Wind Power For Dummies

If you're looking for a resource that covers most everything about residential size wind generators, this book is as good as anything you'll find. It has chapters on how to figure how much wind you have at your site, wind generator types, towers and how to erect them, legal issues, costs and how long it will take for your generator to pay for itself. The use of wind for off-grid and grid tied applications are compared. Maintenance and safety are covered in great detail. In fact, after you read the safety chapter you may decide that wind is not for you. If that's the case, you're in luck, there's a whole chapter on alternatives to wind: photovoltaics, hydro and solar thermal. A chapter on home energy conservation is also included. The amount of information can be overwhelming, but the author does a good job of tying it all together. The author, Ian Woofendan, has been writing articles on wind and renewable energy for Home Power magazine for many years, and has wind and solar power at his own home. He has a lot of practical, hands-on knowledge that is evident in WPFD. I've lived with small scale wind over ten years, and I know of only two other books this comprehensive that are oriented towards home-sized systems: 1) Power From the Wind (incidentally co-authored by the author of Wind Power For Dummies), Dan Chiras. This book is excellent, and in many ways equal in scope to WPFD. It runs about 250 pages. 2) Wind Power (Paul Gipe). Very good, but really technical, and includes a lot of information about very large commercial sized generators. 500 pages long! If I had to get a single book on small scale wind power, Wind Power For Dummies would be my first choice, followed by #1 and then #2. It also happens to be the cheapest of the three.

Lots of good information though I was looking to blend solar and wind systems.

This book is actually being used as a textbook for Colby Community College's renewable energy degree.

This book is just so informative, and it "pulls no punches". It is very well written, obviously by someone who has a huge amount of practical experience. It is a great assessment guide to advise you as to whether wind power is for you, and whether it is even worth considering wind power. I also liked that it had some sections on alternative sources of power, other than wind power- solar and hydro for example, and examples of good and bad windpower installations, Also covered are ways to assess your current power consumption and options to increase efficiency and reduce your power bill. I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who is looking seriously at wind generation, alternative forms of generation, or just wanting to increase their energy efficiency

If you don't know much about small wind power and are thinking about buying/building a system for home use this book is a good place to start. It doesn't get so technical that you can't read it (ok, some of the electricity stuff does get a little boring), but it's mostly easy to read and comprehend. I was hoping for more information about specific turbines and manufacturers, but there is not a lot of that in this book. However, if you're looking for the basic principles and whether or not wind will work for you this book does a good job with that. It's definitely a quick read and helpful for the wind newbie.

This book has helped me get started on my wind power project. The price is great. I can always use this as a guide. Thanks

What I learned from this book is that wind power is a hassle that I don't need in my life. About 2/3 of the way through the book, the author flatly states that solar makes more sense than wind in most cases. It certainly does in my case. Bought the book because I need to upgrade a solar electric system that I designed and built 25 years ago. I suspected going in that solar would be the way to go. This book confirmed my suspicion.

I was dumb about wind power before I read this..and I am even dumber now. If you have even imagined investing in or erecting a wind power station on your property, in your neighborhood, to power yoru home, schools, township buildings or whatever...this is a good first must read. the whole "Dummies" series of books are very helpful. This one provides the technical, economic and environmental information that helps inform.

THIS BOOK DOES NOT DOWNLOAD CORRECTLY TO MY PC KINDLE I WANT TO BE ABLE TO READ IT ON MY PC KINDLE PLEASE HELP ME.... AMAZON

I am writ8ng from my personnal experience and maybe it could be different frim somebody elde, but here is what I think of this thing... since I am very young, I know the black amd yellow colours are the ones that I am searching for the first when I am going somewhere they have books, wheter it is for sale or this is a library...These books are without a doubt my favorite type, you could easily go diectlyto your subject needed by looking in the chqpter index which subject you need the most... This is like always, with the For Dummies books, a great book !

pleased with purchase

Good help book about wind turbines for home use. But the book is a bit over the top written and seems to expect the reader to know most of the facts before hand even though this book is aimed at beginners.

Read most of it now, it's a pretty easy and good read for a technical book but it still has a lot of information. It's pretty fair, it does talk to you about other methods of power generation too. I got it thinking I would use it as a guide to buy a smaller 500W ones that i can put on a pole which might be cost effective but the book activity talks you out of that unless you are a hobbyist. They are unreliable and never produce what they say they do. While a 50ft turbine on a 100ft tower would generate more, the costs to do so might make it non-feasible. So it you're looking for a hobby kit set up check out solar. If you're looking as a power supplement or power replacement then it's a good book