bine on your property. Wind-assessment services are typically provided to
residences, farms, businesses and school districts. These are all common
locations for a small wind turbine for “behind the fence generation,” one
where all the electricity is consumed on-site to offset electricity that would
otherwise be purchased from the local utility.
A wind-site assessor will be versed in such esoteric aspects of wind
maps as —
● extrapolating the average wind speed down to your tower height;
● wind shear, or friction between the moving air
masses and the fixed earth, which affects the wind
speed as you extrapolate up or down in elevation
on the wind map;
● displacement height, which affects the “ground
level” at which the wind begins in areas with considerable vegetative cover;
● turbulence intensity, a measure of the gustiness
of the site due to trees and buildings;
● Rayleigh distribution, which will affect the wind
power density of the wind resource; and
● the wind rose, a metric which reveals the prevailing wind directions for the location and the wind
power densities in all directions.
All of these parameters will affect the annual
energy output, or kilowatt-hours per year, for a wind
system. And none of this is as simple as referring to
the manufacturer’s product brochure to ballpark the
amount of electricity a wind turbine will generate
at your site.
The cost of a site assessment depends on the cost
share offered by your state’s public benefits program
or your utility’s renewable energy program, the complexity of your site and situation, the level of risk you
are willing to assume (usually more risk for a smaller
turbine) and the detail you wish in the report. A
wind-site assessment can cost anywhere from a few
hundred to a few thousand dollars.
If you balk at spending a few hundred dollars
to get an educated estimate of the wind resource at
your home, put the service in perspective: You are
pondering spending $20,000 to $90,000 on a residential wind turbine (before any incentives). People
interested in the larger turbines may spend several
hundreds of thousands of dollars for a system to
supply all the electricity for a farm, school or business. Realistically, a wind-site assessment is a very
small percentage of the total system cost and could
make the difference between wishful thinking and a
substantial reduction of your utility bills.
If you are interested in such a service, contact
your state public benefits program for assistance. In
addition, some manufacturers are now training their
dealers and installers in the art of wind resource
assessment. More are sure to follow as criteria for
funding renewable energy projects inevitably tight-
en. In June, the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners
(NABCEP) embarked on developing a job-task analysis for professional
small-wind-site assessors. This will lead to NABCEP testing and certification
of wind-site assessors, hopefully by the end of this year.
Make the Connection
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