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⇒ Local Wind Data
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Collect & Analyze Local Wind Data
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InSpeed Data Logger at KidWind HQ |
Wind Engineers use anemometers, towers and sophisticated data logging systems to collect at least a year of data before they install wind farm at a site.
While this can be expensive ($10,000) it is much cheaper than installing a bunch of $1,000,000 turbines on hunch or simulation data. For residential wind turbines at houses and farms people do not usually collect this much data as the costs are prohibitive (but not if they have a InSpeed Data Logger!). They try to get the average wind speed from a variety of sources and go from there.
Using an inexpensive InSpeed Data Logger and a computer you can do time series, averages, distributions and wind shear analysis at your own school or home.
This can be a fun project for advanced Middle School and High Schools students and is a great first step when thinking about advocating for a wind turbine your area.
Helpful Links/Materials for this Lesson
Wind Data Analysis
A great read if you really want to understand energy output from wind data.
Great pictures and concepts. Head here for more info!
UMass Renewable Energy Research Lab Fact Sheets
There are some great fact sheets here on analyzing and collecting wind data.
We highly recommend checking these out! Very easy to understand!
Wind Maps
AWS TrueWind Maps
Truewind is a company that creates wind maps. Some of the maps they
create are clickable so you can get wind data right over your school
or house which is neat!
Wind Powering America Maps
Windpowering America is a program by the Department of Energy to
promote wind they have a very informative site that includes some wind maps.
Turbine Manufacturer Data
These links will take you to some specification sheets from a variety of small turbine manufactures. You can examine their output curves and read more about the characteristics of small wind turbines. Some major manufacturers of small and large wind turbines include:
