KISS   High/Output Wind Generators

Higher Output with New Blade Design

Test Conditions The wind generator was mounted atop a vehicle and connected through a Link 10 digital amp hour counter to a battery with rest voltage of 12.55 volts. In windless conditions, the vehicle drove a measured 4 miles at each of the various speeds (speeds calibrated true) and the amp output from the wind generator observed.

Very Important

As a matter of interest, other wind generator manufacturers present their output figures based upon a Weibull distribution of wind speeds. A  Weibull calculation  determines the "power weighted average" wind speed at a location by observing the wind speed over an extended period, i.e. one year.

Since the power extractable from wind increases with the cube of wind speed, a Weibull calculation relies heavily on infrequent higher speed winds to determine available energy. A Kiss wind generator located on a site with an average wind speed of 15 knots, would, by Weibull calculation, claim output of 16 amps average over a year.

I would argue that, particularly on a sailboat, this calculation is of little interest. We try not to stay in one location for a whole year; we don't have the storage capacity to store weeks worth of power; and we try our darndest to avoid those periods of very high wind. Typically, what we are interested in is the actual output at a particular wind speed.