We are one step closer to getting a residential wind turbine at high hopes gardens! We had a site visit by an installer and now are waiting for a more final estimate. If all goes well, it could be up in late spring/summer. The following bit of information was very interesting to me. It shows the wind speed and direction over the course of a year. The site also has monthly charts to see how direction and speeds change over the course of the year. The site is a branch of the ISU Agronomy Department, of all places! They have the charts for 17 cities in Iowa.
I was very surprised that the most common direction of wind is from the south, although the most common quadrant direction is from N to W. I’m a bit of a closet weatherman (I think all farmers are) and am impressed how much data can get crammed into a simple graphic like this one.
Here’s a picture from the manufacturer’s web site of the turbine. It is a Skystream 3.7. We may have to trim the tops of some old silver maples and maybe take down one behind the chicken coop. More on that later.