What is the best economical heater?

If you are really looking to a almost stand alone system for remote wilderness systems, I would reccommend using a parabolic-mirrored-dish with a focused beam to a collector to heat your water supply. Solar is the ultimate for remote heating. And you could also use thermal dynamic heating if there is a close source.

Wind generators to power up a low voltage high out-put system would be a good direction to use, only if there was a continuose wind source to feed the vanes. This would also depend on the amount of water you are required to heat from this system. A general electric water heater is as good as the internal elements used by the manufacture. Your power collectors from the wind generator, to the transfer station, to your distribution center, to your load. You can have 3-phase power feed, or 1-phase power feed to energize the water heater. Your choice. Good luck, Maximo.

The sun...

surely you jest........

Del the cat; what is the URL to the website showing how to build the solar heat collectors illustrated in the picture.

Here Note the illustrations mentioned don't exist....

It is a very good guide, but obviously one adapts to use any freely available material.

Del

The wind power can provide the power to pump the water but direct heat from the sun is the most cost effective way to warm it up.

Appropriate if he has it available. Some locals have few sunny days.

Solar water heating systems are widely used and economical. You can even make them yourself. Do a search. I am not talking photovoltaic solar. They are also widely used to heat swimming pools.

Ron Wagner

beast and economical are almost mutually exclusive in this context. Is the primary purpose of th ewind mil to heat water or is the heater usd as a load dump when the electrical generation exceeds use capacity?

If your primary use is a load dump, I suggest looking at low resistance high wattage risistors possibly with a range switch included. 120V or 230V AC water heaters are not effective as load dumps when winds are light and output voltage is well below the nominal voltage range. You want a resistor bank that can function at any voltage and current output.

If the main desired outcome is hot water, not electricity, wind power is not the most economical method. As others have suggested solar is the way to go.

If it is a hot reliable shower you are looking for, then use an electric hot water heater connected to the mains, use the wind power to power the mains and the electric meter will do the cost accounting at par. (Now, just try and get any system past your local supply authority---good luck ---NIMBY).

Hi Smart.

I assume that you want to feed the power to electric boilers distributed over a property.

In fact every resistor can be coupled to the power and if correctly sized, heat up the water.

The main idea to use the wind power to as energy source is good but is it the best one for your location? something you have to decide for you.

Best is to evaluate the wind generator you have available: what will be the relation between wind speed and output voltage. But be correct: when you just let your wind generator speed up unloaded the speed of the turbine will be much higher than in the real loaded solution.

The result will be a higher voltage than in reality. Then you can design resistor circuits that allow more power to be dragged when the wind speed goes up, keeping the rotor speed at a decent level. (adding more resistors in paralel when the wind speed goes up)

Tracing companies can sell you heater cable that is tailored/designed for the application.

The electrical heating element (a.k.a "immersion heater") in a domestic hot water cylinder in the UK is often kept only as a hot standby <groan> in case of the lack of availability of heat from the regular heat source. An element rated at 3kW at 240VAC will have a resistance of about 20Ω, and these figures can be used to match the element to the wind generator.

It is the 'most economical' because it is already there, usually, and therefore does not need to be purchased, only requiring a cable from the wind generator and some alterations to its connections.

Add-in elements of other resistances to suit other voltages are available. A certain amount of mechanical fitting will need to be carried out as well as the purchasing outlay for these, so these can be considered as a second priority in case there is a lack of compatibility with the above suggestion.