| By :
Roger Brown
All over the world, wind energy is coming into its own. The residential wind turbine is leading the pack closely followed by solar energy and lastly, geothermal sources of energy. But, what is the difference between a residential wind turbine and a wind farm that we hear so much about? The wind farm is a turn of phrase used to describe a massive layout grid of wind turbines that a utility will set up to generate electricity. Electric utilities all over the country are employing wind farms in order to supply peaking power as well as baseload power. On the other hand, the residential wind turbine is a small device that you can place on your roof or elsewhere on your property that will allow you to make electricity in the same way that the utility does. The cost of the variety the use of home is much less of course, but the challenge that you have is just the same. It is very easy to take a handyman's approach to this project without taking the requisite engineering steps to make sure you're putting the device in the right locations and optimize energy production. When wind energy engineers set up a wind farm for a utility, they take extraordinary pains to make sure they are placing the absolute perfect turbine in just the right spot. They have in their arsenal the choices of horizontal axis devices as well as vertical axis devices and they can usually put them on towers up to 200 feet in the air. (200 feet is a Federal Aviation Administration regulation.) For the home owner the residential wind turbine presents the exact same challenges as does the wind farm for the wind energy engineer. As a homeowner you must make the effort to thoroughly understand what your options are. Your task is really no different than that of the energy engineer in that regard. The two challenges that must be addressed are where you can install the device and how high up the device must be installed in order to optimize the latent power in the wind that surrounds your house. In summary, both wind farms and the residential wind turbine performance similar way and put out electricity for later consumption in a similar way. The differences are that you can get away without being engineering minded if you are a homeowner whereas the utility doesn't have that luxury. To be successful at wind energy at home, you need to take the exact same approach that the utility does and optimize.
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