“Easy access to accurate and unbiased wind resource information is going to help propel continued growth in the small wind industry,” said Kenneth Westrick, founder and CEO of 3TIER, the global leader in renewable energy information services. “A small wind turbine is a significant investment, so it’s critically important to empower homeowners and small businesses with the information they need to make decisions with confidence. Only 3TIER can offer that anywhere in the world.”
Southwest Windpower, the world’s largest producer of small wind turbines, turned to 3TIER to help its dealer network better educate customers on their on-site wind energy potential. Dealers will have access to various online tools that tap into 3TIER’s global wind resource dataset to instantly forecast location-specific energy production of Southwest Windpower’s top-selling Skystream 3.7 small wind turbine. The integrated offering is made possible by 3TIER’s renewable energy information services platform, using both a Web interface and an application programming interface (API) to access 3TIER’s global wind dataset at different hub heights recommended for the Skystream turbine.
“Southwest Windpower is committed to utilizing the best technology available to help our prospective customers develop the most robust assessments of their wind energy opportunities worldwide,” said R. Dixon Thayer, CEO of Southwest Windpower. “Integrating 3TIER wind resource data into our assessment process ensures customers get the most accurate and reliable picture of the potential power they will receive from our turbines.”
UK-based Better Generation, a pioneer in inexpensive wind and solar measurement and energy prediction devices for the distributed market, will directly integrate 3TIER resource data into its Power Predictor product. Power Predictor is a device that enables residential and small business customers to collect on-site wind and solar data, and along with software, helps them select the best technology and products based on observed readings. 3TIER wind and solar resource data will be integrated directly into the software via 3TIER’s API, and the data will enable customers to benchmark their measurements against long-term resource data.
“By integrating 3TIER data with the Power Predictor we are able to provide our global users with an additional range of extremely relevant data, resulting in a highly effective and low cost, real time site assessment tool,” said Toby Hammond, founder of Better Generation. “This ensures that everyone considering the purchase of wind or solar technology can make an accurate and informed decision before they buy.”
“For more than 10 years, 3TIER has been a leader in utility-scale wind assessment and forecasting,” said Westrick. “Today, we’ve made it possible for homeowners and small businesses to plug into our renewable resource data to make critical decisions about small wind investments. Wind is a variable resource, and understanding how that resource will perform over time is just as important to a ranch owner in Australia as it is to a global wind developer in Texas.”
Founded in 1999, Seattle-based 3TIER is one of the largest independent providers of wind, solar, and hydro energy assessment and power forecasting worldwide. People around the world turn to 3TIER when they want the best scientific information to make decisions about renewable energy projects — from the prospecting stage to operations. For more information, visit www.3tier.com.
Southwest Windpower has been designing and distributing small wind turbines for over 22 years and is the recognized global leader in the design, manufacturing and distribution of distributed wind systems (400 – 3,000 watts). The company has been a pioneer in the development of wind technology and has built and shipped over 170,000 wind turbines to over 120 countries worldwide and has sales representation in over 88 countries. Headquartered in Flagstaff Arizona, it also has operations in Cologne Germany and a joint venture in Ningbo China. Applications for the company’s products include residential homes, commercial properties, micro grid, remote cabins, telecom transmitters, offshore platforms, water pumping and sailboats.
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