Logic Energy have brought out a low cost but decent quality datalogger for wind.
This logger simply gives you the basic info that you need which is the windspeed distribution – how many hours the wind has blown at each windspeed. Combine this with a power curve of a wind turbine and you can figure out the energy you would have got at that site.
Power consumption is minimal, and download is by inserting an SD card briefly to obtain the data file. WT is fully made in UK under iso 9001 and EMC certified. It’s weatherproof, and for what it is it’s dirt cheap.
Now you just have to figure out what to mount it on…..
What about these ones:
10m : http://www.radioworld.co.uk/catalog/large_mast_33_feet_extended-p-4293.html?osCsid=e36510917af19e0044e5072acf7bc69c
20m : http://www.radioworld.co.uk/catalog/atm-65_11-section_portable_aluminium_mast_19_8m_65ftlong-p-5382.html?osCsid=e36510917af19e0044e5072acf7bc69c
An update 2 years on. I put one of these windtrackers on a windmill tower (the Kestrel tower actually http://scoraigwind.co.uk/?s=kestrel which is the right hand end one in the above photo) in March 2012, and to be honest I have not bothered to do anything in the interim. So I was a little worried that I would have lost all my data. The logger is still on its original batteries. voltage was 2.5. The LED was still winking gently. And I got the following data off the card for windspeed (I did not have a windvane connected):
wind hours
m/s hours
2 4,512
3 2,163
4 2,196
5 1,998
6 1,757
7 1,421
8 1,074
9 876
10 737
11 542
12 329
13 467
average windspeed: 5.08
total hours 18,072
http://shop.logicenergy.com/pages/how-windtracker-report-works
The data is compromised by the fact that the anemometer is mounted on the west side of the tower and we have had a lot of east winds so it will have under-read those winds. But it’s a very useful clue to the site windspeed distribution.
what is the cost and are these available in the U.S.?
Thanks…
I believe that http://www.inspeed.com/ will be selling them although I do not see them on the site as yet.
That’s nice, but I think I will build something like this by myself! 🙂