How do you measure windmill efficiency without using a generator?
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Question by Emilita: How do you measure windmill efficiency without using a generator?
Is there a formula I can use to convert the number of the windmill’s rotations into watts or some other measurement? I’m doing a science fair project about windmills and I don’t have a generator I can use to measure the amount of electricity produced. The only formula I found is watts = (Kh x number of disk rotations x 3600) / number of seconds, but I don’t have the Kh.
I’m really confused, please help!
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One Response to How do you measure windmill efficiency without using a generator?
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Go look at http://www.awea.org for general info on turbines.
Unless you know the specific turbine manufacturer and model, it will be very difficult to relate turbine speed (in rpm) to power produced.
Besides, how do you expect to relate rotational speed to efficiency?
Efficiency is Output electrical power divided by Input wind power.
Perhaps you should look at the capacity factor of wind turbines, and the resulting relative cost of electric power as it relates to capacity factor.
Steve W
October 19, 2011 at 3:04 am