Small battery charging wind turbine systems

Marlec Engineering, founded by the late John Fawkes, has been manufacturing small battery charging wind generators for a world-wide market since 1981, applications for these being extremely diverse but all demanding rugged, simple equipment that can demonstrate reliability in the world´s most extreme conditions from the Antarctic to the Sahara desert, offshore and on land. By the very nature of the application, most installations are in very remote and inaccessible locations, making regular maintenance costly and sometimes impractical. The authors describe how, in order to meet this criteria, designs have evolved using simple conventional electrical and mechanical systems with a minimum of moving parts with inherent reliability. One key challenge is the control of rotor speed and power, and the limiting of supporting structure loading in extreme wind conditions