How to Monitor Wind Speed?

Wind Speed – Mystery Or Not?

When considering wind power, most people ask what the average annual wind speed is and how to get that number. The usual response is that you must monitor the wind speed at your site for at least 12 months, preferably longer, to determine whether a wind generator will work for you.

Sounds too long? Well, yes and no…

For a home system, this isn’t necessary. The costs involved in collecting wind data may not be justified when compared to the total cost of a small wind machine.

There is no economic formula to determine this, but it doesn’t make much sense to spend $1,200 on instrumentation if your wind machine costs only $3,000. You can get close to the actual number by making an educated guess using the empirical methods.

Options For Monitoring The Wind Speed

If you decide to monitor wind speeds, you have several options.


1 The first is to buy a weather anemometer and record observations on a regular basis. This is the least expensive way to collect wind data, but it has disadvantages. For the data to be valid, you must be methodical in collecting it.

Recording one instantaneous wind speed per day won’t do.

If you can’t record multiple wind speeds throughout a day, the quality of your data is questionable.

 

 

 

 

2 A second option is to automate data collection by installing a data collection board in a personal computer. This method works, but the computer must stay on all the time, and there are additional costs. Since these are not plug-and-play components, some computer hardware and software knowledge is necessary.









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