We recently purchased a wind turbine with a free standing 100 foot tower. This will be a grid tie application and as I was looking at our property, I came up with three different tower locations.

a) A clearing in the woods near the house. Mature trees 40 - 60 feet tall the only beech tree might be 70 feet. Distance to house is about 110 feet or so. Advantage, not noticable from the road and would be hidden from the line of sight for our other neighbors. Advantage, one of the highest points on the property. Disadvantage, tower would only tilt one way and that's downhill (although it's not too steep there).

b) A meadow located behind the shop and barn. The land is lower at that point and given the hight of the barn where the tower would be located, the barn would have a hight of about 40' compaired to the tower. Distance from the house is about 400 feet. Advantage, level land to erect the tower and tilt down if need be. Disadvantage, winds from north and northwest would have to pass by the woods and that is on land that is about 30 feet or more higher than the tower.

c) A point of land that is as high as choice a in the meadow. Only thing close is a treed fence line with trees reaching 40 - 60 feet. Distance from house, about 10 acres or so. Advantage, the most clear piece of property that we own. Distadvantage, distance from house and concern for the turbine during the many hunting seasons.

Which one would you choose?

Dawn =)

Here is some addtional information. The previaling winds are from the west - south west. Wind speed at our location according to the latest 30 meter wind map that I can find for Wisconsin is on average about 14-15 mph.

Choice A is located on the north side of the house (ranch house, single story).

Choice B is located to the east of the house. The barn would be in the way of the prevaiing winds.

Choice C is located in the middle of one of our fields. Tree line is to the south, all other directions are clear.

This is 17.5 kw Jacobs turbine on a 100' Rhon tower and would be grid tie only. If back up power is needed, we have a Makita gas generator.

Thanks!

Check out this link for advise. I also suggest you fly a kit or ballon to figure out where turbulance is and isn't. Remember the string won't go straight up.

it's a trade-off between 1) installation cost and 2) maximizing the output over the life of the system. (trees grow)

http://www.focusonenergy.com/page.jsp?pageId=1586