Need to Measure Wind Speed? There's an App for That

wind-app
The potential of small-scale wind power is starting to be discussed more. Soon, like small-scale solar installations, wind turbines will be springing up in backyards and on rooftops. If you're thinking that you'd like to be one of the people with a turbine out back, you'll need to assess the wind speeds around your house. Luckily, as the commercials say, there's an app for that.

A new iPhone app by Mariah Power lets you measure wind speeds around you by simply holding your phone in the air. The program uses the microphone to pick up the noise of the wind and then calculates the speed based on decibel level. The program filters out ambient sound, but you need to avoid louder noises like lawn mowers for the app to read the breeze - or the gust if you're wanting to crank out some watts.

The company claims the measurements are accurate within 1.5 mph. Once you take your measurements, you can share them on a map to help them build a database of wind maps.

While this app is cool, it is also a blatant marketing tool for Mariah's Windspire residential wind turbine. The 1.2-kW turbine is 30 feet tall and works in areas with average wind speeds of 10 mph or greater. The company recommends calculating wind speeds over the course of a year before deeming your home turbine-suitable.

via Green Inc.

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Free Small Wind Siting Application for New York State
written by Anna Caban, October 23, 2009

AWS Truewind just announced the launch of a new small wind prospecting and siting application called Small windExplorer: http://nyswe.awstruewind.com/.

Small windExplorer is a free, web-based application designed to provide small wind system users and eligible installers in NY access to wind resource maps and data.

In recent years, the small-scale wind turbine market has become increasingly reliant upon map-based wind resource estimates to determine site viability. While prospective users of large-scale turbines can readily afford to purchase wind resource data, the same is not true for prospective small-scale turbine users.

AWS Truewind was commissioned to develop Small windExplorer on the behalf of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to provide New York constituents with valuable wind resource information to facilitate responsible small wind development.

Ecogeek... STOP THE SPAM!!!!
written by Doc Rings, October 24, 2009

I keep reporting these ugg boot and other shoe spam posts, but they are not deleted...

Time to clean up the mess, and keep the forum uncluttered. I'm getting tired of coming here and seeing the spam.

Cheers,
Doc Rings

great innovation
written by Jocelyn, October 25, 2009

Great to see iphone applications that assist environmental causes being created! I am going to write a blog about this and other apps that help ppl go green on my blog jocelynintheforest.wordpress.com! check it out and I agree with the post above keep spam comments off of your stories!

Wind database
written by Pontianac, October 25, 2009

Why would anyone want to use this toy application when a national database is available with this data and much more?

wind speed
written by nelle, October 26, 2009

Omg technology has improved so much that youre able to stick the phone in the air and measrue the wind speed.

...
written by Richard, October 27, 2009

With federal tax credits and state rebates motivating people to turn to the green side, we may need more than wind-measuring devices to cope up with new technologies that generate more and more electricity.