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Gidday

It's not a matter of how hard the wind can blow but how relieable it is. A constant gentle breeze would be better than two or three days a month of hurricane force winds.

Oh yes i understand that Jack, my post was referring to damage or it being disabled ( not generating ) while the storm was around.

If you ever visit a wind park - grid connected site you will be surprised how windy it is - you need a lot of wind so if it doesn't feel windy it won't be windy enough

often perceptions of wind speed are skewed - you can buy a handheld anemometer for around £20 - if you wander around with one, and take a wind reading in all sorts of conditions, you'll probably be amazed at how much you've over-estimated it - I certainly had!
You need to find out how much wind is going to be passing over a period, the longer, the better - the cheapest way I've found is to get a weather station with a wind speed and direction facility, and feed the data into a computer over at least 6 months.You can get something like a very basic LaCrosse for about £110.
A simple "indicator" is to look your post-code up on the "NOABL" database, and see what their estimation is of an annual mean windspeeds - it is only an estimation, but it is fairly accurate.
When you've got that data, you can make a sensible choice of turbine - all turbines are NOT equal!
I would agree that a downwind design has certain advantages, particularly in high wind speed areas - the blades can "petal" in high winds, which is no problem, as they are bending away from the tower! - "upwind" turbines respond quicker to changes of wind direction, and usually use a "furling" system to turn the blades out of the wind in storms.
To put a "Gale-lashed Scottish Island" downwind design in the light winds of the South would be daft - down here, a cheapie (£700) 1kw Chinese turbine will probably produce more useable power than a 2.5kw "gale force" job, which don't get up and boogie until the windspeed is a lot higher.
Wind power is actually a deeply complex thing to get to grips with - this site has in my opinion the very best of explanations http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/wres/siting.htm - don't get put off by the formulae, it's quite readable!
Like motor bikes or stereos, the manufacturers go on about "peak power output", which is often very misleading - in the above example of a 1kw turbine outperforming a 2.5kw in light winds, the important part is how low a speed at which they start generating, and the power curve at the lower windspeeds, not the peak output that you may only see twice a year! (and hence totally irrelevant) - hope that helps a bit!

Martin wrote:often perceptions of wind speed are skewed - you can buy a handheld anemometer for around £20 - if you wander around with one, and take a wind reading in all sorts of conditions, you'll probably be amazed at how much you've over-estimated it - I certainly had!
You need to find out how much wind is going to be passing over a period, the longer, the better - the cheapest way I've found is to get a weather station with a wind speed and direction facility, and feed the data into a computer over at least 6 months.You can get something like a very basic LaCrosse for about £110.
A simple "indicator" is to look your post-code up on the "NOABL" database, and see what their estimation is of an annual mean windspeeds - it is only an estimation, but it is fairly accurate.
When you've got that data, you can make a sensible choice of turbine - all turbines are NOT equal!
I would agree that a downwind design has certain advantages, particularly in high wind speed areas - the blades can "petal" in high winds, which is no problem, as they are bending away from the tower! - "upwind" turbines respond quicker to changes of wind direction, and usually use a "furling" system to turn the blades out of the wind in storms.
To put a "Gale-lashed Scottish Island" downwind design in the light winds of the South would be daft - down here, a cheapie (£700) 1kw Chinese turbine will probably produce more useable power than a 2.5kw "gale force" job, which don't get up and boogie until the windspeed is a lot higher.
Wind power is actually a deeply complex thing to get to grips with - this site has in my opinion the very best of explanations http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/wres/siting.htm - don't get put off by the formulae, it's quite readable!
Like motor bikes or stereos, the manufacturers go on about "peak power output", which is often very misleading - in the above example of a 1kw turbine outperforming a 2.5kw in light winds, the important part is how low a speed at which they start generating, and the power curve at the lower windspeeds, not the peak output that you may only see twice a year! (and hence totally irrelevant) - hope that helps a bit!

this is sage advice

cheers, paul