Always looking for ways to save money, in some parts of the country electricity bills make up a huge portion of a family’s budget. Consider for example the staggering costs associated with cooling a home in Arizona or the homes in the plains of California! Although the homes themselves are most reasonably priced, the cost of keeping them at even marginally livable temperatures during the high noon hour of the middle of August costs a pretty penny, and solar energy as well as wind energy sellers are hoping to find eager buyers for their systems that offer freedom from the grid that currently translates into huge bills.
But is the installation of a residential wind turbine a windfall for homeowners? Could it be more like the siren song of the snake oil salesman who has found a new product to fulfill a perceived need?
A wind turbine looks a lot like a windmill and if you have ever driven in the plains of California you cannot help but have noticed large fields sporting hundreds of them lazily spinning in the breeze. It is true that these commercial applications have already be transformed into residential use, but at this point in time the cost for installing your very own home wind turbine is still somewhat cost prohibitive when compared to the cost of solar panels. On the other hand, home owners residing in an area that is devoid of a lot of sunlight but in the path of quite a bit of wind will notice that their available energy will indeed help them to get off the grid in its entirety or at least get them very close.
Of course, homeowners living in areas where wind and breezes are few and far between also can still realize some energy and money savings, but by and large their savings will be less and their dependence on the power grid will still be ever-present. Thus, for these consumers it will take a bit longer to realize any returns on their investment; in some cases it may even take decades for them to recoup their initial investment by virtue of the savings they will enjoy. On the other hand, if you remember that an installation of a wind turbine combined with the installation of a solar panel may very well be the perfect complementation needed to harness both solar and wind energies, you might have found a way to get off the power grid completely and not rely on only one source of renewable energy in the process!
Considered the best of both worlds, the use of a wind turbine in such a manner may require an initial investment that appears staggering, but once it is executed and up and running, the need for consumer behavior modifications may be minimal! In other words, while those still on the grid have to heavily curtail their use of the air conditioning system, those off the grid may have the luxury of running it all day long – depending on the size of the wind turbine and solar panel chosen.
