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How to install a small wind turbine
A 1–5 kW machine is a two-person, two-day job if the foundation is ready and the tower tilts up. Here is the sequence, the parts that go wrong, and what to check before you energise.
Before anything: the site survey
Mark the tower position, the cable trench route and the battery/inverter location. Check for underground services, and confirm the prevailing wind sector is clear. Measure the distance from the tower to the nearest dwelling — you will need it for the permit and the noise statement.
Confirm access for the delivery vehicle and, above 5 kW, for a crane or telehandler. A 10 kW tower section is 6–9 m long and weighs 300–500 kg; if a truck cannot reach the site, the project cost changes materially.
Foundations
Three options: a concrete pad for a tilt-up tower (typically 1.2 × 1.2 × 0.8 m with a rebar cage), a mass concrete block for a lattice tower (2–5 m³ depending on height and wind load), and ground screws or rock anchors where concrete is impossible.
Use the manufacturer's drawing and do not scale it down. Overturning moment scales with the square of rotor diameter and the square of wind speed; a foundation that is 20 % too small is the most common cause of tower failure we see.
Tower assembly and raising
Tilt-up towers are assembled on the ground with the turbine mounted, then raised with a winch or a vehicle. This is why they are popular for 300 W–3 kW: no climbing, no crane, and blade service takes ten minutes.
Lattice towers above 12 m are assembled section by section with a small crane, or gin pole and winch. Budget a day, two people and a competent rigger. Never raise a tower with people under it, and never in more than 8 m/s of wind.
Wiring and cable sizing
Voltage drop is the constraint, not current capacity. For a 48 V system 100 m from the tower, use at least 16 mm² copper; at 96 V, 10 mm²; at 240 V DC, 4 mm². Undersized cable is the single most common installation defect we find — it silently costs 10–20 % of your output.
Run the cable in conduit, leave a drip loop at the tower base, earth the tower separately from the DC negative, and install a DC-rated isolator and surge arrestor at both ends.
Commissioning checklist
Spin the rotor by hand and confirm three-phase voltage on all pairs; check the controller reads rotor speed; confirm the brake engages and releases; verify the dump load heats under load; check the battery charge profile matches the chemistry; log the first 24 hours and compare with the power curve.
Then register the warranty and the monitoring. Most controllers can send data to a cloud dashboard — set it up on day one, because the first month of data tells you whether the site performs as modelled.
Permits and the grid application
Off-grid: usually a building/structural permit for the tower only. Grid-tied: a utility interconnection application, an approved inverter with anti-islanding, and a licensed electrician's sign-off. Start the utility process before the foundation is poured — approval can take eight weeks.
