feasible and will increase the viable installation locations because high wind speeds would not be so much of a requirement.

We will retain the variable pitch tech to ensure safe operation and longevity.

With all this said we will look at developing options for the 1 2 5 and 10 KW models

As an example if we do the 10KW model that currently requires a 11.5 Meter per second wind for 10KW with a blade diameter of 7.8 meters at a rotor speed of 200 RPM.

The resulting machine would have a 13.4 Meter Blade with a rotor speed of 81 RPM to Generate 10KW at 8 meter per second this is quite a substantial size change and this would directly affect the cost.

I always get a lot of questions from people about a lot of factors around our turbines and why we use the technology and the designs we use my intention is to clear up some misconceptions when it comes to turbine technology hoping this would give you some more clarity on the subject.

So here goes Common questions.

Question: Why don't just use more blades?

There are many reasons why a 3 Blade horizontal axis turbine works better than any other design.

Diameter determines KW output potential.

To simplify it for better understanding its like an engine a diesel engine produces a lot of torque but low KW output where a petrol engine produces a lot of KW output but not as much torque for the same capacity.

When an engine drives a generator the torque does not factor in so much as the KW production of the engine meaning if you are driving a generator the KW output of the Engine will determine how much power the Generator will produce.

This same idea applies to wind turbine generators.

Amount of turbine blades determine torque output potential and smoothness of power delivery more blades higher torque smoother power delivery lower RPM less blade rigidity

More blades means more eddy vortices created by the leading blade this reduces efficiency and potential RPM also increases cost especially in a variable pitch scenario more moving parts required.

To mitigate the eddy vortices that cause inefficiency on wind turbine blades you will note that all large scale MW class turbines have 3 blades because that is the best balance between even power delivery and reduced eddy vortices created by the leading blade.

Blade design is also very important and there is a gold standard for the blade shape and ratio they call this the blade chord any major variations on this will cause unnecessary turbulence that will reduce the blades ability to transfer energy.

Other factors of the blades that are very important is flexibility if the blade is not rigid enough it will deform out of its ideal shape and cause the blade to become less efficient so the more rigid the blade can be the better it is to transfer energy.

Blade weight also plays an important part the heavier the blade the higher the torsional and gyroscopic forces are going to be at the blade tips.

This will affect how easily the wind turbine can change wind direction and what the loads on the bearings would be when wind direction changes occur.

These loads would not only be on the generator bearing but also on the neck bearings that allows the turbine to change direction 360 degrees.

Then we have the ever prominent Betz Law this law prevents any wind turbine to be more efficient than 59.3 % Efficiency and they rate the turbines with a Cp Value this just tells us how efficient the turbine is.

Our turbines Cp Ratings vary from 0.4 to 0.45 this is very close to the high end of the scale reasons why they can reach this is direct drive less frictional losses weight.

The most efficient turbines in the market at the moment are the very Large 3 bladed Vestas machines with Cp values from 0.45 to 0.47 which is very impressive for such large machines that use gearboxes in thier generator drive systems.

Question: Why don't you do vertical axis wind turbines they are so much more aesthetically pleasing.

Efficiency and cost and size reliability are some of the reasons.

Maximum efficiency you can achieve with a fixed bladed variable axis turbine is and this is claimed by very high end brands in the market at high average wind speed outputs between Cp 0.4 and 0.45 however realistically Cp 0.4

Products that can achieve this

Ryse Energy N-55 Claims a Cp of 0.4 to 0.45 Cost per KW installed Estimated at R95 000.00 on the lower end and up to R122 550.00

IceWind Freya Claims (Cp 0.40–0.45) Estimated cost per KW as low as R170 430.00 up to R227 430.00 side note these machines are small staring at 600 watt

Bergey 10 kW Claims Cp 0.40–0.43 Cost per KW installed Estimated at R95 000.00

All of these machines are rated at 12 Meters Per second and above.

People are under the misconception that these small twirly whirly so called 500 watt vertical axis turbines can generate any kind of meaningful power should consider the following.

Wind speed 99% of these machines require wind speeds above 12 Meter per second to produce their rated power. 43.2 KPH!

Their blades are fixed cannot pitch or yaw meaning if the wind does blow at 90 KPH or 25 MS they cannot slow themselves down and unless they are premium brands like those listed above they will self destruct!

Most of the cheap machines in the market have a Cp ~0.36–0.40 much lower than the Horizontal axis turbines.

Most of them also do not have decent integration technology with modern lithium and inverter solutions generally they are all designed for lead acid battery applications.

Our Own experience shows that it is not financially viable and the cost to keep these types of machines especially the cheap ones does not make it viable besides their low power production at low wind speeds.

We prefer tried tested and trusted technology that requires minimum maintenance and the lowest risk with the highest output potential.

Question: Have you ever considered Archimedes Screw turbines?

There is a lot of advertising claiming that the Archimedes wind turbines are the best thing since sliced cheese.

So here is a couple of facts about these types of turbines that people may not know.

Best Achieved Cp of 0.26 clearly the lowest efficiency of all the designs sofar. There are a lot of Higher Cp Claims but none has been tested with the highest claim of Cp 0.43

Largest versions max out at 1.5 KW

Requires very High wind speeds from 10 to 15 MS in some cases so not practical in the SA market where our winds range from 4MS to 10MS

Cost Per KW still on the high side of around R57000.00 excluding mounting and installation you can easily add 40% for those factors.

Here are some other factors to consider

Wind shifts >30° off-axis drop power output sharply—e.g., a 2016 study showed a 20–30% efficiency loss (Cp falls from 0.43 to ~0.30–0.33) when misaligned >45° before yaw corrects. Response time is ~5–10 seconds (X posts, Dutch installers), slower than active yaw HAWTs (e.g., Bergey, 2–3 seconds).

Data: Manufacturer claims “adapts to changing winds,” but no yaw speed spec—real-world urban tests (e.g., 2022 Rotterdam rooftop) report 10–15% annual energy loss in gusty conditions vs. steady wind.

Issue: At 1.5 meters, the rotor’s small inertia and light frame (often aluminum/plastic) make it twitchy—rapid shifts can overshoot or oscillate, misaligning blades.

Impact: A 2020 Wind Engineering paper noted small HAWTs like AWM lose 5–10% efficiency in variable winds (e.g., 5–15 m/s shifts) due to yaw lag, worse than larger HAWTs (e.g., Bergey 10 kW, 7-meter rotor, stabler).

Issue: The helical design aims to smooth airflow and reduce noise, but turbulence—common in urban settings (rooftops, trees)—disrupts lift across the uneven blade surface. Fixed pitch can’t adjust to sudden gusts.

Edited April 2, 20251 yr by Powerforum Store

Hello Everyone so I have come up with a harebrained Idea!

To start there are some challenges when coupling a DC wind turbine controller to an MPPT on a string or hybrid inverter actually any MPPT that has a Solar algorytm.

When the turbine is running at low power production and the MPPT on the Inverter senses the voltage rise within acceptable voltage range the MPPT tries to track the voltage and tries to extract the maximum current at that voltage and power point.

The result is because the MPPT tries to draw max current at said voltage as an example 150v at which the turbine can only supply a set amount of current lets say 1.5 amps the MPPT tries to extract 11 Amps instead this causes the turbine to stall and the whole process starts over again.

I have done a lot of research to overcome this problem.

The obvious solution is make the MPPT Programmable with a set power curve instructing the MPPT to only draw a specific current at a specific voltage because the turbine output via the DC controller is linear in the sense the RPM Voltage and Amps are always directly linked across the rev range of the turbine generator up to argument 360 RMP 360 Volt 2000 Watt.

So here comes the IDEA!

So what if I can put resistors rated at the current draw of the MPPT say 11 amp draw assuming that's the max draw of the MPPT and I use an Arduino with 2 current sensors and and the resistors in parallel with the MPPT current sensor on the DC controller and a current sensor on the inverter MPPT.

this kind of Idea

SSR + Arduino: Sense turbine current (e.g., 0.56A at 0.2 kW), MPPT demand (e.g., 11A). If demand > output, activate SSR to divert ~10.44A to resistors.

In theory this will sense when the MPPT demand exceeds the available current from the turbine..... in theory

We can extend the idea further and program the power curve of the turbine into the Arduino to only allow the correct amps at a specific voltage that matches the power curve data thereby preventing them MPPT from drawing more current than what the turbine can supply at set voltage point argument sake a 20 point power curve from low to nominal RPM this may even eliminate the need for current sensors however we can still use the current sensors for fine tuning and to improve accuracy.

We can even take things further and add an Anemometer into the system obviously this fill inflate the cost but for experimental purposes this can give us another accurate data stream to monitor the turbine performance based on the voltage current theoretical RPM and Wind speed.

The Arduino can also communicate via modbus the turbine controller coms via modbus with RS485 with stop start functions so this can further enhance the accuracy of the power conversion and energy transfer into the MPPT optimising the system even further even the possibility then to integrate with an energy management system like Home assistant this is where the anemometer and the stop start functions come into play.

Some additional thought on this would be appreciated I already have theoretical code parts list and assembly method working on the wiring diagram and layout of the components!

Hello everyone

I know I have been quiet on the Wind turbine front however here is an update.

We have a new site in Muizenberg Cape Town running 2 x 5 KW Machines coupled to the MPPT's of a Sunsynk 50 KW took some time to get Sunsynk to sort out their MPPT performance (over 3 weeks) but everything is working perfectly now on the Site machines easily reaching their peak output of 5 KW output.

Just on the Sunsynk setup seems like the standard firmware does not have the Wind Turbine functions as default it requires a special request to make that firmware available.

It also takes them some time to finetune the firmware Sunsynk HQ engineers has to get involved.

I think this is the 1st and only 50 KW Sunsynk in SA with 2 x 5KW Variable pitch turbines coupled to the MPPT's

So for those of you that was wondering if it can work I can now confirm it does work very well.

One machine is in a less Ideal position and the tower height is limited due to municipal and public issues.

There is a clear performance difference between the 2 machines illustrating the importance of the correct location and tower height.

Both Machines are on a hill and there would obviously be ground turbulence caused by the wind blowing up the hill this is where the tower height is important to lift the bottom blade end of the turbine out of turbulence.

Regardless of that the machines are performing very well taking all the factors into consideration.

Some feedback on our test Site with the 2KW Variable Pitch turbine.

Currently Running 0 to 360 VDC output

Solis S6 Advanced Hybrid 6 KW MPPT 1 Constant voltage initially at 250 VDC later changed to 300VDC

Wind Started Blowing at 2AM started really Pumping at 3:30 AM as you can see on this

Peak output for a 2KW turbine 2.968 KW total energy generated up to 12:30

8.2 KWh Production battery at 97% so the MPPT is limiting production at this stage.

Took my 38.5 KW battery bank from 74.5 % SOC to 97% while supporting a base load of 600 Watt with up to 2.2 KW spikes.

Weather is overcast and very windy so my PV performance is low.

Looking at the voltage spikes you can see the turbine is now just dumping power to the dumpload.

Ignore total yield this machine is a new unit Solis sent me the old one was one of the 1st ever produced and they wanted it back so they sent me a brand new unit.

Things to still do is setup the remote monitoring on the controller so I can share data directly from the Turbine controller this should be done in the next few weeks as the industry slows down for Christmas.

Edited December 12, 2025Dec 12 by Powerforum Store

Hello All so just an update more than 6 Months later my turbine is still working fine needs to be serviced however will get to it sooner or later

Great wind the past couple days this is only pure wind power production the data interval on the inverter makes the production look erratic however its pretty constant even though the wind is quite gusty. Also got the turbine logger working will share some data from that at a later stage.

As you can see on this graph the wind power kept the battery almost at the same SOC throughout the night only dipping off a little at 5:45AM had to run some heavy loads last night to get the SOC to go down so ran the aircon in heating mode had the geyser running etc.

Wind is still pumping however not enough load and the battery is 100% full so the turbine is currently just dumping power to its dumpload.