IXLR8
Veteran Member
I have been looking into wind power for my home to reduce my electrical bill, be a little 'green' and I think the price of oil is going back to $150/barrel not long after this worldwide recession is over. There are 3 residential wind turbines in my town, so I thought it might be econmically feasable. I attended a seminar, Wind Turbine 101, at the local alternative energy store. Solar Panels, Wind Generators, Solar Home Systems, Energy Efficient Appliances and Residential Panels They said that realistically less than 30% of the country has enough wind to be feasable. They said that a minimum yearly average of 12mph of wind was required to even think about setting up a wind turbine and have it be economiclly feasable and not just an expensive lawn ornament. Monopole towers to get the turbine up above the turbulance and into clean air will cost more than the turbine. Guyed pole towers are 1/5 the cost of monopole, but their footprint is huge and won't work for me. Clean air is important for power output and turbine/blade life. Local sales person told me that my home was a perfect candidate for wind, with an average wind speed of 9.8mph. Typical sales clown, that average wind speed is based on charts at 30meters, or almost 100ft up, he wants to sell me a 33ft tower. 
It will produce power, but nowhere near the turbine's rated specs. Increasing wind speed from 10mph to 12.2mph doubles power output. That tower is going to cost 3 times the generator. His claim is that the system's ROI is 5-6 years, the system warrantee is 5 years. I crunched the numbers and the best I can figure is payback in 22 years.. by then the turbine is toast. I did figure it based on reduction of my electrical bill, not the 'rebate' from the electrical company for selling my 'excess' power to them. There have been some huge strides made in solar PV cell technology and the costs on them are dropping rapidly. But you also need a power inverter which is still very expensive at the power levels for an average home. The batteries for backup are also expensive, limited life and need maintenance. From my research, Solar Domestic Hot Water is affordable and gives the best value, bang for your buck, shortest payback. Then comes windpower, but to justify you need to have some serious 'green' in you, it is just not ecomically justifyable in my book at this time. Solar PV is more expensive and harder to justify than wind at this point, but coming down fast.
Now if your home is more than 1/2 mile from grid power and you have to pay to bring the power lines to your house... this totally changes the equation and now wind and/or solar can be easily justified.
It will produce power, but nowhere near the turbine's rated specs. Increasing wind speed from 10mph to 12.2mph doubles power output. That tower is going to cost 3 times the generator. His claim is that the system's ROI is 5-6 years, the system warrantee is 5 years. I crunched the numbers and the best I can figure is payback in 22 years.. by then the turbine is toast. I did figure it based on reduction of my electrical bill, not the 'rebate' from the electrical company for selling my 'excess' power to them. There have been some huge strides made in solar PV cell technology and the costs on them are dropping rapidly. But you also need a power inverter which is still very expensive at the power levels for an average home. The batteries for backup are also expensive, limited life and need maintenance. From my research, Solar Domestic Hot Water is affordable and gives the best value, bang for your buck, shortest payback. Then comes windpower, but to justify you need to have some serious 'green' in you, it is just not ecomically justifyable in my book at this time. Solar PV is more expensive and harder to justify than wind at this point, but coming down fast. Now if your home is more than 1/2 mile from grid power and you have to pay to bring the power lines to your house... this totally changes the equation and now wind and/or solar can be easily justified.