Electronic – use two separate charge controllers (wind and solar) to charge the battery bank

batteries

I currently have a 400 watt solar panel array in series with a Epever 24 volt charge controller connected to two twelve volt battery bank in series (24v) with a 24 volt split inverter.

I'm planning to incorporate a 24 volt 400 watt wind turbine to this same battery bank and it comes with its own charge controller.

Can I connect both charge controllers to the same battery bank?

Best Answer

I don't see why not, as long as the batteries can handle the worst case charging conditions (both charge controllers delivering maximum current simultaneously). MPPT charge controllers (and lead acid battery chargers in general) basically act as current sources for the bulk of the charging process, so paralleling them shouldn't have ill effects. Once the battery is nearly full, one might switch to constant voltage and later float charging before the other, but this shouldn't cause any issues.

Epever seems to agree with this. Page 8 of user manual:

2 Installation Instructions

2.1 General Installation Notes

...

  • Multiple same models of controllers can be installed in parallel on the same battery bank to achieve higher charging current. Each controller must have its own solar module(s).

Another manufacturer even has a whole article about this: https://www.morningstarcorp.com/parallel-charging-using-multiple-controllers-separate-pv-arrays/

While the wind turbine charge controller is clearly not of the same model, I see no reason why they wouldn't play nice together. Epever probably added that distinction because they can't guarantee that their product works when in parallel with every device on the marked.