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Is Backyard Wind Power Worth It?
eldavojohn wonders: "In the October IEEE Spectrum magazine, I read an article on backyard windmills and their growing feasibility. With the lowest model's price tag, it's about $9,000 and lasts for around 100,000 kilowatt-hours (20 year life), which results in 9 cents per kilowatt-hour. Now, the article mentions that if the market takes off, that price will drop. However, I was wondering what price range the windmills would have to fall to (or the energy rates have to rise to) before I could consider this? Well, the price of the windmills in the article are out of my price range right now. I don't imagine many Americans have $8k-$11k laying around and the current month's rates for energy in my neighborhood are 2.2 cents/kWh for the first 800 kWh and 1.2 cents/kWh after. I was wondering what are your thoughts on being an early adopter of wind energy? Do you think that if enough people bought these windmills, the price per kWh could compete with the local power grid's? Will it ever?"
Because some communities tend to be rather picky about what you put up. Even if it's only slightly visible, some drama queen or snooty neighbour may kick up a fuss about it.
I'd rather go with solar panels, though I'm waiting for a breakthrough in technology (higher output, lower prices). A windmill is too big and too much of an eyesore to be installed in backyards.
Shell out $9,000 for the ugly windmill in your backyard and have electricity at 4 times the price you currently pay for twenty years? No, that's not worth it at all. Unless of course you are a rich eco-warrior, but you don't see many of those around.
We need more green power, but right now it's not economical for Joe Average. In the future perhaps.
What is the total cost of ownership? When you include maintenance costs (which are significant for any type of power generation) of the wind power unit and associated electrical equipment, it may become much less economical. It might also lower property value for being an eyesore.
1) No, on a purely financial basis, it probably isn't worth it. (Saves the posts of people doing a detailed analysis.)
2) Yes, it has the non-financial benefit of being earth-friendly, which isn't necessarily captured in a financial analysis. (Saves people from lecturing others that money isn't everything.)
3) Yes, it would probably save you money if the appropriate goods were taxed to reflect their environmental costs. What the appropriate externality compensation would be depends on your ideology, so if you wanted people to use less fuel anyway, you probably think these costs are HUGE.
4) Yes, we know that alone, windmills won't solve all energy problems. No one thinks that.
5) Yes, some birds are killed from these. No one cares, since tall buildings kill a lot more.
Does that about cover it?
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
I think the real question is whether its "worth it" it money terms, because its not, and probably wont be for a long time.
But is it "worth it" in terms of saving the envirionment? Maybe.
Although I think some kind of solar power or fuel power from renewable fuels is a better option right now..
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If there is no wind, it doesn't work as well.
Well I hate to break it to you but wind "slows down" when it passes through a windmill. The more people in a neighbourhood have one, the less the power produced per household. And this is even the least problem.
A "backyard" is supposedly near lots of houses, trees and what not. Wind will just lose most of its power even before reaching the windmill. Notice how windmills are set up in big plant: there's nothing but grass on the ground. Noone is building cities below.
Imagine your neighbour: "stop stealing my wind you greedy bastard!"
While you're arguing, I'll be enjoying my solar-cell powered home theater just nearby.
Are you sure you are reading your bill correctly? Are you in canada or something? I think i pay about 13 c / kwh
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.. the distribution cost is fixed) .. if you are making energy on site you save on both since they aren't distributing that power to you...
here is a list of average prices around the US
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/tabl
1/2 is the distribution cost and 1/2 is the generation cost..(this is only matters if you choose a different energy provider as all you can save is the generation cost
Those rates are insanely low. The national average is about $0.095/kWh with some paying close to twice that. For me, $0.09/kWh is about what I pay after taxes, etc, but I would rather skip the backyard windmill.
Sadly, I think you are probably right about most Americans lack of liquidity.
Did you slip a decimal point? The average cost per kilowatt hour in the US based on 2006 YTD data ia 10.15 cents/KWH up sharply from 9.08 cents in 2005.
Where I live, we are paying about 6.5 cents and get our electricity from a non-profit municipal utility. I consider us very lucky to have this low cost electricity.
If you really have those electricity rates, then the pay back for you is pretty far down the road, but for most people, if they can afford the initial investment and have a suitable location, it's looking pretty good. You condo and apartment dwellers are probably SOL as are you lucky folks who live in neighborhoods with restrictive covenants that don't even allow an outside antenna.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
With rising energy costs, global warming, and environmental concerns, I think the answer to your final question is a resounding "maybe".
This same energy-conservation trend has shown itself in hybrid vehicles. The first hybrids were priced almost twice the cost of regular vehicles. So people doing the math and asking themselves the same questions you are about wind power. However, as popularity grew and more hybrid vehicle models became available, the prices became more competitive. Even the government has gotten involved in many areas by offering tax cuts, toll leniencies, and access to restricted lanes as incentives. While many people would argue that it still isn't cost-effective to purchase a hybrid, there have been over a million sold.
I think there are other benefits that can be said about windmills. I remember reading a report once which showed that minor improvements to homes (new paint, adding walk-in closets, new windows) increased sale prices by way more than was invested. How much more could you get for a house when you tell a potential buyer that their electricity bill will be 20-90% less other homes because of the big fan in the backyard? I'm willing to bet it would sell for at least $10k more in most areas.
So returning to your second question, I think the outcome of windmills will indeed be determined by their popularity. If they catch on, I think production will diversify and the government will get involved to offer incentives. However, the article itself says "the SkyStream turbine is not meant to wean you from the grid completely".
--
"A man is asked if he is wise or not. He replies that he is otherwise" ~Mao Zedong
Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
About a week ago I had a big feed of beans... y'all know the kinds... black beans, red beans, baked beans, etc.
Of course, that caused my "wind power" (as my wife likes to call it) to increase fourfold and she banished me to the back yard.
Well...since it's the end of gardening season, I took this as an opportunity to clear out the brambles, pull out the old tomato plants, and refresh the compost heap.
so yeah, I think backyard wind power is worth it...I got LOTS accomplished this week.
(amusing note: my captcha is "recycle")
The big problem with wind power is that on top of that price, you also have to invest in a huge (and very expensive) energy storage system that can supply your entire energy needs for at least a day when there is little/no wind.
The area I'm living in the local power company is talking with land owners about renting some of their fields for putting in these towers. One person I know was offered 9k/year per tower and they're talking about possibly wanting to install 11 towers on their land.
It may not be currently feasable for the "average home owner" to do something like this, but at least some of the electric companies are looking into it to supplement their production.
Your electric rates seem very, very low. In Wisconsin, we're at $0.09 a kwh in the winter, and $0.10 in the summer.
...is integrating it into the construction or purchase of a new home, particularly ones in a semi-rural area, or areas with larger lots and less restrictive requirements for things like wind or antenna towers. Rural areas, depending on the lay of the land, will also typically have more access to wind as well.
This way, you can integrate the purchase price of things like a windmill, solar panels, conductive liquid heating, and things of that nature into the home itself, amortizing it along with the home.
My wife and I are looking into doing a windmill, solar panels, and concrete construction for our next home, and using things like the windmill to augment commercial power, and/or be able to operate a certain portion of the home for a certain period of time (in conjunction with battery storage, and so on) in the absence of commercial power altogether.
The fact of the matter is that whether you do it yourself or pay a subsidy to a local energy provider for wind and alternative energies, it's going to be more expensive than traditional energy, because things like coal and natural gas are still cheap. So this is a decision that must transcend cost a bit. One day, "alternative" sources of energy may become cheaper, but that won't be happening anytime soon in the context of your question, even with the most dire "peak oil" arguments, so you must make a conscious choice to sacrifice a bit, possibly financially, for environmentally conscious energy sources.
that one windmill will do squat for you. You need at least 2 in a windy area as well as a sotrage system (intertie inverter can run your meter backwards if the power company allows it)
I have been there with wind and solar. you need far more than they say you do to make it worth screwing with. plus it is not an appliance like your fridge, you have to become an expert in it, maintain it your self and constantly monitor the stuff. Otherwise your cost per kilowatt goes up to 4-5 times what you calculated.
if you are hoping for a plop it in the back yard and get free power item then it will not work.
And that is not even considering the huge amount of lifestyle and equipment you need to re-buy to be ableto live more efficient. a high effeciency fridge that you would use off grid will be 10-20 times the price of your current fridge, CF lamps, etc.... you can lower your electrical draw significantly, but it's horribly expensive as every appliance just became a nitche market item and has the price to go with it. Dont even think of Air conditioning unless your home is far more effieicent than the highest energy star ratings.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I haven't looked into windmills myself as I'm still living the apartment life, but I've a friend who has read up on the matter some and raves about the vertical axis windmill and all the benifits thereof. Were I in a position to consider it, I'd start with these.
A pure number crunch generally tells us that is not worth it but it is all the other benefits that backyard power grants that is at issue. Extra power can be sold back to the grid, or you have a backup power source in case the grid goes down again.
A great resource is Home Power http://www.homepower.com/ they have lots of articles discussing the pros and cons of all the various kinds of alternative power and building technology. (no affiliation) They go into it in far more depth then any of us can.
Grond can breach it. Grond can breach anything.
I don't imagine many Americans have $8k-$11k laying around and the current month's rates for energy in my neighborhood are 2.2 cents/kWh for the first 800 kWh and 1.2 cents/kWh after
i pay 20 cents per. that makes wind power pretty attractive. hell, that makes hooking a frickin generator up to a stationary bike attractive.
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
My current rate here in the UK is the equivalent of 18.5 c/kWh for the first 728 kWh in each quarter and 17.5 c/kWh thereafter. In addition, there is a standing charge of 29.8 c/day.
WTF?
The numbers look even better if the install costs could be trimmed down. $0.051/kWh
what price range the windmills would have to fall to (or the energy rates have to rise to) before I could consider this?
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It depends strongly on where you live. Check with your electic company to see what your rates are. According to the DOE, 9 cents/kWh would be competitive in many places.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/tabl
You don't mention the kind of area in which you live. The suburban Homeowner's Assocation might have something to say about giant windmill towers in the back yard. The urban condo flat dweller is going to have an awkward time installing one. There's more to it than price.
You don't mention maintenance costs. Or was that included in your lifetime calculation?
The most common use I've seen in the US for wind power is by farmers. Many of them have retention ponds for irrigation water (or for animals), and use a windmill to sporadically drive a pump to keep the pond full. The value here isn't in the price of main electricity. It's that such installations tend to be isolated, and connecting the pump to the main power grid costs more than it's worth.
Also, the application isn't "mission critical" and the pond naturally buffers the random and sporadic nature of wind power in most places. As long as it averages out over the month, you're okay. The pond doesn't need power _now_, or even _sometime today_. Your house is a different story.
Here in California, our power is tiered. The first chunk is at something like 7.5 cents. My most expensive electricity was over 30 cents per kWh. Compared to that, 9 cents is already much less than I'm paying.
Of course, with my luck, it would fail right after the warranty (which is probably a year), making it cost $3.80 per kWh. :-) Devices with moving parts are a high risk unless you're buying in bulk. It's the whole MTBF problem all over again. Thanks, but I'll stick with solar.
When the cost per unit drops below $1000 for a moderately sized prefab, call me. Until then... not so interesting... even with power at 30 cents per kWh. Besides, you can build your own from parts for far, far less than $9,000.
http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_wind.html - build your own
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"5) Yes, some birds are killed from these. No one cares, since tall buildings kill a lot more."
When buildings attack! *cue psycho shower scene music*
Impressively low rates you have. Most places I've lived (all up and down the East Coast) tend to have electric rates much higher than that, and that's not counting the fuel charges. I think I'm paying about 5.5 cents per kwh right now, plus another 4 cents per kwh fuel charges. At that point, wind is definitely competitive--if you live in an area with sufficient wind, of course.
and the current month's rates for energy in my neighborhood are 2.2 cents/kWh for the first 800 kWh and 1.2 cents/kWh after
Compare this to up to 18p (um, over 30 cents) per kWh in the UK (with lows of 6p overnight, depending on your energy pricing plan). How the hell is your electricity so damned cheap?
Things like this would make a lot more sense in Europe or remote places.
My point is that, within a short period of time, solar energy will be affordable to buy and, just as importantly, maintain. These will provide an efficient source of energy for the cost of the panel while not being an eyesore at all. I anything, the panels in Tempe look pretty cool. I would not mind them on my roof one bit.
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If you live in suburbia, your neighbors are probably going to have a problem with that big prop tower you are planning to erect. Keep in mind any large trees or buildings nearby are going to degrade the quality and reliability of your wind. Do you even have good wind where you are? If your backyard looks more like a small-scale industrial site, where you do some agriculture or fabrication or what have you, and if you are in a rural area where you have wind and can get away with it, yes, put up a prop. It will be a fun project that should eventually pay for itself.
If you like wind power you might want to see how you could support it in your community. My power company National Grid has a 'Green Up' program i've been participating in for a few years. I pay a 2 cent per kwh premium for a 'pure wind' option, which means that they supposedly reimburse a wind power project in my state for all the money I spend on electricity from them. I know I still get my juice from the grid like everyone else, but at least I don't have to feel quite as bad when I crank up the AC all summer.
In upstate New York, we have a company that has been trying to get approval for a 12MW wind project on an old mining site in the Adirondack park. The level of opposition has been ... interesting. You can read more about that project on the advocacy site here: http://www.adirondackwind.com/
The cost of a new computer (~$2kUSD) is about where people stop thinking of it as an expensive toy and start wondering where to get one.
Realisticly speaking, the cost of the tower to put a windmill on doubles or triples the overall price. In some places you can get away with doing things like attatching it to your roof, but that's generally against housing codes.
I suppose if there was a modular kit system like in the PC industry, where the cost is spread out, there would be more intrest.
You dont need an expensive storage system... you can just borrow from the grid. They even have meters that allow power to flow both ways. A battery system is great during brownouts or blackouts and unless you want to be totally independant, why even bother?
That's what really matters when it comes to wind power. How strong of wind do you get? How often is it windy? Check out your location first to see if there is enough wind to begin with. I did a little research when my parents asked (and they have enough land that the neighbor problem wouldn't exist) and it turned out that for the most part it wasn't windy enough to make anything worthwhile.
Otherwise you have to figure in the opportunity cost of not investing that $9K. Even in CDs you can get about 3% on that, which means you can withdraw more than $580 a year from it for 20 years, not just $450; that works out to over $0.11 per kWh. As alternative power plant designs become more durable, this kind of calculation becomes more important: a $9,000 windmill that produces 5,000 kWh/year for infinity years instead of twenty sounds like it will produce free energy, but that "free" will really cost you more than $0.05 per kWh when you do the math.
The electric companies factor these sorts of costs into their bill when they build a new power plant. If you don't do the same, you might think you're successfully competing with them when you're really just tricking yourself.
Just build your own, maybe a few small ones or one larger one.
1 000_watt_wind_turbine.html
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/06/diy_
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Then don't buy a home where there is a homeowner's association. Sell your home if one gets voted in. Why should the desires of the one automatically outweigh the desires of the many? Especially when the one can simply refuse to play by selling and moving. That's the beauty of the free market: people are free to set up socialist systems such as homeowner's associations within it and you are free to buy into them or not. But you don't have the right to limit the free market by saying people can't do that. Property rights are a deal mutually enforced by property owners, and if other property owners want to say that you have to jump through a flaming hoop into a pile of dog doo before they will honor you property claims, well, what can you do except defend your property yourself.? You want the privilege of being part of a system that defends your property rights? You play by that systems rules, or leave and make your own system. What's that you say? Every place is already owned and encumbered by rules you didn't agree to? Tell that to the vast majority of humans who own no property at all, I'm sure you'll get a lot of sympathy.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Like solar panels, wind becomes more of an economically viable alternative when you are trying to power a remote site and the cost to bring power lines in is prohibitive.
Co-incidentally, a remote site also means that there are fewer neighbors to complain about the installation.
And i think you get 30% off through grants:d etail&fh_secondid=9330400&fh_location=%2F%2Fcatalo g01%2Fen_GB%2Fcategories%3C8530236%2Fcategories%3C 9050001&fh_eds=%C3%9F&fh_refview=lister&ts=1159984 743563
http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav/nav.jsp?action=
This is a bran dnew thing, saw one in the store at the weekend, looks pretty sturdy, im sure there are downsides, but you can now walk into your high st UK store and order a wind turbine. I can imagine them dropping in price big time over the next 5 years.
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Dude, you are SO behind the times with W's war spending fueled inflation and high interest rates. An ordinary savings account gets you 4.5% now, check out INGDirect or Emigrant's Bank. CD's are even better of course.
I say fuck that shit, putting your money in the bank just lets the man use it ! Buy gold and horde it and let the straights wallow in their own inflation !
I live in a community without a homeowner's association. Some of my neighbors come from cultures where the standard for maintaining a home differs significantly from typical suburban US standards.
When my neighbor began parking his truck in his yard, began storing applicances and garbage in his lawn, installed a new concrete porch without a permit, refused to cut the grass, and ordered a portable storage unit delivered to his house where it has sat in the driveway for more than a year, what is my recourse?
I'm still not anxious to be a part of an HOA, but there are some advantages.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
1. Someone I know lives on 50-odd acres; his house is about 1/2 mile from the road. As I understand it, the power company quoted him $18,000 to run power poles from the road to his house. Of course, this upfront cost was just for the opportunity to send them money every month thereafter. For that same $18,000 he bought a complete power system including a bunch of special batteries, high tech electronic load and generation management and a diesel generator. I think the generator and batteries came from folks who had installed Y2K panic systems, and never used them. For several years he ran the generator once a week for a couple of hours, now he's installed two solar panels and he has gone all summer without running the diesel, though he will probably have to run it occasionaly during the winter. He has a small wind generator for testing, so far. His major electricity usage is shop tools and clothes dryer. He uses propane for hot water, and propane and wood for heat. He plans more solar panels eventually, and will then use the diesel only for emergencies.
2. According to the World Bank, small amorphous silicon solar panels are replacing kerosene lamps in rural African villages - they cost about the same as two months' worth of kerosene, provide more light than the kerosene lamps previously used, and once paid for cost nothing to run, except amortized cost of replacement every ??? years. This also offers the opportunity to radically change lifestyles in these areas. Evidently amorphous silicon panels are less efficient than the more expensive solar panels but are so much cheaper that they're a better deal. I can easily foresee several families in a village connecting their panels and batteries together, and voila! Instant community power grid, that can grow incrementally.
For the large percentage of people who live outside areas that already have well-developed electric power and other networks, localized community-based or individualized solutions including wind, solar and small hydro can be very practical, and even life changing. This paper notes that:
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Houston Looting and Plunder, uh, Reliant Energy (they change names several times in the last few years, maybe to escape their reputation), recently started reselling Wind power under it's 100% Renewable plan. I signed up, now my 2200 or so kwh per month are guaranteed to be replaced with 100% wind generated power. There are wind farms going in Galveston and Corpus Christy, also a tidal power project. I figure this is about 3/4 of my energy budget a month (about $300 with $100 for gasoline and natural gas), so it made a huge dent in my carbon footprint. I then bought a Terrapass for my GMC Suburban which is a major bandaid approach to clean energy, but at least they are investing in good projects. Once hybrids get more mainstream I'll buy one.
What happens a few years from now, when some new dramatic improvement in turbine design happens? Or 100% efficent solar panels are invented? Or heck, maybe they even invent portable fusion reactors, who knows what is coming in the future?
If you are amortizing the cost of a windmill over 20 years, this IS a concern. 20 years is a lot of time for technology to significantly improve. Think of how much cars have changed, let alone technology like computers and information networks. Alternative energy sources are a hot thing to invest in lately, and I have a feeling there will be some serious improvements real soon. Maybe if you could amortize the cost in 5 years, it would be a reasonable risk. But 20 years? I can't see how it would be a good idea.
I'd like to know where you live. Once I factor in my base customer charge, fuel factor for generation, distribution charges and miscellaneous taxes, my electric bill averages about US$0.14/kWh. The last part of the country I lived in was more like $0.09/kWh, and I thought that was cheap.
-- Cameron
Wind turbines are only useful if the average wind speed is above 10 mph. The unit illustrated doesn't even cut in until 8 mph, and achieves its rated output at a wind speed of 20 mph.
Unless you're in an area with wind speeds like that, a wind turbine is a waste of time. Most people don't live in areas that windy; it's not comfortable. I've known people along the California coast who have useful wind turbines, but that's a special situation, where you have reliable medium-speed wind all year because of the ocean/land temperature difference. The serious California wind farms are in mountain passes or at desert/mountain boundaries, where the geography guarantees wind. Also, wind speeds are higher a few hundred feet up, which is why the really big wind machines on the high towers work even in flat terrain. A little turbine in your back yard probably is just going to sit there, stationary, most of the time.
If you're thinking of getting a wind turbine, put up a pole with one of those little "weather station" units that has an anemometer, and log wind speeds for a year. For a few hundred dollars, you'll find out if it's going to work.
If you can hang a wind chime outside your house and it doesn't drive you nuts with constant clanging, your location is not suitable for wind power.
Do you really want to be responsible for providing and maintaining your own power? I can barely handle all of my electronics some days. Keep your life simple, buy from the power company.
The time at which it will be unquestionably profitable for an average joe to produce his own power the utility companies will not be far behind in exploiting those same technologies on a mass scale, making your investment most likely a waste of time and money.
Unless you are creating your own power for an environmental reason, I would guess its pretty pointless.
- Please do an estimate on what your annual power production will be. Find a map like this Illinois map from this link and figure out if your $8-$11k is better spent elsewhere for energy conservation. I know if you're not living in one of those two little pink splotches in Illinois, odds are your wind turbine will never pay for itself, whereas insulting your air vents will pay for itself within a year or two at most.
- Trees will kill your wind generation capability. I believe the rule of thumb is your turbine needs to be X distance away from the nearest tree. X is some sort of multiple (3x, 4x) times the height of the nearest tree. If your house is shaded by 50 foot deciduous trees like mine is, you have no chance. Put up solar panels, and only if those said trees don't block those, either. (Trees are good, by the way; they reduce your cooling costs in the summer, and in the winter when the leaves fall off, the sun can heat your house).
Also, I'll throw in the obligatory link to the Energy Star program here. Get (or perform) an energy audit on your home; it will give you some more ideas.-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
I am totally offgrid on a single (home made) windmill + a little bit of solar. My applicances all cost either the same as normal, or up to 50% more. You will not need to spend obscene amounts of money for special applicances. And if you are a young family getting your first home like we were, then it makes ALOT of sense, since you aren't replacing existing applicances. We have central heat and AC, but neither are used much since we have a passive solar house, so its well heated by the sun in winter, and not heated by the sun in the summer.
Simple, we just replace the government if electricity gets too expensive.
In Ontario Canada there is a massive debt with the electricity company because for years they've sold electricity far below cost.
The other question is why is your electricity so high? Simple answer is that you put up with it.
I don't know if it is still the case, but it used to be the case (at least in Ohio) that if you put in any sort of power generating device and hooked it up to the grid, the local power company had to buy your excess power. Back in the eighties my father looked into this because (at the time) federal and local governments were subsidizing up to 90% of the cost through tax credits.
The power that a plant can generate goes by by the square of the wind speed. This is awesome news if the average wind speed on your site is greater than the "rated" wind speed for the plant. It is terrible news if your average wind speed is less. Let me give an example. suppose the rated wind speed for the plant you are looking at is 16 mph. This means that the plant will generate the stated wattage if the wind speed is 16 mph. However if the average wind speed on your site is only 8 mph, you will get only one fourth of the stated wattage.
Not only that, but you have to be careful when looking up wind speed statistics for your site. If you have no wind in 4 days out of 5, but winds of 40 mph on the fifth day, your average will be 8 mph but you will find that the energy your mill generates is less than expected. This is because most mills are designed to scale back or even stop generating in high winds, to protect the mill. Some mills will only generate significant power when the wind speed is in a rather narrow band.
Another thing. Most neighborhoods have large buildings (i.e. two story houses) and tall trees. These obstruct the wind to a great degree. Your mill needs to be well above all of the surrounding obstructions. In my neighborhood this would be impossible for all practical purposes, because we have a number of large oak trees. I'd need a tower well over 100', and my yard is not big enough for the guy wires.
To sum up, if you have constant, reliable winds that average the rated wind speed or better, with very few local obstructions, this can be a good investment. Otherwise you should pass. If you home is on the eastern shore of one of the great lakes, I'd say go for it. The other 99.9% of us will need to try something else.
If you have a reasonable amount of wind, then wind power can be far cheaper than solar, especially if you build your own like the guys at Other Power. For $2,000, they put together a wind turbine that can provide up to 4 kilowatts.
The reason it's probably *not* worth it is because you need a very tall tower to use wind generators effectively, and if you live in a city, chances are slim to none that you will get a permit to install the tower and put a generator on top of it. Not only would your neighbors complain, but the issue of it falling onto a neighbor's house is something that the city inspectors get uptight about.
The only folks I know who have received permits to install a wind generator live in fairly rural areas - in which case, yes, it's well worth their while.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
OK, so it's offtopic, but wind isn't the only backyard power source. Wind is fairly impractical for me (geography, maintenance, impact on my neighbors on a small lot in a development) but living in a part of California that is essentially irrigated desert I'm very curious about solar panels to take the edge off of the energy bills and use the energy that's heating my roof. Solar hot water preheating could be fun, but I just don't use that much hot water, so let's stick with the extremely useful electricity.
I'm very interested in where the smart buys are in solar electric panels, but comparison info isn't exactly easy to find. I'm just interested in how we could start out small with solar electric. Any good surplus buys out there? Where can I start? I find companies that want to sell b2b or bid on jobs but not post prices, and I see single panels on Amazon for $1000/130watts. Is this what you get? Are the better buys in amorphous, polycrystalline, or monocrystalline?
For those of you who are constitutionally incapable of the question as asked: Yes, we're pursuing any number of conservation measures, e.g. house is quite well insulated, mostly high efficency flourescent fixtures, use fans, wear sweaters when it's cold, etc. No we can't move to wherever else you think I should live, because good schools and proximity to family is important for our children, as is stability.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
Not at all... Hell, I'm getting more than that on a fixed-return money market fund. My high-risk fund portfolio has earned me over 10% annually the past three years; my total portfolio return, excluding additional funds I've put in, has been over 8% annually since 2002.
Be glad that you didn't start investing two years earlier. The Dow Jones just got back to the high it set six years ago, the S&P 500 is still ~10% below its high, and the NASDAQ ~%50 below its high in 2000.
Methinks that Skystream is being a bit less than upfront about the cost/benefit.
According to the Skystream data-sheet, the unit can produce 400kWh/month assuming 12 mph average wind speed and needs a minimum average wind-speed of 10mph (emphasis mine). According to the national average wind-speed archives there are very few places in the country that meet the required 10mph minimum average and fewer still that meet the recommended minimum of 12mph. And many of the places that can meet these requirements only do so for part of the year.
They say the unit can pay for itself "in as quickly as 5 years". WOW! That must be some set of optimal circumstances. Without even including the time value of money and assuming the lowest end of the $9,000-12,000 installed cost and no maintenance costs you would have to generate $1800 worth of electricity every year.
If your electricity costs $.20/kWh (well over the highest regional residential average rate) you still need to generate 9,000kWh/year or 750kWh/month. According to the specsheet this will require an average wind-speed of approximately 20mph (the full rated speed of the windmill). And the noise produced will be in the 50-60dB range or about the equivalent of my 2kW Honda eu2000i generator.
So perhaps if you are located in Mt. Washington, NH (the only place on the chart with average wind-speed > 20) and the unit isn't destroyed by the January average wind-speeds exceeding 46mph or by the occasional wind-speeds exceeding the 140mph "survival speed" or, of-course, by the ice-storms then you might see a 5-year payback. Otherwise, forget-it.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
I'll be dammed if that's not already being done.
One thing to understand: its not 9 cents per kwh. You pay the entire $9k up front in 2006 dollars but you get the power back over a 20-year lifespan... In 2007 dollars, 2015 dollars and 2026 dollars... Which even at 5% annual inflation are worth less than half of what 2006 dollars are.
Another: almost nothing with moving parts runs 20 years without maintenance. What will the maintenance on your windmill cost in terms of both dollars and time (which is dollars times your expected hourly wage).
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Few suburban homes are in good locations to produce wind energy. Even if you're in a good location, aside from the issue of creating an eyesore in your neighborhood, your neighbors won't be too happy the next time the wind picks up and you have a 60-80 decibel buzz keeping them up all night.
include $sig;
1;
Can't you just confine it to composting and turning off extra lights?
Geez...
$9K? How about the Air-X Wind Turbine for $575? Even with a mast, wiring, batteries, current-flow regulator, you should be comfortably under $2K.
Well I hate to break it to you but wind "slows down" when it passes through a windmill. The more people in a neighbourhood have one, the less the power produced per household. And this is even the least problem.
Agreed. By pulling energy out of thin air, you are LITERALLY SLOWING DOWN THE ROTATION OF THE EARTH.
Every time you put up a windmill, you're contributing to making my 3:00 staff meeting a little longer.
And if that sounds humorous to you, it won't be so funny when we've sucked out enough energy so the earth stops spinning altogether. Our food sources don't do so well in pure light or pure dark.
This is a damn fool idea if I ever saw one.
I'm sticking with good old-fashioned petroleum products. In fact, crude oil has a lower specific gravity than water. So when wells run dry and they have to pump water into them to get the last of the crude out, they're increasing the density of the earth closer to the core. Like an ice skater pulling his limbs closer to his body, this will actually increase the rotational speed of the earth.
You eco-freaks are lucky there are enough good old-fashioned oil burners like me around to offset the environmental catastrophes you're causing.
O RLY? A lot of power monopolies seem to charge each residential customer $100 or more per year even if the customer uses no power.
Hippies in the UK have been running self sufficient systems for years - rarely on a $9k+ budget. Hack a few smaller ones together made out of BMX wheels and salvaged components. Spend $100 in your local junkyard and re-do the maths.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
This is where the Best Buy style extended warranty can come in rawther handy. If Oreck can offer a 21 year service plan on its vacuum cleaners...
the price of oil is volatile. the cost of wind power is much more predictable. if you're doing long term planning, the latter is a strong argument.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
In Orange County, California, One Kilowatt Hour access for 1 month costs about $250.00, 2 Kilowatt Hour is about $800. Now $9000 capitol costs divided by 12 months for 20 years is about $37.50 a month plus interest costs. 100,000 Kilowatt Hours divided by 12 months for 20 years is about 416.67 Kilowatt Hours per month. Where can I get me one of those things?
OK, let's say that you get 100,000 Kwh over 20 years out of this thing. That's 5000/Kwh per year. If it cost $11K to install, then that's equivalent to paying $0.11/Kwh consistently for 20 years. Pretty nice to know that if you're doing long term planning.
Let's look at my ConEd bill for 2005 by way of comparison. The cost ranged from $.20-.31/Kwh.
So, the lowest cost was nearly double what this windmill would do for me, plus there was 50% volatility. Tough to plan for that if you're a business or cost-conscious household.
Then there's my total consumption for 2005: 3528Kwh. Well below the 5000Kwh the windmill would generate. So, (.25-.11)*(5000-3528) = $206.08/year profit. Put that into an investment paying 7% returns, and you're making $220.51/year.
If you're even more frugal with your power consumption than my house is and living on a fixed income, you could be making a decent supplement to your income. Predictability * powergrid savings = not a bad deal, if you don't mind standing out from your neighbors.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
the nations farmsteads through out the post-WW boom years. Cheap REC (rural elec co-ops) hooked up American water pumps and barns and by the 70's wind-energy was irrelevent.
A simple alternator driven by a windmill (back then) essentially provided reliable service. The requirement for wind energy is a monitor to turn it on when the wind blows, and off when it blows stink.
Today's aggregation on windfarms makes it irrelevent for all but the most remote locations to blow their own juice.
1.2 cents per KWH! Holy &%^& that is so cheap! Here in New Zealand where a lot of our energy comes from renewable sources, Water and geothermal we get to pay over 8 cents US currency (0.15 NZ$/KWH) even though the installations were paid for by public funds (taxes).
Now I understand why Amerikans are so wasteful with energy, it is practically free over there! Well here a windmill makes perfect sense as does solar hot water and so on. Solar hotwater will be installed on my house in two months time and I am infact considering a windmill.
I have always been curious (but not enough to investigate) what would be the environmental impact of widespread usage of wind turbines??
This is completely has not been thought through, but basic conservation of energy states that if wind powers the turbine, wind loses energy. If there was a windmill on every house, will this result in significant weather pattern changes? Or am I overdoing it on glue again?
-Em
P.S. This is not meant to be a troll of any sort. I am not comparing this to anything else nor passing any judgement, just curious what the actual environmental cost in this case is.
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
Some utilities have a rule that they have to buy your extra energy at the same rate that they pay for other utilities to give them extra during high loads. In some areas that would make your windmill actually pay for itself after just a few years. The state I live in has been trying to put in windmills for the utility, but have been blocked because the huge blades have potentially killed some birds (mostly birds that are not even native to the area). Stopped forward movement until the study of how many birds and what type is completed, which will likely be years. How about geothermal energy, maybe that will crack the planet in half. Always a drawback to anything that is "free"
It is possible to buy a commercial wind turbine, however for someone like myself and others out there, it is possible to save a fair amount of money by building a wind tubine homebrew (like the one desribed in the Otherpower.com link above out of a trashed Volvo). The basic permenent-magnet wind turbine is a simple design, which is fairly easy to build. The money for the parts of a moderate sized wind turbine will be definitally alot cheaper than a professionally designed, commercial package. While a homebrew turbine may not have gone through rigorous wind tunnel tests, computer models and the like, it will do the job, which is to generate electricity.
Yeah, the government should control everything, this will keep people happy.
Other than the fact that it doesn't work it's a great idea.
The DOE http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/brochure/electricity/e lectricity.html has several charts here indicating an average $/kwh of $.08 in 2003 and the national average since 1960 has never dipped below that price (in 2000 dollars). It also has a map showing prices in every state. 20 states, 2/5ths of the nation have prices above $.083/kwh. It seems this post and subsequent discussion are somewhat skewed.
With that in mind this unit seems like a deal.
We had a windmill at our farm for many years. It was a noisy thing, and only kept a bunch of 12V car batteries charged. Oh, it blew away 3 times too. No way would I expect a windmill to last 20 years. Moving parts suck.
I am very envious of the quoted power prices. Here in New Zealand, peak prices (all but 11pm to 6am) are over 18 cents per kilowatt hour, and around 11 c/kwh off peak. I simply can't believe that anyone can generate electricity and sell it economically at less than 2 cents! It must be heavily subsidised - surely??
Hell, all our electricity is Hydro-Electric, so we aren't even paying for coal or oil to fire the generators!
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
They're already using these in Washington DC.
Suddenly, 10 minutes after flipping the switch, there is a HUGE energy surplus.
Scientists are mystified.
There's an article on this in the latest issue of the New Scientist -- if we want to bankrupt ourselves, we might consider putting a windmill in everyone's yard, so we can each maintain our own. Most houses aren't in the windiest locations such as the ocean or mountain ridges, so output wouldn't be g You might not like the noise. Turbulance caused by nearby structures disrupts windmills so you'd have to make it about 50 or 100 feet tall to get good energy output. Unless you live somewhere that's got alot of hot air blowing around, most of the energy would come when you didn't need it. Then again, if we all read our postings out loud, perhaps that would generate enough hot air!
...they will grind your grain nicely, though. A wind turbine, on the other hand, might be what you're looking for.
. . . and the beer tastes quite a bit better than anything put out by Crapheiser Butts, as well!
If you like a challenge, and *maybe* a cheaper price, why not try to build your own?
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Are savings the deciding factor in choosing whether or not to use a more environmentally friendly solution? If so, I'd say: no, it's rarely ever worth it. Until natural resources ride the brink of exhaustion, it's generally cheaper to use a less environmentally friendly solution. The cost of financing the special 'eco-equipment' often eats far into any long-term savings. (In this case, we're talking about a cost comparable to that of a brand new car.)
Reasons to install a windmill: "growing your own" matters to you; you're worried about the quality of the electricity the power company is pumping into your home (especially with all those chemicals they stick in it these days); your neighbors have complained that you do not have enough eyesores on your property; you are concerned about the environment; you have too much money.
Reasons to not install a windmill: you live in tornado valley (you want a windmill, not a propeller); your insurance refuses to cover the object or your house if it is too close; you are the owner of a power company; you have a fear of windmills; local wildlife conservationists contact you and complain that the proposed construction destroys the natural beauty of your private property; you are married; you already have one; you accept that in spite of the huge expense, your personal contribution to the environment will make little difference and the only significant result to the environment will be that could have been spent researching a better alternative energy source was instead spent on a giant non bio-degradable eyesore.
wouldnt this become an environmental issue? i live not too far from a state park that is full of birds. What if bird run into these windmills? its a possiblity and it has been an issue for wind power....
There are legitimate reasons for HOAs. Any time you share a wall, an HOA is absolutly necessary. That being said, the idea that HOAs will go the way of the dodo if people don't want them doesn't fly here in California. We have laws that limit property taxes. So, the local governments have started taking the Ben Franklin approach to increasing revenue. Basically they figured out that 'A penny saved is a penny earned.', so, they now require new development projects to form an HOA if they permits. This means that for each of the houses built, they get to tax at the old maximum rate, but they do not supply the services that those taxes would have supplied in the past. It is basically a run around the tax laws.
Due to this, the number of houses per capita that are available that are not in an HOA is artifically limited. In fact, here in California, builders that successfully get houses built without an HOA, advertise that as a selling feature of the house.
That's mighty fine cheap energy he's/she's getting there in that neighborhood.
~Idarubicin
That's why I installed a personal coal mine in my yard.
Wind energy is far more dependent on location than solar energy. The available annual solar energy in the desert Southwest is only about twice that in Alaska. This means that the geographic variation in electric rates has a greater effect on the viability of a solar electricity system than annual sunlight. But the wind energy available in mountainous areas of the US like the Rockies is more than ten times that available in the Southeast. That's why you see big clusters of windmills in mountain passes and other windy areas, and few if any in typical suburbs.
Also note that your average wind speed does not tell you what you need to know. Available power from the wind goes up as the cube of wind speed, so bursts of strong wind produce more energy than steady light breezes.
So the bottom line is that unless you live in a very windy area, your electric rates are already so low that no form of home power generation is likely to be very cost-effective for you right now. So you have to ask yourself two questions: what you think will happen to your electric rates in the future, and whether solar might make more sense than wind in your area.
All this information is readily available; the Wikipedia article on wind power is as good a place to start as any.
Ideally, larger homes, certainly 2 stories, should have wind genrators built into the structure. Less of an eyesore in my opinion (actually would increase the aesthetic value of a home in my eyes), and more difficult for neighbors to complain about anyway. More to the point, if office buildings/commercial spaces were required to have these built in, the environment would be instantly much better off.
It makes me sad that the WTO replacement candidate design that incorporated wind generators was rejected eventually. think about the statementme that would have made to America's critics.
When comparing fixed purchases to annual expenditures, you need to compare apples to apples. Financing $9000 over 20 years is a more realistic comparison, because even if you can afford it, that $9000 up front is not earning interest for you.
Financing for 20 years at 6.25% (current home rates), makes a total payment of about $15,788. I'm assuming maintenance is not needed, tax deductions, don't exist, 6.25% is feasible, and that you have no value for the space it will take up.
This means that you are really paying about $0.15 per kW hour. Not too much different, but the way of thinking might influence the decision.
To throw in some basic accounting/economics principles, the effective interest rate is of more interest since it factors in the inflation rate as well. If your 3% interest rate of return is matched by an inflation rate of 3%, well, then you've got a net gain of zero effective dollars. That's just looking at the general inflation rate. If you factor in that currently the inflation rate of energy is highly volatile and on the rise (just this year, my power rates went from 8.37c/kwh to 9.04c/kwh, an 8% increase), then your 9K investment doesn't exactly look quite as good and may actually lose you money in the long run. Plus, to use some good old economics 101 terminology, just think of the "positive externalities" associated with one switching to wind energy.
You live in the gay ghetto too?
If a LOT of people bought windmills, the cost of oil would go DOWN because the demand dropped. So go ahead and buy one, it will make my electricity cheaper. :-)
Technologies that provide power at more than the going rate are not there so that you can remove yourself from the grid. They're there so that you can get power in places where the grid doesn't go.
The simple fact is that wind power is not appropriate for residential areas for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which is the eyesore factor. In such places, it's solar, or power that comes in from somewhere else. I've also been toying with the idea of generating power from my incoming water pressure, and a host of other silly little sources that generate fuck-all at the time but which could add up to something significant...
It makes sense to buy solar panels, because they are hard (but not impossible!) to make. It makes sense to buy water turbines, because making a pelton wheel (or similar) is extremely nontrivial. It makes little sense to purchase a wind turbine, because they are not so very hard to make, unless you have rivers of money flowing out of your keester. And, again, they make little sense in a populated area.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
My uncle [and his family of 5] lives in a house that is completely off the power grid. The only wires leading to it are for the phone line. IIRC, he's got a 1.2 kWatt windmill on a mast, a 200 watt solar panel, a seriously large nickel-iron battery bank, and backed-up by a gasoline fired generator. The generator gets about 3 days of use a year in the spring when it is overcast and calm. He's never had a problem with birds hitting the windmill, but he has had a few interesting incidents with racoons and squirrels.
Small windmills are probably the way to go for power generation. A windmill kills birds not because it is spinning, but by the speed and span of the blades. For each rotor configuration, there is an rpm range that is easier for the bird to see/hear. The big ones kill birds because the blade is spinning in such a way that the birds don't see/hear the motion. Kind of like how your eyes fool you into seeing smooth motion at NTSC/PAL frame rates, or the way squirrels don't see the spokes in a spinning bicycle wheel [Yes.. I have experienced that one.. squirrel bits in the brakes].
Gives a place for all the pretentious stuck up too much money for their own good moonbats to go live and be starbucks superior over each other, and keeps them out of the other areas of the nation where we have reasonable costs, real yards, and a lot less idiots. Double plus bonus that they live in massive earthquake potential country. Once all their crap million buck and up houses fall down and completely bankrupt the insurance industry, we'll get rid of that notion and back to some normal human sanity, because you won't be seeing lenders lending money on such over priced nonsense, nor any insurers covering them.
Oh look, happening already. Their real estate flipping based on some ludicrous fantasy of their "worth" and ARMS is biting millions of them and leaving deep fang marks. Good. We need a lot less "something for nothing get rich quick" grifters.
Electricity for just a couple of cents a kwh? Here in Maine, the price is more than six times that. My last bill, for 464 kwh, was $70.34, 31.44 for delivery and $38.90 for supply. That windmill looks like a pretty good deal to me!
Where I live I can buy Green Power from the grid. It's much easier then a windmill, and I don't have to put up with a big fan on my property.
No, I will not work for your startup
Read this month's magazine from http://www.homepower.com/. Also you can read this: http://www.homepower.com/files/beginner/WindPowerB asics.pdf to get the basics of wind power.
In my opinion. If you're looking for financial benefits. Forget it. This isn't a buy it, set it up and forget it kind of thing. You also need to factor in the cost of maintenance. You'll need to start looking at the appliances you have. Does that old fridge you have need to go because its such a pig when it comes to electricity? How about that washer and dryer or the furnace that heats your home? Oh, and don't forget that air conditioner. Replace those filament bulbs with energy efficient ones too. Don't forget the cost of the batteries when they decide to give up. You think the wind is going to be there all the time? You'll need them for that and when the main power grid decides to take a break for a few hours.
Thinking about selling off the excess power you make to the utilities? Yea, sure. They don't pay you anything for that power except to maybe offset your bill when your meter runs backwards. Even then, most put a limit as to how much you can contrubute to the grid. I think here in California, Southern California Edison puts a limit of 10Kw (someone will correct me if they changed it). The average family home that hasn't taken steps to get energy efficient appliances and lighting uses 5Kw/h on up. If you get a system, only get a size that will generate what you need. Any excess is just waste and you won't make any money from it. Sorry but the power companies don't want you making a profit off of them.
If you want to do this because you'll feel better that you're consuming green energy and you're interested in the technology. Then go for it and you'll have the bragging rights that most people don't.
Just my 2 bits.
Specks
Batteries not included
Where the heck do you live? Two cents per KWH? And only another penny after the first 800KWH? That's about a fifth of the price we pay. I'd put up one of those things (maybe on the roof of the apartment building???) for nine cent power. I turn off machines in the summer and power everything up in the winter. The cost of running them is too high at nearly ten cents/KWH. You might want to consider renting out space for a server farm... :)
I was thinking that the cheapest rate were in Quebec and Oregon. I live in Quebec (canada) and I pay around 4 or 5 cents a Kw for the first 30 Kw per day and then a little bit lower than 6 cents after that ($0.056). I believe in Oregon or Washington (state) it is a little bit cheaper than that. It is why Google build a massive server farm over there. Anyway it is impossible to pay around 2 cents a kw anywhere in North America or somebody else subsidize it. My $0.02!
basically wind costs about $1.50 per watt rated power at the moment, not sure what that is in actual average power in average wind conditions (whatever they might be...), but it sounds pretty darn cheap to me. My house needs about 1kw average power, so $1500 * (rough guess out of my ass) 2 (rated = 1/2 average power) = 3-4k, my electric bill is over 1k per year, so this will pay itself off in a few years.
add on a decent inverter $1k+, battery storage for a day or so $2k, and I'd be mostly off grid for about 6-7k, payoff time, 5-6 years.
watch "the money masters" on google video
Not to run down early adoption, we need people to try, but the average man or woman would be better off helping the overall process instead suffering the cuts of the bleeding edge.
A cheaper environmentally-friendly option in many locations is to buy "green power", where your power provider agrees to buy some or all of your power from renewable sources. Where I live (Victoria, Australia), there are rules about how this works, so that the company can't just count the renewables (such as existing hydro) that they would have used anyway; they have to buy additional renewables and less fossil fuel. I buy green power. Alternatively, there are companies selling "carbon offsets", where they take your money and invest it in otherwise economically unviable projects that reduce carbon emissions.
Neither has the satisfaction of being able to point to your own environmentally-sound generator in your backyard, but they (assuming that the scheme you sign up to is administered properly) can achieve the same net effect at lesser cost.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Do these backyard thingies run linux?
The reason is the "cost of delivery" line item you see in your bill, whatever that means. Basically, we still don't have a good means of storing large amounts of energy, other than pumping water backwards up hydroelectric dams, where they may evaporate if they sit too long, plus there is relatively limited capacity. To take your wind electricity, have it cross miles of copper and high voltage transformers with core losses, you're looking at quite a bit of resisitive drop, then the pumped storage part is only 60%-80% DC to DC efficient, then the current has to come back to you, crossing miles of lines again. Those wires and equipment represent quite a bit of cost, as far as capital goes that could generate interest if it sat in a bank account as money, plus there are maintenance/replacement costs, all the electric company workers have to be paid too, etc. So the "cost of delivery" is a pretty big line item. If you can cut yourself from the electric company and store your electricity locally, then you'd be independent, but there is still something good about having an electric grid in the world, because even if home owners could generate all the power they need from wind+solar, most industrial sites just don't have the room or even desire to mess with the whole thing. Inasmuch residential customers drop out of the electric grid, there is less of an "economy of scale" and the grid becomes more costly per consumer. However if your generated power was sold directly to your neighbour, and it had to cross very little wiring, then the cost of delivery shouldn't be such a big factor. You could have local neighbourhoods trade power amongst each other, and maintain their own electric wiring, then have a meter at the local transformer station to see how much actually crosses over to the "natural monopoly's" grid, then you could sell/trade at lower prices, but good luck hiring debt collectors when one of your neighbour's doesn't pay. If you had locally elected oversears with a central switchboard where the "village" can vote to disconnect someone, that'd be one thing, but that's like getting up too much in your neighbours finances and private life, he can't jog with his dog down the street, unlike in case of the electricity company disconnecting him and nobody on the street knowing about it. To make things fair, if there is a need for electricity when it is generated, in your neighbourhood, the electric company should charge less "cost of delivery" fees, at least as far as ohmic-pumpedstorage-ohmic efficiency drops are concerned, the worker's salaries and the maintenance/sunk capital cost is still there. They would need locally installed power flow monitors with accurate accounting to tell how far your power went up the chain each time, say 60% of it was sold 3 houses down, 40 % left the neighbourhood, but 20% of that was sold in a neighbouring city, and say only 5% ended up in a pump storage reserve. This would require an accurate timelog of how much electricity was generated when, say with a 30 second update interval, that talks to a local transformer site power meter about the current price factor, as in how much electricity is flowing in/out, how much is locally consumed(when all the meters talk back on the wire reporting their own status), and that local master transformer meter can talk up to it's masters and so on up the chain, and obtain the current factor of how far electricity travels. There'd be need for a communication network over the electric wire, being able to bear enough subjects per transformer station. Right now we have reliable analog summing powermeters, this whole new "instant update technology" over where the electricity is getting consumed and generated would have to be created, and just imagine the bugs when your electric grid goes down not because there isn't enough electricity or there is a storm that broke the lines, but because some idiot hacked into the system, or there is a bug somewhere, or one of your neighbour's meters is buggy and keeps sending wrong info, messing up the whole accounting scheme. But it's still something interesting to think about.
I'm being mean here but there are deliberate blinders going on here, making the vendor, the IEEE spectrum writer and the Slashdot editor forget basic math. The vendor's motive, I understand, but there is no excluse for IEEE writers and slashdot people.
$9,000 for 100,000 khw over 20 years is NOT 9 cents/kwh. Why? Anybody with a mortgage knows that money paid over time is vastly different from money today. The unit presumably delivers 5,000 khw per year or about 13.7 khw per day. So at 7% interest, that's 16.7 cents/kwh, which is more than just round-off error.
And frankly, for the vendor to say it's 9 cents is very close to fraud. The power plants don't amortize without considering the time value of money when they work out the costs.
Another way to think about it. Put the $9,000 in the stock market. Historical rate of return is about 10%. That means you would pull out $900 per year -- while still keeping the principal intact, except for inflation. At California's 13 cents/khw from the grid, that buys you 6900khw, assuming the price stays even. Your wind turnbine gets you only 5000khw. It doesn't pay for itself in 20 years, it never, ever pays for itself, no matter how long it lasts. And you still have the principal when you are done.
I'm all for renewable energy. But I hate it when people also for renewable energy either get stupid or just plain lie to make it seem better than it is.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
If you can, you might consider a hybrid system. In many areas of the country (such as here in central NJ), wind and solar complement each other well.
e rsion1/US/code/pvwattsv1.cgi can help
h tml
Solar works best in the peak summer months, but not as well given the shorter days and lower sun in winter. [Although there are also less leaves in winter and less water in the atmosphere, which helps since there's less blockage.] Sites like PVWatt http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/calculators/PVWATTS/v
Wind often works best in winter since wind speeds are higher during that time. Check the wind speed graphs of your local airport. http://www.city-data.com/city/Trenton-New-Jersey.
I would suggest that you build your own windmill. You should be able to build one with similar power for under a $1000 (I think), or maybe a bit more if you need to buy tools like a welder and such, but then you have an excuse to buy tools too. Check out Other Power for more details.
what sig?
I know I have thought about this a lot - I live in Arizona where energy bills are sky high and the sun is always out. Some of the power plants around here have a few solar panels but I always wonder why there isn't more of a movement toward "backyard" solar in some of the sunnier states around the U.S. I sometimes think a big obstacle is that power companies have a lot of the technology and don't want to distribute it because obviously power companies in Arizona would be in trouble if everyone had solar panels.
Now I think this is a nice post. Math and all... made me think. I would definately go wind power up in this just to fight the organics, but I don't want to pay more for it either... oh well.
What part of the country do you live in? 1.2cents per kwh is a great bargin. In Texas it ranges from 5 to 6 for the energy charge in cheap parts of the state on up. In addition recall that a windmill will eliminate the distribution charge also since you won't be using the lines either. If your full charge for electricty is in the 2 cent range including distribution you have a very sweet deal. Using rates in a municipal coop in texas its about 8 cents including both componets, so the economics come out much better.
Here in Portland (OR), the land of plenty hydroelectricity and future home of Google-farm, we pay 8.4(use)+0.32(transmission)+2.3(distribution) = 11c/kWh, which is more than the 9c/kWh figure.
....
That said, real-estate here is pretty-pricey and the neighbors might object to a 30-ft tall turbine. Then again, it is mighty windy down by the Columbia Gorge
The previous poster makes a good (and interesting) point about money spent over time, but he's not also factoring in the fact that power company energy costs are likely to go up dramatically over the next 20 years as oil and other energy sources become more scarce, and environmental factors will also drive up the cost of energy from your power company. I suspect you won't be paying 13c/khw for the next 20 years....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
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Windmills are gay. What are you going to get next, wooden shoes? Leather pants?
Grow up.
I just bought a house. I was going to join some local organization, just to see what it's all about. And yeah, this article caught my attention -- can I power my wireless APs and maybe a PC using a windmill? I'm thinking of building a windmill in the back yard. It might even be lime green.
Of course, there is a Verizon cell tower in my neighbor's yard. There's the tower, a generator next to it, an outside equipment rack with its own AC, and then the brick building with two ACs. I believe that any windmill that I'd install would be less noisemaking than the air conditioners of the Verizon tower.
The tesla-coil, on the other hand -- that is gonna be *loud*.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
In my area (upper midwest) there is a service through the power company that let's you specify that your power comes from only windpower. With Xcel energy it's called Windsource. How it works is that they know how much power they are expected to produce from the wind farms in the area and then they sell that quantity of power to people interested in a cleaner source. The power still comes from the plant down the street, I just pay more for it. You pledge in 100kWh blocks and my monthly usage is between 500 and 700 so to make sure I always am covered by Windsource, I pledged 1MWh. On my bill it works out as charged and debited for the fuel cost, and then charged for the difference between wind and coal produced power. In the end I only pay for what I used, and it's just an extra 8 to 10 dollars a month. I just like knowing I'm promoting cleaner power.
Last year they did walk-by visual inspections and sent out notices of what you had to fix. For us it was things like reseeding the front lawn. They sent out letters after a couple of weeks threatening to charge people penalties if they didn't follow the notices. I responded by asking when were they going to reseed the common areas which were down to mud and gravel in a lot of places, and when were they going to fix the sidewalks which were so dilapidated as to be dangerous? Lots of evasive mumblings...
Now we're trying to sell our house. One couple who came through recently loved our house but picked another one a few miles away. They said the Homeowner's Association didn't take sufficient care of the common areas.
I loathe our HOA.
Alternative Electric power is only cost effective where conventional power is unavailable. It will cost you to have electric power delivered 20 miles down that long dirt road to the cabin in the woods. In that instance alternative energy for the cabin becomes a necessity. Coincidentally you are likely to have less zoning and regulation issues related to your neighborhood.
Not only is there an issue with the ROI for windpower, it is not even feasibile unless you live in certain parts of the country where sufficient air movement can consistently provide power. Wind charts are available to help determine whether wind power is a candidate for you.
Under other circumstances, dollars should be applied to improving usage of the $0.02/KWHr energy that you have. The most effective alternative energy application is direct solar heating of water or air (no conversion losses). Resistance heating is a real electric power burner. Consider installing a hybrid solar water heating system instead.Regards - FutureExpressionist, MSEE, PE
Campfires anytime.
Loud music outdoors is fine as long as it's rock, blues or country. Dance music and rap should be enjoyed in the privacy of one's own home so noone else has to hear it. After midnight, turn it down to a reasonable level.
Every year there will be a BBQ cook-off, the winner gets a fridge full of beer of his/her choice and bragging rights for the next year.
No alcohol purchases larger than a half keg unless all association members are invited.
(age: 32, home: inside the beltway, homeowners association: none, was this a deciding factor in buying the house?: yes)
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
What do you do if there is a repaire that is necessary on a shared piece of the building? Who pays to fix it?
Hmm, there is about $40 on that bill that you will have to pay even if your grid electricity use is zero.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Yeah, it is JUST like the "Don't like your job? Just quit!" arguments. I have about as much sympathy for the plight of the poor beleaguered homeowner dealing with the mean old HOA as the average owning class asshole has for the plight of the common working man, and I am throwing their arguments back in their face. Because most of the clowns whining about HOAs are the same fools who use those "Don't like your job? Just quit!" arguments. If you aren't one of those fools, this thread is not meant for you, and I'm sorry if I offended you.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You're not proving your point wth your giant penis flowers
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
For me, cost of electricity in the base-tier is 11 cents/kWh (PG&E). The top tier rate I'm paying is over 30 cents/kWh. That's 4 tiers up from base tier I think. I don't know if there are any tiers above the 30 cents/kWh tier.
I looked in to getting solar panels, but even at 30 cents/kWh the break even point is way too far in the future. A $9K windmill might be worth it, but the neighbors would likely complain, and when electricy is needed most (summer) there is usually barely any wind.
The previous poster makes a good (and interesting) point about money spent over time, but he's not also factoring in the fact that power company energy costs are likely to go up dramatically over the next 20 years as oil and other energy sources become more scarce, and environmental factors will also drive up the cost of energy from your power company. I suspect you won't be paying 13c/khw for the next 20 years....
In the next 20 years, the only energy source that has the potential to become much more scarce is oil. Natural gas is farther away (add another two decades or so), and coal is at least a century. So is uranium. If you look at the form of energy that can be scaled up, hydro is reaching saturation, but we still have plenty of room in wind, solar, fossil fuel, and nuclear. My take is that energy prices aren't going to go up much unless we have a huge jump in demand. I don't think even a massive switch to electric or hydrogen cars would do that. That would just double electricity demand. Most energy sources can scale that much easily. Maybe something like self-replicating machinery.I might like to meet her! (is she married?) :)
I know some windmills can get noisy, especially in high winds. Of course, at 80 MPH, the wind is going to howl through the trees as well. I'm not an airfoil expert, but it seems to me a well-designed modern windmill should have a minimal noise level - no more, and probably much less, than a tree of the same size. The bottom line on the noise is that the sound is evidence of lost energy. As I recall, the maximum theoretical efficiency of a wind generator's airfoil is about 70%. (I took a quick peak at Wikipedia on Wind Generators, but didn't see a minimum number right away.)
Every airfoil has an optimal wind speed where it has maximum efficiency (and minimum noise). Resonance is a difficult problem - whistling, moaning, howling, rumbling. Otherwise the noise would just be 'whoosh'. I expect that windmills that dynamically adjust the blades to wind speed, and even fold them back at high speeds, would generate less noise and survive high winds easily.
Psychoacoustics may help in this area - some sounds are less intrusive and irritating than others. For example, the ocean surf is generally considered pleasing up to some level, but freeway noise is generally irritating at all levels though the two noises are similar. Rather than attempting solely to suppress windmill noise, perhaps designers could adjust the type of noise to fit into the natural environment and be more pleasing. It should be easier to 'tune' the sound output spectrum than to remove the sound entirely.
WRT batteries, interesting new fuel cell technologies are appearing lately, using many different 'fuels' - ammonia, for example. I wonder if some of these might be workable for large scale home-built static systems like this? Some such technologies are bidirectional - the fuel can be recharged. I also wonder if it's possible to 'homebrew' large zinc-air batteries or other non-lead-containing batteries. I don't worry so much about toxics like ammonia or sulfuric acid, as they pose only a short term risk, which can be minimized by careful handling.
If your aunt has enough acreage, she might even consider a methane or alcohol digester - a biomass fermentation processor. She could pile a couple of acres' worth of grass and leaves in and get enough fuel to heat and cook with for a year.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Um, I wrote quite explicitly "assuming the price stays the same." You act as though I'm not aware that there will be price changes.
/. crowd to point it out after several hours, too. This crowd should be above average in math skills.
Nobody, however, knows just what those changes will be, or even which direction. To some extent you can mitigate that on the futures market.
But in any event, the price of the wind turbine is likely to remain fairly stable, or even drop. Ditto for PV panels and other alternative energy sources. So the clear path from an economic standpoint would be to buy cheaper power elsewhere, and then if, and only if the price of that got higher than the turbine, go and buy the wind unit -- which is probably even cheaper because higher volumes of sales will lower the price quite a bit.
Of course, then you would correctly also have to judge the risk of grid power dropping back down in price.
The core point remains true. It is close to fraud to call it 9 cents/kwh, if you're selling it.
Now the truth is it may not be fraud because I see this "divide total cost by total kwh" error really, really often. What amazes me is that people who have mortgages (which includes almost anybody installing a solar panel system or wind turbine at their house) continue to fall for it. It may be a deliberate blindness -- I want to believe that my renewable energy system is saving me money. But I was also the first person in the
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
...the time value of money and maintenance. $9,000 over 20 years is actually more like $12,500 in real dollars, assuming 3% inflation. So you're up to $0.125/kWh right there. Add in maintenance costs over that 20-year period, and you could be paying double that figure.
$0.25 per kWh is not a good deal. It's the same basic reason we all don't run our own backyard generators - one huge power plant is far more efficient than a bunch of small ones.
Now, huge industrial wind farms are another matter... those achieve costs per kWh closer to traditional coal-fired generation, but the variable load they introduce to power grids is very problematic from a distribution and demand forecasting standpoint. Lots of reserve conventional generation must be kept on-line to handle changing conditions. See the obligitory Wikipedia link.
When oil prices hit $100 a barrel, it'll be feasible. (Just a rough estimate. Fill in your own number with real research.)
If you're asking, "Is it feasible?" today and you don't see the neighbors building new towers in their backyards -- the answer is blatently obvious.
+++OK ATH
... that almost certainly are priced much less than the SkyStream mentioned in the article. A smaller (and less elevated) device probably can't power a house by itself, but in combination with solar and other devices - a holistic approach? - it would prove very useful and cost-effective... not to mention much less conspicuous. Can you name me a homeowners' association that would approve a SkyStream within its boundaries?
What universe are living in? My bill starts at $.13 and might reach $.10 if I use more than 2000 KW.
Here is a manufacturer of 12V and 24V DC cooling fans, up to 1.2kW:
http://www.electricfanengineering.com/offroad.htm
All you need is one of these 24V units, and a charge control circuit. The biggest one would provide several hundred Watt in a stiff breeze.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Do some math. $9000 for 100,000 kWh over 20 years (not counting battery replacement, etc. I am sure):
There are 175,200 hours in 20 years. So your continuous output would be around 500w... which is about the same as my computer power supply. Granted, if you are typical you will use less sometimes, but lots more other times.
Not worth $9000.
But you do not need to spend $9000. You can do the same thing for about 1/10th that amount!
You can make some quite efficient S- (or Savonius-) rotor-type generators out of a few 55-gallon drums, used bicycle parts, and refurbished alternators from your local junkyard. Rotors might not be as efficient as those multi-thousand-dollar prop jobs, but so what? They only cost a few bucks!
Other than batteries (you will want quality batteries), the only place you should need to spend real money is on your electronics. You should get or build high-quality regulator and monitoring equipment for battery charging, and definitely use quality inverter(s) for converting to line power.
With this setup, you need not worry about the life in kWh! If a generator breaks down, fix it for a few more dollars. Bicycle wheels, sprockets, chains, and alternators are dirt cheap.
The "alternative energy" idea would take off a lot faster if suppliers were not blatantly milking the idea and inflating prices.
I think if you build your own with surplus parts you can do better.
9 cents/kwh is just a back-of-the-envelope calculation.
Obviously, you could get more formal, and start considering the projected rate of inflation, bank interest rates, and returns on the stock market.
People can, and do, consider these things when they're taking out mortgages on $100,000 homes.
But for a $9,000 wind turbine, that seems like overkill.
I'd like to see exactly what savings account gives you 7% interest a year.
I'm also curious why you decided to ignore taxes and inflation.
Nobody, however, knows just what those changes will be, or even which direction. To some extent you can mitigate that on the futures market.
China has somewhere around 3 times the population of the US. India has a pretty hefty amount too, although I don't remember the exact number offhand. India especially will be a problem in the future because of geometric population growth-- they have little to no birth control.
Both of these countries are industrializing. And so are a lot of other places in the world.
An informed person can make an educated guess that oil, gas, and coal will be much more expensive in the future.
Even today, oil companies are going after resources that would have been too expensive to go after in the past. Eventually, there will be some theoretical point where the energy spent getting the resources out of the ground and refining them will be more than the energy gained by doing so, and people will start using renewable energy. What the earth will look like at that point, I leave up to your imagination.
"Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental." -Slashdot