Step 9 - Choose Wind Turbine
From SolarPneumaticHybrid
I haven't researched these yet, but I will soon. If you know something about home wind turbines for generating electricity, feel free to write this article.
This one looks good: Air-X Land Residential Wind Turbines for $699.00. Where I live the average wind speed over the past 55 years has been 8.28 mph with some months averaging over 10 mph. So this wind turbine puts out 38 kWh/mo @12 mph. So (38/12)*8.28 = 26.22, so where I live I can expect around 26.22 kWh/mo. So if I buy 10 and put them up in my yard, that would put out roughly 260.22 kWh/mo. So if I buy a 1kW Solar Power System and 10 of these wind mills it would cost me $6990.00 for the wind power and $5999.00 for the solar power. That would be 12,989.00 for 360.22 kWh/mo which would be 50% of my average monthly needs if I don't reduce my energy consumption.
My Wind
| Years of Data | Avg Jan | Avg Feb | Avg Mar | Avg Apr | Avg May | Avg Jun | Avg Jul | Avg Aug | Avg Sep | Avg Oct | Avg Nov | Avg Dec | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 55 | 9.5 | 9.5 | 10.1 | 9.7 | 8.0 | 7.4 | 6.8 | 6.4 | 6.8 | 7.2 | 8.9 | 9.1 | 8.3 |
Observation
Where I live, the months with the most wind are also the months with the least sun thus the wind and the solar compliment each other perfectly. So in the 6 months of fall and winter where solar drops off 10 wind turbines should produce 300 kWh/mo while when solar is at it peak in spring and summer the wind should produce 224 kWh/mo. So the wind production looks light it's monthly output will vary by 76 kWh/mo. Now I just need to figure out how much my solar output will vary. Wouldn't it be cool if solar also varies by 76 kWh/mo but in opposite months thus my output between the same systems stays flat?
Until I can install wind power...
Since I have not installed wind power at home yet I'm not a good source of wind power information yet. Once I do, I think I will be. Until then, check out awea.org
