Wind Turbines

The effectiveness of home wind turbines depends on a number of factors:

• The size of the blades driving the generator
• How height the wind turbine is mounted
• How much wind there is
• The efficiency of the generator itself

Blade Size. To power an average home on a good wind location, a wind turbine would need to have blades about 5 metres from tip to tip; very large, in other words. A blade diameter (or rotor diameter) of 2 metres might produce around 500kwh per year compared with the 4,500kwh per year of electricity used by the average household.

Amount of wind. High or exposed locations are the best places for wind turbines. Most residential areas do not really fall into this category. To harvest more wind, the wind turbine needs to be located as high as possible. There is no point in mounting a wind turbine where houses and trees shield the turbine from the wind.

As the success of a wind turbine is so dependant on blade size, height and wind, it goes without saying that the generator (alternator or dynamo) needs to be as efficient as possible, to squeeze every last drop of electricity from the available wind.