Wind Energy?

[Guest ncm2169]

I recently purchased some acreage here in the "rural" Twin Cities area, and I am exploring the possibilities of using part of the land for wind energy generation. I'm curious - does anyone here have any type of experience with this form of alternative energy?

 

And before anyone tries to be cute, I'm not talking about farting. x(

[Guest msclonly]

I am wondering how many units you need to produce 500 KW a month?

 

I have Solar Elect, which produces about 560 Kw a month on average for the year. The cost will take over 20 years to recover. The saving grace, that is at current KW pricing, and I am expecting cost of electricity to go up up and away during that time. The other benefit is there should be no blackouts when the sun is shining here during heavy use in the community/state.

 

Finally it was considered a better investment then the stock market and should be recovered in the sale price of the home.

[Luv2play]

I have considered wind energy for my country home which is on a large lot of over 4 acres. The wind unit could be placed at the rear of the property which is away from the lake and far enough away from the house not to be visible to me. But it would be visible to my neighbour whose family room and tennis court overlook my back property. I have not gone further from idle speculation since I imagine my neighbour would lick up a row.

 

This property and my condo in Montreal both are heated and air conditioned by electricity, no carbon fuels since Quebec derives virtually all of its power from hydro and a small amount of nuclear. As a result, the cost of power is relatively cheap by world standards and immune from the cost of oil. Currently I pay $0.0529 on the first 936kWh and $0.054 on the rest each two months (bills are bi-monthly).

 

I did a calculation on my condo using your savings of 560 kWh a month and came up with about $356 a year in savings. I don't know what your solar installation cost but I imagine it was in excess of $20,000. Wind power installation would be in the same range I believe. The latter only would work in rural areas though.

 

Electricity rates are tightly regulated in Quebec and the utility is publically owned. Increases average about the rate of inflation over time but have been going up more in recent years in view of the gap between electricity and other forms of energy costs. Given that 80 percent of households in Quebec heat with electricity (much higher than anywhere else in the country), I don't think I will be switching to anything off the grid for a long time, if ever in my lifetime.

[jameswilson]

If you haven't seen it already, the American Wind Energy Association has a good website that might be able to answer some of your questions...

 

http://www.awea.org/

[Guest ncm2169]

Thanks to all for your comments!! }(

[Guest Merlin]

If it will take 20 years to recover the cost, it is not better than the stock market as an investment.

[fedssocr1]

I'm sure there will be lots of local zoning laws you will need to look into.

 

Are you trying to build enough windmills to power your own home only? That seems to be relatively easy with a couple of turbines. I saw a program the other days with a house in Atlanta I believe which had one small turbine that produced about half of their electricity. I think it cost them something like $10K.

 

If you have a lot of land you might be able to lease it to a wind generating company if there are any in your area who could handle all of the hardware costs.

 

Good for you for thinking about this. My power provider has energy "choice" and I am on 100% wind energy. I am not absolutely sure how it works. I suppose the company either has their own wind farm in West VA or something or they simply do some sort of trading or buying of the power from some other company. The rate is only slightly higher than the regular option which I suppose is from a coal plant.

[Guest msclonly]

The SUN is very GOOD to me, when it shines!

 

Have had Solar electric for a couple of years and Solar 'warm' water in the summer for 10 years.

 

The cost of the Solar electric panels was ove $20,000. even with the Rebate prgram! Will not be recovered in my lifetime, unless I sell the house and get extra for the Solar installation, which I consider very plausible as the cost of a kw increases. Perhpas a better investment then the stock market, as the price of electricity increases with time. But I don't have to worry about Blackouts during the bright hot summer days. Produces more then enough electricity for our use and can even burn some of the extra production with front entry lighting at night. And I even 'donated' a 1000 kw to the State. My cost is about $5.61 per month for 'book keeping'! At least in Germany, they pay for the excess production in a hefty way, since electricity is so expensive there.

 

Germany has STOPPED all subsidies for installation due to the low returns. I had read about the much cheaper costing panels developed there a couple of years ago., which is where most of the cost is.

:-)

 

I like being wired to the Universe! :+

I like that, since it fits my other esoteric interests.