wind turbines


A mere breath of a breeze disturbs the quiet of autumn in south London and the wind turbine on the gable of Donnachadh McCarthy's home turns lazily. The morning sun casts shadows from solar panels onto the walls of the house and filters through the windows into his living room. "I'm in surplus. I am now providing money to the grid," he said with a grin, gesturing at a red light winking on the wall that marks the progress of his domestic power station. "I have exported 20 percent more electricity than I've imported this year ... the average carbon footprint is 8.5 (metric) tons in the EU, whereas mine is less than half a ton." McCarthy has long tried to stay at the forefront of British green power generation.

When I first bought my house 3 years ago I looked into buying a wind turbine but it was way too expensive at that time. Over $10,000 for something big enough to do any good and with an additional cost for a panel to hook it into the grid, should I want to do that. That kind of cost was just beyond my meager means of the time.

The story I have linked to above indicates that the costs are coming down on the Continent to the $2,000 range. If the government, state or federal, would also give tax incentives to install turbines I'd be quite willing to spend that much. I love the idea of generating some of my own electricity. The old turbines were too bulky an noisy but the newer generation is more compact and neighbor friendly. Since I live in a small housing subdivision that is in the middle of what used to be a big cow pasture there's often plenty of wind here.

The picture over there is an example of a British kit (600 pounds, about $1,150 US) for a small rooftop turbine. It would only be entry level since it doesn't produce much power but I love the idea. Since I have an acre of land I could go for something bigger.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I love this. We just watched a show where the house meter went backwards. They were putting more into the grid than they were using.

Someday we will all have them...
tiff said…
Um, Utenzi? This is about windmills......I totally called your bluff dude!

:>
utenzi said…
They both exit wind, Tiff
Anonymous said…
When we had our country acre or so, we looked into photovoltaic cells, wind power and ground source heat pumps to take us off the grid as much as we could. It's such a dreamy idea and as price comes down its getting more and more doable. Imagine if a major developer did tract housing like that. Economy of scale could ratchet up.
Lois Lane said…
Wind farms are becoming a big thing here. Lots of folks are complaining about the shadow effect, which I don't even know what that means.
Hey, where are all of the beautiful fall-like pictures??? Have you and the lovely lady not been on a hike lately?? Get to steppin' mister! We had no fall here. Snow today. OCTOBER FRIGGIN' 12th and we got snow! uggh
A familly friend has a wind turbine. Growing up, I would spend hours watching it and listening to the noises it makes... totally unaware of its actual purpose...
Neighbourg though he was a weirdo for having such a thing on his property ; now they all seem to think he is clever !

Michele sent me again ; have a nice weekend !
Anonymous said…
We don't have a home wind turbine, but there's 100s of them on the hills here in Wales.

Here from Michele's :) I thought I'd comment on this post since I'd already commented on the most recent :D
Windfarms! We have a few here in Pennsylvania. I'm obsessed with them. I love to photograph them.
Panthergirl said…
What a fantastic idea. If the government were only *really* interested in helping people conserve energy...

Here by way of michele again!

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