How to set up a wind farm?

I just ripped Headhunters setup. Spawned in a snow biome and figured the constant need to clean solars would make it less enjoyable, so I built wind for the first time and I gotta say....I have a lot more excess energy than before.

Quote from Blue_Sogekihei

I just ripped Headhunters setup. Spawned in a snow biome and figured the constant need to clean solars would make it less enjoyable, so I built wind for the first time and I gotta say....I have a lot more excess energy than before.

Yeah, wind + a pair of HV transformers (with optional MV and LV transformers) works great for providing power.
Does need periodic fixing if you used tin cables but once I got the diamond for it I started replacing failed ones with glass fiber. (technically one could use copper and a bunch of bat-boxes as well)
a bit expensive to set up the wind on the top of the world but totally worth it. Not to mention cheaper than solar to boot, plus the whole power at night thing

Well... at least solar is consistent in its routine. Wind tends to be... unpredictable. There were times where my entire array ground to a halt because there was no wind, and stayed that way for minutes. So make sure you have a good buffer to keep your appliances functioning during dry periods. The upshot is other times you’ll have more power than you know what to do with. I recommend a good buffer and an alternate circuit with a mass-fab to throw the extra energy in if you get more than you can deal with.

Well for solars you also need a buffer for the night

Well my wind gens keep my MFE capped basically all the time so having stored energy for dry periods does not really bother me. I SERIOUSLY doubt cables work in the way I have it set up (kinda like RP2 tubes, if this is filled go the other way) but it feeds excess into my Mass Fab. And just in the rare case of my energy actually plummeting, I've started on a Nuclear Reactor (ripped from Rick) that feeds into a MFSU.

That's to determine the output per DAY, not per tick. As stated elsewhere, wind power generation is not consistent.

No, actually; Wind Intensity is higher at higher elevations, which in turn makes more produced power. Up to 8 eU/t in a storm.

Great thread. I would never have given serious thought to windpower if not for reading it.
So I tried out Headhunters setup and it works great.

Seems like all the batboxes are unneccesary though. Could wire 5 windgens into a single batbox using tin cable 39 or less and then feed the batboxes into the transformers as normal.
Is there a reason to avoid tin cable? I'm still pretty new at IC.
I've gotten myself zapped but it doesn't seem to cause fires or anything else bad (or have I just been lucky?)

Because of the inconsistency of wind generation, the batboxes help "condition" the power output. They only pass power down the line when they have enough for a full packet. It's a lot more efficient and easier on the eNet as well.

Quote from HeadHunter67

Because of the inconsistency of wind generation, the batboxes help "condition" the power output. They only pass power down the line when they have enough for a full packet. It's a lot more efficient and easier on the eNet as well.

Thanks

A transformer in step-up mode will do the same thing (sending out only big packets) if paired with a proper step-down on the other end.

Indeed - that occurred to me after my last response. The problem is, you'd have to replace all the wiring with gold to handle the bigger packets, or each mill would require back-to-back LVTs (one redstoned). Might as well use a batbox, the expense is comparable and the benefit is increased storage to moderate fluctuations in output.

Quote from HeadHunter67

Indeed - that occurred to me after my last response. The problem is, you'd have to replace all the wiring with gold to handle the bigger packets, or each mill would require back-to-back LVTs (one redstoned). Might as well use a batbox, the expense is comparable and the benefit is increased storage to moderate fluctuations in output.

It might be possible to do it with one LVT, not redstoned - depending on what LVTs do with undersized packets on their high-voltage side.

Interesting... at first I was about to dismiss the idea, but it may be possible.
Still, I like the fact that the batboxes allow for continuous output at a steady rate, rather than the possibility of wild fluctuations. And a batbox doesn't require too much more in the way of resources, honestly.

Well wouldn't the problem with doing that be that you can't run gold more than 2 meters without losing power?
Or are you guys talking about feeding the transformer some distance away from the generator with tin cable?

The main power source for Spawn City on the SMP server which I frequent is a single high-altitude combined wind and solar plant. It occupies the space right at the top of the world directly above the tree farm. It's a 9x9 grid of windgens sitting on redstoned LV transformers, each transformer also having tin cables poking out the side to connect a maximum of 10 solar panels/transformer (so, 81 wind turbines and 810 solar panels max - we currently have about 160 solar panels installed). Wind generators connect to their transformers using 2 blocks of insulated copper cable and have 4 blocks of spacing between them.

Power gets down to surface (y = 64) and street level (y = 8 or 9) by means of 4x insulated iron cable enclosed alongside the access ladder - this also forms the backbone of Spawn City's power grid. The idea is that people hook their generators into the grid directly (using a transformer) and power their machines off the grid using another transformer so that every generator feeds the grid, but in practice nobody's built any generators of their own since this wind farm is good enough to do all the processing and power a scrap-fed mass fabricator at the same time.