Brian McGowan, the Ultimate Renewable Energy DIY Guy

I keep meaning to take an extra day during one of my excursions to the East Coast and hang out with Brian McGowan, hands-on renewable energy guy extraordinaire, who lives near Philadelphia. Pictured left is a wall of his garage; I could spend a couple of happy hours just studying the way all these storage components work together.

Brian writes:

Ordered a 24 volt alternator to replace the 12 volt alternator on my wind turbine and installed it today and did some maintenance while it was down. Clean and grease basically. First time it’s been touched in more than 6 years since I put it up. As I have said before, it may not be pretty but it is what I call the “sledgehammer” of wind turbines. I just can’t imagine what could possibly kill this thing. If I didn’t need a higher charging voltage for the batteries I wouldn’t have touched it yet.

Two things come to mind: “KISS” and “Don’t fix what ain’t broke.”