alt.energy.renewable

BobG wrote:

> Whats the frequency of the wild ac in a strong wind? If you have a 500
> watt alternator, can you run the wild ac thru a 500 watt 3 phase 60Hz
> step up transformer at the top of the mountain, and have the same
> xformer at the bottom of the mountain to step it back down and rectify
> it? Stepping the volts up x 10 and the amps down x 10 should allow
> much smaller wire. Whats the rule of thumb? 2 AWG is half the area? So
> 10 or 12 gauge wire would be ok? So does this save enough on wire to
> buy the two 500 watt 3 phase transformers?

I suspect the answer might favour the transformers. However, 3 phase
transformers are a bit specialist. The average electronics hobby store won't
stock them !

If driving a typical rectifier and capacitor input electronic load, beware that
you need to de-rate the transformers for the non-sinusoidal waveform.

Graham