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Wind Power Projects Ian is a very long time wind expert -- he does wind workshops from his wind powered home in the San Juan's, and has been the wind expert/editor/author for Home Power for many years. The book covers the whole process of investigating whether wind is workable for you, how to find the right wind turbine and tower, and all the rest. The best getting started reference you will find. The state guides include wind maps for the state in question. How to get articles from Home Power ... Home Power Magazine issue 110, Dec/Jan 2006. A introduction to the various types wind powered electric generating systems and the components that make them up. Home Power magazine article, issue 131, June/July 2009. A very good article from two recognized wind power experts that provides some good and realistic advice for people thinking about a wind turbine . Covers all the basics, and provides a rundown on wind turbine models available in the US/Canada. If you are serious about wanting to install a wind turbine that will generate the amount of energy you expect, and will not be a nightmare to maintain, this article is a must. The other critical item that is not covered in detail is making sure your site has sufficient wind to make a wind turbine work -- this is covered in articles below. Paul Gipe's web site: www.wind-works.org An excellent, all around, in depth book on wind power. Paul Gipe's website has a lot of good articles and reference material. Another US set of wind maps: www.eere.energy.gov and, another: www.eere.energy.gov... (has some more detailed maps for NW) (Thanks to Derek for relocating the lost link to this useful tool) This spread sheet from NREL allows you estimate the economic return from a wind turbine on your site. You enter information on your wind turbine, your site, and financing -- it provides a graph of cash flows over time. You will need a good estimate of the average wind on your site, and the cost to install to get useful numbers from this spreadsheet. Mick Sagrillo The most important factor in determining if you can successfully use wind power is how much wind you have. This is not an easy thing to determine -- this article tells you how. The "Windpower Workshop" book gets very good reviews from people who want to build their own (as do his actual workshops). How to get articles from Home Power ... Home Power Magazine article, issue 116 A good basics article explaining the internals of a wind turbine. Good to understand whether you want to build one or buy one. http://www.awea.org/ A good reference website for wind power. Some valuable materials for people interested in small wind systems. Lots of good material. Some good advice on choosing a home size wind generator from the guru. Lots of comparison specifications for numerous commercial wind generator offerings. Mick Sagrillo Very good article on the economic benefits of using a tall tower, and how to decide how tall. Good introduction to determining if a wind system will work for you, and the important elements of a wind system. A site intended for students wanting to learn about wind power, but lots of good materials anyone interested in wind power -- including lots of hands on building projects. Paul Gipe and Jame Murphy A guide for land owners considering installing one or more large wind turbines on their land. Backwoods Solar (and select "Windmills"): www.BackwoodsSolar.com APRS World, LLC: http://www.aprsworld.com/products/ Jarvis wind data logger will record wind over an extended period for import to a PC spread sheet. You can then calculate what a particular windmill model will deliver. About $180. Some of the solutions require a PC to be on at all times to log data, so you would want to have a very low power use PC. Another option is to install of the small wind turbines (like a Air X) and use it to see how much power a larger wind turbine would generate. The "Windpower Workshop" book gets very good reviews from people who want to build their own (as do his actual workshops). http://www.otherpower.com/17page1.html Quite a source of nitty-gritty detailed information on building wind generators. Many projects described. And, Dan F blogs here... A very good new book from the two Dans that run the OtherPower.com website (just above). The book gives very detailed instructions on how to build a 10 ft wind turbine. The design of the turbine is one that the Dans have perfected over the years. Complete instructions are included for building the alternator, furling tail assembly, and carving the blades. All of these part designs benefit for years of refinement and many workshops. Most of the parts for the turbine can be locally purchased, while some of the more difficult to find parts can be purchased from OtherPower. The book also covers scaling their design to other sizes, tower construction, and wind generator theory. More than of 300 pages of kind of information you only get through long experience and many builds. I would not try building a wind generator without reading this book and the Piggott books first. www.fieldlines.com/story/2009/4/4/214533/4539 Quite a bit of detail in the photos. This is an Otherpower Diaries entry. Oct 09: this site gets better and better -- a great collection of material on home built wind machines. A very good personal website on designing and installing a PV and wind system that is grid tied with battery backup. Lots of detail and helpful information on design, choosing components, installing, wiring, towers, suppliers, permitting, ... Mike shows the details on how he built his 4 ft wind turbine using a surplus DC motor for the generator. Full details a re provided on the construction, as well as a number of useful design information links. Total cost was $140. Good personal site on DIY wind generator design and build . Several projects described, program for wind generator sizing. An interesting site with new "stuff" added frequently. Kits for small DIY windturbines. The Lenz2 turbine in picture at right is an ongoing project that was featured in Popular Science. ---> Very detailed. Here is a series of videos for a wind gen built from the WindBlue alternator rotor: Part 1 ... Part 2 ... Part 3 ... Good article on building wind generator system from scratch from someone who has been doing it since 1937. Inexpensive plans for a 9ft diameter wind generator. Kits for some of the part also offered. Other material on this site of interest to DIYers, including making wood blades, stators, ... Very nice article on rebuilding an Enertech 1800 wind generator. Lots of detail on what's involved in a project like this. (Thanks to Tom for re-finding this link) What appears to be a very professionally designed, large, home built wind turbine. And, details on the 14 ft diameter wind turbine that the author build Good article on restoring used Jacobs wind generators. Michael Lew Good article on an all DIY very small scale wind generator system. Good article on restoring used Jacobs wind generators. The turbine is said to produce about 3 KW at 12 mph wind speed. And, that it can be built for about $4000. Being a woodworker, I really liked this article. It looks like a good way for one with woodworking skills to experiment with wind power generation. Detailed instructions on turning the motor from a Fisher Pakel washing machine into a wind turbine alternator from the Your Green Dream website. Because of its unique construction, this motor makes a good alternator. Description of grid intertied medium size wind generation system. Details economics, planning and installation. Fascinating pictures of an 1885 wind mill and all the internal mill machinery. 20 meter diameter, 4 blade traditional Dutch design. Still in operation. Said to be quiet and efficient. Appears to be well made. About $5600. (Thanks to Jeff for suggesting this) Supplier of 12ft and 24 ft diameter wind turbines. A well known supplier of small wind turbines. www.pineridgeproducts.com Makers of an 18 ft rotor diameter wind turbine. A revival of the famous Jacobs wind turbines that were so popular and durable in the 20's. Supplier of wind turbines with rotors ranging from 5 ft to 12ft diameter. It is 30 ft high by 2 ft wide with guy wires. It is anchored in a concrete foundation. Said to produce 1900 KWH per year with an average 12 mph wind. Said to be very quiet. Price $4000. Manufacturers of a line of wind turbines ranging from 8 to 30 ft rotor diameter. A new vertical axis design that is targeted for urban locations. A well know supplier of small wind turbines ranging up to 15 ft rotor diameter. This is kind of the opposite of Do-It-Yourself, but I thought it was interesting. The Skystream is a 12 ft diameter turbine that is designed for grid connected residential use. It comes as a package that includes all the electronics and grid tie inverter. Kind of a plug-and-play wind turbine. It claims to be designed to fit into residential areas -- low noise, street lamp type tower, ... About $15,000 plus installation. It is said to produce 400 KWH per month in winds averaging 12.3 mph. Some problems have been reported with low power output, so make sure this has been sorted out, and that you understand roughly how much power will be produced in your particular installation.
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