A Commercial Wind turbine Windmill Equation |
There are some commercial wind turbines on the market, intended
for the homeowner, including one advertised as a 1000-watt unit.
The company provides the actual characteristics of the wind turbine in
a slick brochure, with a line representing best-possible conditions and
a shaded area of lower power to hedge their bets.
The theoretical upper limit to the efficiency of a wind machine (of any kind) is 59%. The equation below shows the power that can be expected from a top-notch
windmill, operating at an efficiency of 50%.
The graph below shows the power versus velocity with several different lines: The power in the wind The power that could be extracted at 59% efficiency The power that could be extracted at 50% efficiency (that is, if the wind turbine were good enough to be considered excellent) The actual power output from the wind turbine.
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