Curious about wind energy for a four plex apartment. Just getting started, don't know much. All info needed.?
Looking for good learning sites. People who use alternate sources of energy. I have a wonderful location with sustainable wind speeds of 12 to 15 miles per hour. What is the average KwH a household uses in a month? Where to buy? All the good stuff. Save mother earth and money.
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April 29th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Home power magazine is a good one their website is pretty good and you can view some of the recent articles on line at http://www.homepower.com/home/
This is a good one for wind turbines http://www.homepower.com/article/?file=HP122_pg28_Woofenden
You will need to take that information and check it against a power curve for different wind turbines. This is one for a few turbines in the 10 to 20kw range. http://www.windturbine.net/performance.htm This will give you an annual output for this brand of wind turbine. If you look at the chart the left column is the 20 and the far right is the 10 and notice how different the outputs are from just 12 to 15 mph wind speed, that is why an accurate wind speed is important. I have the 20kw listed on that chart the link in this paragraph takes you to.
So you may also want to look at a wind map to see more precisely what your wind speed is. http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_maps.asp
I think the average per month for a family in an apartment is 600 to 900kw hours per month depending on where you live and how many gas appliances you have. A gas water heater, stove and dryer would move you to the low end.
Here is a site to help you get money to pay for it, Some states are better than others for giving out state aid. http://www.dsireusa.org/
As far as where to buy, find a wind turbine you like in the home power article, got to the manufacturers web site and look for the list of dealers, then talk to them and find out who they ave installed for and probably spend a few weekends talking to people they have installed for over a number of years. Most installs are fine in the short term but how is the thing holding up after 5 years and how is their service after you have spent a lot of money.