Small wind refers to the category of wind energy turbines with power ratings up to 100,000 watts (or 100 kilowatts (kw)). Small wind turbines are usually installed by individual homeowners, farmers, or businesses to support their own energy requirements.
Its also useful to be aware of the other types of wind energy efforts. In community wind projects, a locality or group of people combine their efforts and install one or more turbines (usually significantly larger than 100 kw), and then enter into an arrangement or agreement to share or allocate the resulting energy produced.
Finally, there are utility-scale wind projects. These are the very large turbines (with hub heights of 60 meters or higher) that you will commonly see on TV commercials and erected in larger numbers as part of a wind farm. This portion of the wind industry has been operating in the U.S. for well over 30 years and is contributing an ever-growing share of the nation's energy portfolio.
Each of these categories has unique requirements, and almost every product and service you find in the marketplace today is a downscaled version of ones that were initially developed for the utility-scale wind industry. By contrast, smallwind.com and our WindCheck products have been designed from the ground up for the small wind customer - resulting in critical differences in methodology, cost, and functionality.