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Home Wind-Power Turbines Make Headway

Posted by samzenpus on from the the-answer-is-blowing-in-the-wind dept.

Pickens writes "Wind turbines, once used primarily for farms and rural houses far from electrical service, are becoming more common in heavily populated residential areas as homeowners are attracted to ease of use, financial incentives and low environmental effects. Experts on renewable energy say a convergence of factors, political, technical and ecological, is causing a surge in the use of residential wind turbines, especially in the Northeast and California. "Back in the early days, off-grid electrical generation was pursued mostly by hippies and rednecks, usually in isolated, rural areas," said Joe Schwartz, editor of Home Power magazine. "Now, it's a lot more mainstream." Some of the new "plug and play" systems can be plugged directly into a circuit in the home electrical panel and homeowners can use energy from the wind turbine or the power company without taking action. Schwartz says that even with the economic benefits, it can take 20 years to pay back the installation cost. "This isn't about people putting turbines in to lower their electric bills as much as it is about people voting with their dollars to help the environment in some small way," he said."

3 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How green is it? by wvmarle · · Score: 4, Informative

    Plus you get free poultry delivered to your backyard. And that is not true. I recall a research being done by green groups in The Netherlands, where we have large wind parks in the northern part, mostly on the seashore of course. The idea was that those huge fast moving blades must be killing scores of birds.

    They found that is not the case. Birds hardly get killed by turbines - accidents happen of course, but are rare.

    The researchers thought that this is because of the noise those turbines make, even upwind this is audible to the birds at sufficient distance. So they just fly around them. The mortality was as low or lower than around power lines: those also kill birds that happen to fly into them.

    This result actually surprised the researchers, in a happy way of course. And the research being done by a.o. animal protection groups gives it quite some credit to me.

  2. Re:a little extra info by fredklein · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not always true. There are two types of 'buy back'- One (netmetering) uses one meter that can go in both directions. If you are using more than you are producing, the meter goes forward. If you are producing more, it winds Backward. If it ends up at at a higher number at the end of the period (month/quarter/year), you pay for the net amount you used. If it ends up at at a lower number, you do NOT get paid for the extra you gave them.

    The other way is to have 2 meters- one for what you use, and one for what you sell to them. Even though they only pay wholesale rates, it would be possible to sell them more than you use, and actually make money.

  3. Re:How green is it? by fredklein · · Score: 4, Informative

    Replying to myself to say:

    if the above system seems a bit costly, try this:

    $2,590 1 kW XL.1 Turbine, with PowerCenter
    $1,595 60 ft. Tilt-up Tower
    $450 .. 5.3 kWh Battery Bank (B220-4)
    $1,044 1,500 W Inverter System

    $5,679 Total Cost

    $5679 = 29318 kwh, which is 30 months payback.

    /of course 1000 watts is a little low for most people...