THE WIND POWER BOOK

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From an engineering standpoint, the available wind power is proportional to the cube of the windspeed. Put another way, if the windspeed doubles, you can get eight times the wind power from it ...unless the tower collapses. If you are off by a factor of two on your windspeed estimate, you'll be off by a factor of eight on the power you think is coming to you. Remember those farmers who guessed their average windspeed to be 30 MPH, although it's been measured at around 15 MPH. A factor of two.

Folks who have lived in an area for a long time can usually tell you what seasons are windy and the direction of the wind during those seasons. But they're not very good at estimating windspeeds. You'll have to measure the windspeed yourself, or use some accurate methods to estimate it.

SYSTEM DESIGN

Once you have established your energy budget and collected adequate wind resource data, you can begin the task of system design. Whether you intend to de sign and build the windmill yourself, assemble one from a kit, or buy one off the shelf, these are necessary preliminaries. Too frequently, designers disregard energy budget and site analysis. Instead, they make arm-waving assumptions on the use of the wind machine and where it might be installed, and use other criteria like cost as the design goal. Some of the best wind machines on today's market have been designed this way, but it's very important to recognize that most manufacturers of mass-produced wind machines have left the tasks of energy budget and site analysis up to the buyer. The information provided in later chapters of The Wind Pow er Book will help you make these analyses before you select a factory-built wind machine suited to your needs or set about designing and building your own system.

A thorough energy budget should tell you something about the time of day, week, or month when you need certain amounts of energy and power. For example, if everybody in your house rises at the same time each morning, your electric lights, hot curlers, coffeepot, television set, toaster, stove, water heater, and room heaters probably become active all at the same time. An enormous surge in electricity use occurs ...the same problem Edison has. Their generators idle along all night doing virtually nothing until everybody wakes up at once. If you had a wind electric system, it would be really nice if the wind at your site were strongest when the loads on the system were greatest. Chances are, though, that your consumption doesn't coincide with the windSo, you can either try to synchronize your loads with the wind or store wind-generated energy until you need it.

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