We can appreciate your comments as unfortunately, there is some “greenwashing” going on in when it comes to a variety of green or eco-friendly practices.

Despite the wind speed referred to below on that given day, we did extensive wind speed studies at our specific site over the course of a year. The results of which determined that the average wind speed ranged from 10-15 mph, and that the site was indeed conducive to installing a turbine to generate double our total operations annual energy consumption.

That wundground.com site is quite interesting … but as of today’s date 1/11/10, it shows the average speed thus far in Woodstock to be about 5 mph. And yet our turbine is quite actively spinning! What one must take into consideration are several factors that can affect wind speeds in a general geographic area:

- Topography, physical obstructions and the Coriolis Effect all play a significant role in wind speed. The weather monitoring station being cited is in a very dense population…in essence, the downtown area. It is in a low lying area compared to our site and has many building and tree obstructions … all of which can reduce wind speed significantly at a measuring source.

Alternatively, the blades of our turbine reach 194 feet in height, our site is in a higher elevation that the downtown area, and we are located in a very open agricultural area. As a result, our site winds speeds do exceed what is reported by that local monitoring station. And based on the wind speed averages we measured before installing the turbine, our site’s wind speeds would make us a Class 2 or 3 Wind Power Density site as described here: http://www.awea.org/faq/basicwr.html

Then, there’s the anomalies of weather itself … the power generated by Iowa wind farms in November was far lower than average as the wind speeds were near record low for the month. So trying to base concrete conclusions on long-term averages does require a bit of flexibility when analyzing the data.

We have been very open about what happens — and it does — whenever there isn’t sufficient wind for the turbine to power our operations. The local utility company will remain as the backup power source. Local power companies are an essential part of any business switching to wind power, for several reasons. Wind turbines are taken off-line for regular maintenance, and they also need to go offline in the event that wind speeds exceed the built in safety limits. (In this event, the blades will present their narrowest profile while always pointing into the prevailing wind.)
So even in the windiest areas on the planet, if a storm front moved in, unless the turbine is rated to handle that excess load, the turbine will shut down … in short the opposite of our situation being low wind

So then yes, no wind powered facility can likely exist 100% at all times just on onsite wind. But with OWC’s excess generation, sold to the local utility, OWC can accurately state that it is 100% wind powered, as our net use of energy from the local utility is still less than what OWC supplies them.
For a business to run 24/7, it needs an uninterrupted power source. In the event of a combined wind and utility company power blackout, we have two additional on-site backup power systems so we can continue serving our customers without interruption.

To conclude, we self-funded this $1.25 million dollar project because the turbine can generate double the power our operations need in winds as low as 9 mph at our site. Our company was built upon maximizing resources in its products, services, and operations. Our wind turbine continues that tradition in terms of conservational benefits as well as the future cost of energy.

Grant Dahlke
Other World Computing Brand Manager

What happens when the wind speed drops below 10 mph? Right now the wind in Woodstock, IL is 3 mph.

http://www.wunderground.com/US/IL/Woodstock.html

Looking at weather history for the last 24 hours, they have had many hours with no wind at all.

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KILWOODS3

And for the last month, their wind speed has averaged 2.1 mph.

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KILWOODS3&day=21&year=2009&month=12&graphspan=month

They are a class 1 location.

http://www.awea.org/faq/basicwr.html

What do they do when there is no wind? Which is most of the time? Shut down? They get it off the grid like anyone else.

The lack of hard numbers in this article is similar to many on this site about “green” power for data centers. FAKE.

The title is a bit misleading, but once you read into it, you’ll know what they’re talking about. I am surprised however that Midwest Data center was not mentioned.