Which Type of Renewable Energy, Wind or Solar, Will Produce More Usable Energy
The objective of this experiment was to determine which type of renewable energy will produce more usable energy. Two types of renewable energy, Wind and Solar, were compared within a courtyard of 60 x 20 feet. A 1.2 kW Windspire™ wind turbine, and a 250 Watt UniSolar ™ Solar photovoltaic Solar Panel were used to collect the data. The fall season in Michigan was considered to be a fair time frame to analyze since it includes both sunny and windy days. Two computers collected the data for forty-two days at one second and five second intervals for the wind turbine and solar panel, respectively, and the data was collected at one second intervals for the Wind and at five second intervals for the Solar. After data collection, the energy output for each day was averaged to compute a daily value. The average for the Windspire™ was found to be 6.08536 Watts and the average for the Solar Panel was found to be 27.95271 Watts. A two-sample t test was used to compare the daily energy means.
Research Done By:
Christopher Pleasant
Sterling Heights High School
Nathan Sanchez
Sterling Heights High School
Warren Consolidated Schools