SWIEP – Small Wind Information Exchange Program
An Educated Buyer is a Wise Buyer

PURPOSE: To serve as an information exchange program for owners of small wind turbines (residential size) & for people considering to be future owners of residential wind turbines. My wish is to provide a forum for current owners of wind turbines to share their experiences with their Wind Genie. Here are some suggestions of information that might be exchanged:
1. Did your installer provide you with an estimate of potential productivity (kWh/year) at your site? What were the predictions?
2. Did you measure kWh per year produced and did it meet expectations?
3. Are you satisfied with your unit, with the warranty service, and with the availability of service?
4. Did you encounter any unexpected problems such as with blade cracking or failure, with turbine failure, or with inverter problems?
I encourage participation because shared information will be of use to current and future owners. For my part, I will tabulate a summary of comments & data and post this on a University of Alberta web site ( http://www.ualberta.ca/~mtyree/SWIEP ). This site will also include independent test results about small wind turbines.

Other useful discussion groups I have seen and joined are:
awea-wind-home (American Wind Energy Association sponsored discussion group)
and wastewatts (An alternative energy and conservation discussion group)
But they are not specifically focused like SWIEP.

SWIEP will be fully launched in about 5 weeks when an article about my new home appears in Home Power Magazine ( www.HomePower.com ). My home derives 100% of its energy needs for heating, hot water, and all electrical appliances from the sun and wind. It is a cost effective home that burns NO fossil fuels and burns NO carbon from any source. It will save $165,000 in fuel costs over the next 20 years.

Prof. Mel Tyree, Moderator
Dept Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Canada