I've been running a 400W wind turbine (a Pikasola from Amazon, about £120) alongside my 200W of solar panels for the past few months up in the Scottish Borders, and I have to say the combination has been a genuine game changer for winter. When the sun disappears for days on end and the panels are barely pulling 20-30W, the turbine is often topping up the batteries at a decent rate. Not massive numbers, but enough to keep my 100Ah lithium from dropping below 50%.
The setup feeds into a shared charge controller — I'm using a basic PWM unit for the wind side and a 40A MPPT for the solar. Total spend on the wind side including the tower pole and some cable was maybe £180 all in. I know some folk say you need a proper wind resource assessment before committing, but honestly up here you just need to step outside on a November morning and you'll know there's enough wind about.
What I'm curious about is whether anyone else has done something similar on a tight budget, and whether you've found a turbine that's noticeably better quality than the cheap Chinese ones without spending north of £400. Also, has anyone wired wind and solar into the same battery bank without using a dedicated wind/solar hybrid controller? Wondering if I'm asking for trouble long-term.