Install Home Windmills

[Black Magic]

How much would it cost to buy and install a home windmill for a 3500 sqft house?

I'd be looking to run all of my electricity through it. Any help would be great.
http://ipodnanogenerations.com/ipod/index.jpg

[Ben Colla]

The size of your house is irrelevant. Much more relevant is

1. How much electricity in kW/h do you use in a year
2. Where do you live? (uban environment = go solar panels)
3. How high can you mount a turbine (this is mostly a legal question).

Look at
http://www.greenpowertalk.org/showthread.php?t=12908
http://www.solacity.com/SiteSelection.htm
http://www.solacity.com/SmallWindTruth.htm

[Black Magic]

Thanks for your reply. I am going to read on your links then.
Thanks again.

[Penny Walters]

I'm not sure I have ever seen a wind turbine constructed for a home. Is it that practical?

[Chris Olson]

I'm not sure I have ever seen a wind turbine constructed for a home. Is it that practical?

I build residential off-grid turbines. They are practical. We have lived off-grid for almost a decade and better than 65% of our power comes from wind. But they have to be installed properly and do not generate significant power at wind speeds below 10-12 mph.

It is not practical to power any home in its entirety in most cases, including completely off-grid homes, with wind power. A combination of solar and wind power should be used (or hydro if you have it available). In the case of off-grid homes, the RE sources will also be supplemented with an appropriately sized standby generator.
--
Chris

[Aawebdev Piter]

The installation of a home wind turbine is not considered very cheap; however, it turns out a huge money saver in the long run when the cost of producing power becomes zero. It has been observed lately that people are implementing wind power solutions even at places with the average speed of power less than 11 miles per hour. Ideally, the average speed of wind at the site you propose to set up the home wind turbine at should be 11 miles per hour, but a slightly lower average is also reaping good results for people.

[Chris Olson]

The installation of a home wind turbine is not considered very cheap; however, it turns out a huge money saver in the long run when the cost of producing power becomes zero.

The only time wind power is a huge money saver is when you live off-grid and standby generator time costs 80-90 cents/kWh. I recently put up a new 80 foot self-supporting tower for one of my turbines and the cost of this tower installation alone is about $12,000 - and that's just the tower with no turbine on it:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DezBCpc8L3U/UAqWga5_VtI/AAAAAAAAGZ8/AUNIUEcBzPs/s640/100_1904.JPG

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-j8nQwBzJAIQ/UAqWgoDllpI/AAAAAAAAGaE/CagDXM2lHlc/s640/100_1905.JPG

Last year, this turbine on a 72 foot guyed tower generated 3,914 kWh. If we had grid power here and could buy it for 15 cents/kWh, that means the turbine develops about $587 worth of electricity per year. At that rate, it takes over 20 years just to pay for the tower.

However, we live off-grid and with today's fuel prices standby generator power is not cheap. If I had to generate that electricity with the generator, then the turbine develops $3,100 worth of electricity in a year, and has less than a 5 year payback.

Grid-tied wind power is not financially feasible in any installation I have ever seen. Wind power is best suited to off-grid homes.
--
Chris

[Rob Beckers]

Chris, nice tower & turbine!
I've been following your story on the otherpower board. Very interesting.

My experience echos what you're saying. Only a lucky few that live in very, very windy places have any chance of payback from a wind turbine, unless there are government incentives to artificially lower the price.

A turbine and tower like yours, when bought commercially and installed by a business, would cost (realistically) around $25K (give or take a few bucks). If I take our own average electricity price here, of $0.15/kWh, that would mean it would have to produce 167,000 kWh over 20 years, or 8,350 kWh/year, to break-even over 20 years. That does not take any maintenance and repairs into account, and I can guarantee anyone there will be quite a bit of that over 20 years. You have a 3.5m turbine on top, and when something that size would be grid-tied at 30% overall efficiency (which would be pretty good!) it would take an annual average wind speed of 8.1 m/s (or 18.1 mph) for an inland site to produce that much. Heck, you won't find an inland site with that kind of wind, the only place will be right at the coast of some vicious ocean (North Atlantic and such)...

The realities of small wind turbines!

-RoB-

[Chris Olson]

A turbine and tower like yours, when bought commercially and installed by a business, would cost (realistically) around $25K (give or take a few bucks)


My DWP350 turbine is $2,942. A DWP FS-80 tower (shown in the photos), with an engineering stamp, is going to run around $15,000 installed. But that does NOT include a battery bank, inverter, wiring in your home, or other associated systems that are required to actually USE the turbine.

So I'm thinking your figure of $25 Grand is right about on the money.


The realities of small wind turbines!


There's a lot of reasons to buy a wind turbine. If you're off-grid the reason is pretty obvious - wind turbines are WAAAY cheaper to run than standby generators, and wind and solar power compliment each other.

If you have grid power you might like to buy one because you're "going green", generating your own power, it provides some independence from the utility company, or maybe you just plain want one because it's cooler than hell.

As long as you don't try to convince your wife (or anybody else) that a wind turbine is going to save you money, your reason for buying one is probably justified. Technically, the wind turbine WILL save you money on your utility bills. But it will NOT generate electricity as cheaply as you can buy it for from the utility.
--
Chris