| By :
Roger Brown
If you are in the market to buy wind turbine products, you have my sympathy! There is an enormous amount of information out there and no clear way to make sense out of it. Why is it so confusing? It is hard to know what you need to buyThere are SO many choices of wind turbine productsWind turbines are very expensive As far as knowing what you need to purchase, you have to first understand your local wind and then the wind on your property. To begin, it is good to start out with the general and move to the specific. Look at the many resources available on the internet, both from the government and from sites like Weather Underground. They will let you know if your area in general sustains the strength of wind most of the year to support a windmill purchase. Then, it is wise to validate that with a purchase of an anemometer. This is a small device that will let you measure the wind in specific places around your property. You can leave it in place for a week or so and let it collect the wind speeds and direction, as well as, how turbulent the wind is. All you really need to make a go of a wind turbine is about 9 mph of "average" wind. While more and more turbines are being designed to operate in much lower wind environments, those units that will start making electricity at ½ mile and hour can be VERY expensive. This will direct you to where on your property will be best to mount your turbine and what kind of turbine will work best in that location. The choices of wind turbines are also so varied. Horizontal-axis and vertical-axis devices are very different. Horizontals are much more efficient than verticals and therefore produce more electricity from the same amount of available wind. Verticals however work a lot better in a turbulent environment like a roof if that turns out to be the best place for your windmill. In the final analysis, it makes a lot of sense to understand your local environment before you buy wind turbine technology for your home. Once you have made a thorough accounting of what wind you have to work with, you will be in a lot better position to sort out the options available. If you have a lot of wind available you can get away with a lot cheaper horizontal unit. If aesthetics are important and you have to mount on your roof, a vertical-axis turbine will be your best choice.
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