Southwest Windpower

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Southwest Windpower is a wind turbine manufacturer established in 1987 based in Flagstaff, Arizona. Maker of small-scale, consumer-oriented wind generators. With 100 employees and growing, Southwest Windpower’s tagline is “Renewable Energy Made Simple.”

[edit] Milestones

In 2000, SWWP became the first wind turbine manufacturer to receive UL (Underwriters Laboratories) and IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) certification, for its AIR series wind turbines. Southwest Windpower’s latest turbine, the Skystream 3.7, has a rotor diameter of about 12 feet ( 3.7 meters ) and can generate up to half an average home's energy in optimal winds. It is the first residential-scale wind generator designed specifically for the grid-connected home or small business. The company calls Skystream the first “plug and play” backyard wind generator. This is because the generator's inverter is build-in, requiring no external box or wiring.

Claimed power and real power producing curves for Air-X has been measured and the document describing the experiment can be found at http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy03osti/34756.pdf. The 400W peak power is not to be confused with average power production, which was about 150W at 12m/s wind speed. The next generation Air-Breeze, while having a slightly lower peak power, also starts producing power in lighter winds, and should provide a higher average energy production under similar conditions.