It is important to understand the many factors that must go into determining which wind turbine is best suited for you and your needs. It is imperative to understand the pro’s and con’s of vertical axle and horizontal axle wind turbines. It is also important to know why the number of blades on a windmill matter a lot in the efficiency of a windmill. Determining the size of the windmill in terms of power factor is another important consideration apart from many other factors people must take into consideration before deciding on a particular wind turbine.

We will proceed one step at a time explaining things as they should be considered as one proceeds to determine which wind turbine is needed for a given situation.

It is important to get an understanding of how much power you need and how much a wind turbine will generate given your location and weather conditions. You will need to use some tools to determine the potential of a wind turbine and how to get alternative sources and power back-up devices.

Calculate Your Power Requirement

At the outset it is best to get an idea of how much power you require. There are different capacity generators in the market and choosing the right one will depend on your own knowledge of your power requirements. A wind turbine generating more power than you actually need, will lead to unnecessary extra expenditure, something the salesman or engineer will just love you to make. So, get a general idea of how much you really need.

Start by counting your light bulbs and fans. Each light bulb will be about 100 watts and each fan will be about 75 watts. Add them up to get the total power you will need if you switch them all on at once. Let us say you have 10 light bulbs and five fans this adds us to a total consumption or load of 1375 watts per hour. This can also be mentioned as 1.375-kilo watts. 1-kilo watt equals 1000 watts.

Then list the other appliances, washing machines, heaters, air conditioners, refrigerators, microwave ovens and any other large electric equipment you may have. The power factor is mentioned at the rear of these appliances. Add them all up to get your power requirement. Remember that you need that much power if you run all the appliances simultaneously, which is never the case. So, you can safely state that your power requirement is 60 percent of the total load you add up.

Typically one household with two air conditioners installed needs about 5 thousand watts of power, which is a 5-kilo watt load.

Come in different capacities as mentioned earlier. These are micro, small, medium, and large turbines. Micro turbines begin with load factors as small as 50 watts and go on from there. These turbines are mainly used for caravans and boats. These turbines generate Direct current and are constructed of aero elastic material.

Small windmill turbines are larger, not portable and generate power above 100 watts. Medium windmill turbines typically generate above 500 watts of power and are installed on towers 30 feet or higher. Large windmill turbines generate above a thousand watts of power and are most common windmill generators for residential use.

Generators have changed in shape and size over the centuries. The blades are the most prominent parts of the windmills that have changed. It is important to determine which type of blade is most effective for a windmill.

Dexter Figg is a full-time professional freelance writer and is based in India. He and his wife (Post-graduates in English Literature) work from their home-office setup from 9 to 5 India time, Monday to Friday. Being in the business of writing for the past 6 years and with over 15 years of work experience behind them, they have written on various topics for the web and print media. They have together created over 24,000 SEO articles, eBooks, features, guides besides fresh website content for many sites across the world.

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