Domestic Wind Power – A Practical Solution For Cutting Electricity Bills

Domestic wind power offers the chance of dramatically reducing electricity bills and helping to save the planet. Start-up costs are often a barrier to people wanting to generate their own ‘green’ electricity. However, there are ways to keep initial costs low enough for many more people to benefit.

Cutting monthly bills by harnessing renewable sources of free electricity sounds like a dream come true. And for many households it is. But many others are put off by high capital costs and confusion over the practicalities of implementing a ‘green’ energy system.

For most homes, the only two realistic ways of generating your own electricity are solar panels and wind turbines. Enthusiastic fitness fans may be able to connect their treadmill to produce power while they get fit. But for most of us, just keeping a light bulb working would take too much effort!

Solar panels (or photovoltaic cells, as they are more correctly known) are a discrete and effective way for generating free electricity. Their efficiency is constantly increasing, and in built up areas they may be the only practical option you have. A large wind turbine in your 20ft garden will not endear you to your neighbours! On the other hand they probably would not even notice if you replaced your roof tiles with solar panels.

The main disadvantage of solar panels is cost. Not only are the panels themselves expensive per unit of electricity produced, but you will also need to have some storage capacity, as you normally need more electricity when it’s dark or winter than when it’s sunny. Nevertheless, they can provide a good solution in the right location. And there are many places where you can receive significant grants towards the costs of installing them, reducing the initial financial burden.

Domestic wind turbines, on the other hand, are more suited to more rural locations. Some authorities recommend a land area of 1 acre (0.4 hectares) as a practical minimum. Certainly you need some space between the turbine and houses or trees as these create turbulence that reduces the amount of usable energy you can extract from the wind.

Wind turbines are normally capable of generating a greater proportion of the power that a home needs than solar panels – often between 50% and 90%. The exact amount will depend on the local average wind speed. The amount of electricity produced by a wind generator is proportional to the wind speed cubed. Put another way, a 10% increase in the wind speed will increase the output of electricity by 33%. Therefore you need pretty good information about wind speed in your locale to enable you to decide how large a wind generator you will require.

Again you will probably need some kind of storage for the excess electricity you produce, but as the wind is usually more intense in winter, offsetting with a utility company is probably less attractive unless you generate significantly more power than you use.

Domestic wind power is now a practical solution for many of us. And if you know how, you can reduce the capital expense to a reasonable level – sometimes below $ 200 – making it much more accessible to ‘normal’ people.