Wind

Know your Wind

• Look up average wind speeds in your area, as a place to start.
• Since wind varies considerably from location to location even within a small area, always perform a wind study before investing thousands into a wind turbine.
• To perform a proper wind study, rent or purchase an Anemometer (or two) to access wind conditions exactly where you plan on putting your wind turbine.
• Make sure you use a qualified Anemometer with accuracy better than 1% or +/-0.2m/s
• Two such Anemometers are the Barani Design Anemometer and the NRG Systems Anemometer. A calibrated version is hard to beat.

Darrieus Windmill or Propeller? Which is a better Turbine?

• For large scale clean airflow applications, such as in open space and on tall towers, propellers are hard to beat.
• Come down closer to the ground and the picture becomes much fuzzier. Propellers loose their efficiency quickly and produce noticeable noise in turbulent and shear flow environments found in urban and suburban neighborhoods. Darrieus mill wind turbines can operate more effectively in turbulent and shear flows and offer a quieter and less visually obtrusive solution for many home applications.
• There is a great wind turbine comparison calculator at www.wind101.org which lets you compare different wind turbine performance at your local wind conditions

Propeller Applications

• Tall towers in flat lands away from wind obstructions such as buildings or hills
• Large Scale applications
• Away from noise polution sensitive areas
• Where visual polution is acceptable
• Away from animal habitats due to noise out of human hearing range
• Industrial applications

Darrieus Wind Mill Applications

• Near building and flow obstructions
• Small scale applications
• Near areas sensitive to noise polution
• In visual polution sensitive areas due to their ability to be made more compact
• Residential and industrial applications

Examples of Products