The Windmaster 500 is a grid tie inverter for use with small 48V wind turbine generators. Used for connecting a wind turbine to the household mains electricity supply, this inverter will convert wind turbine power (with an input voltage from 40 to 125 VDC) into up to 550 Watts of 240 VAC electricity synchronised with the mains supply.
Windmaster 500 Wind Turbine Grid Tie Inverter
The Windmaster 500 is an OEM product purchased in bulk by FuturEnergy Ltd for exclusive sale within the United Kingdom. This wind turbine inverter is designed to be used with FuturEnergy’s 1000 Watt rated 48 Volt FE1048 wind turbine (pictured below).
When used with the FE1048 wind turbine or similar on a typical low-wind site, 90% of the time all available power generated by the wind turbine will be converted into 240 VAC (at around 90% efficiency).
The FE1048 generates less than 550 Watts in winds below around 19mph – and according to the weibull distribution used to model wind speeds, only 10% of the time does the wind blow at 19mph or faster at an average UK site.
However, if the wind turbine is located on a very windy site, two or more Windmaster 500‘s can be connected in parallel to ensure the wind turbine’s 1,000+ Watt peak power output is not wasted during the (more frequent) times that the wind is blowing strongly.
Windmaster 500 Power Output Curve
The maximum safe input voltage is 150 VDC and the maximum input current is 8 Amps.
More Information about the Windmaster 500
The Windmaster 500 is manufactured by Dutch company Mastervolt who also manfacture the Soladin range of grid-connected solar inverters.
The 12 page PDF Windmaster 500 User Manual can be downloaded here.
To find out more about the specifications of the Windmaster 500 click here to download the following five page Microsoft Word document: Windmaster 500 Specification Sheet.
The Windmaster 500 has G83 Approval in the UK meaning it can legally by connected to the mains supply subject to the home owner obtaining authorisation from the utility company.
Buy a Windmaster 500
The Windmaster 500 grid tie wind turbine inverter is sold on the FuturEnergy website for £695 plus £12.50 for P&P.