[GLLUG] Power from windmills for systems at home

[John Edwards]

On Thu, Aug 01, 2013 at 11:46:16AM +0100, Karanbir Singh wrote:
> Hi Alain,
> 
> On 08/01/2013 09:45 AM, Alain Williams wrote:
> > There was an interesting article in New Scientist about a year ago
> > that said that the power generated by a windmill was proportional to
> > the square of the length of the vanes (ie the area swept). Thus small
> > ones generate little power. Also urban ones only get turbulent air
> > (too many buildings upset nice wind) which further reduces power
> > generated.
> >
> 
> In that case, what sort of an investment might be needed to run say a
> couple of servers in the garage, from power generated off a windmill ?
> 
> lets ignore, for now, that this will not work for a 24/7 setup, but when
> its working - what size ( and therefore investment ) might one need to
> generate a couple of Amp's @ 230v - and how does one factor in wind
> velocity.

A large (80m high) wind turbine will produce 1.8 megawatts, which is
enough to feed a fair sized data centre:
	http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/645063/wind-power

It's harder to get estimates for smaller wind turbines, but random
sites found by Google seem to give values around 2W per square metre.

So two modern mid-range servers with a couple of hard drives running
at constant load would probably use about 200W, so you would need over
100 square metres which I think is about the size of an average urban
garden.

Of course the neighbours will complain...
;)


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|    John Edwards   Email: john at cornerstonelinux.co.uk    |
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