Home Wind-Power Turbines Make Headway

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."

Comments

Re:How green is it?

[CastrTroy]

There's probably a lot of other things you could do with the same money, like put in a ground-loop heating/cooling system. Of course, it wouldn't be as showy, and none of the neighbors would know you had it, so it's not the best way to show off how eco friendly you are, but would probably benefit you quite a bit more.

Re:How green is it?

[Overzeetop]

That's the great thing about the cost - it's already rolled into the price (the energy costs). Power from a major generation facility also factors in the capital costs of the plant (embodied energy) and the cost of fuel, plus the cost of maintenance and upgrades. The summary indicates a 20 year payback. That's usually done without the time value of money factored in, and without maintenance costs. Once you get beyond 7-10 years, it's generally not economical from a business point of view. Also, with a 20 year payback, it means that the energy embodied in the unit is nearly as high as the total lifetime output of the unit. Solar cells (photovoltaics) are the same way, though there's always a new technology right around the corner that plans to change that, but it never seems to be commercially viable.

Personally, I'm a practical green. I'm even willing to pay a small premium for green, provided it's equivalent to the non-green alternative. Being in the building industry, where we get greenwashing all over the place, so I tend to be skeptical. The old marketing slogan, "reduce, reuse, recycle" should have has a tag line, "in that order." I can't say I'm living it completely, but where it's practical I'm in. Wind turbines can be a positive source of energy, but they can also be an eyesore. They are also one step removed from the primary source of power - solar. Once we figure out how to efficiently capture and store even a small fraction of the 1200W/m^2 that hits the earth, we'll go a long way to solving our energy problems. It's as close to an ideal solution as can be had, though it's not without pitfalls. Still, I look forward to 40% efficient solar panels with lifetimes measured in at least years, if not decades, which can be bought for less than a penny per kilowatt hour. I'll use them to power my flying car ;-)