future wind

[ws9876]

I bet that small wind systems in the near future will have not only better alts and controllers but some
kind of rugged PRE battery to hold the extra potential for a short time until it can go into the battery.
It could be a robust cheap, thick plated unit that is cheap to make ...maybe cant hold a charge past a day or two but wouldnt matter..

[niel]

they can certainly make the turbines better for sure and as to a better controller, well the stuff boB is working on is said to do wonders with turbines.
the prebattery would be too redundant and inefficient.

[john p]

but some
kind of rugged PRE battery to hold the extra potential for a short time until it can go into the batteryIt could be done easily with super caps but the cost for now is way too high.. Something along these lines. have the wind genny at about24v but in high wind can go to say 48v then have bank supercaps rated at say 60v then fed to something like MPPT charger to 24v bank of batteries.
We have for some uses at work 12v 200f supercaps but they cost in thousands of dollars if you going to use bank of at least 1000f The good thing about them they can be charged and discharged at just about any rateand cant be damaged by overcharging or undercharging

[Kamala]

Huge ships patrolling the Gulf extruding massive sheets of aluminum and polythene immersed in oil.

Now that's a cap!

Duh. The oil would be the dielectric. No need for the plastic. Funny how one is derived form the other.

Aluminum curtains hung from the surface of an oil filled gulf a mile high by thousands of miles long separated by what horizontal distance?

Dunno.

[Cariboocoot]

Kamala, are you poking a stick at BP?

I'm waiting for magnetic bottles to store free electrons in.
But then I'm still waiting for flying cars.

One thing is for certain: in the realm of small-scale wind power there's plenty of room/need for improvement.