One of the most important things that you can get for your wind generators is the charge controller. As the name implies this device is used to control the charging of your batteries. Continuous overcharging of your cells can lead to your electrolyte boiling, leaving your batteries dry and ultimately ruining the expensive battery bank.

If you are familiar with how other charge controllers work, like those for solar panels for example. You would know that they simply monitor the battery voltage and once the batteries are fully charged, the controller shorts the panels. However, this type of device does not work for wind generators, because they could burn out your controller or even destroy your generator.

You maybe thinking why not just unplug the batteries once they are fully charged? Well, that will not work either because most wind generators will overload when they have no load and then go on to possibly damage the generator. This happened to a friend of mine recently, and he was not amused by this at all.

So this leaves installing a wind generator charge controller as your only plausible option. What this does is allow the batteries to fully charge, and then automatically switch to an alternate load that can continue to use the power being generated by the wind elsewhere.

Some of the things you can use the extra energy include heating your water, powering your household refrigerator or even just using it for lighting the home. Wind generator charge controllers are available in different voltages such as 12V, 24V, and 36V to suit any model wind generator.