Personal wind turbines?

Recently the State of Wyoming passed a $4800 cash grant for the residential installation of a turbine. I have been considering installing a turbine for several years, but now seems to be a good time to seriously consider/install with this grant.
I live in an area which is considered "good" & a Wind Power Class of 4 (out of 7) by the U.S. Dept of Energy.
Here are some of the specifics....The unit + installation is a total of $13,500. With the $4,800 grant, it will cost me a TOTAL of $8,700. I am looking at the Skystream 3.7 that has a rated capacity of 2.4 kW & begins producing power in an 8mph breeze.
Just was looking for some additional input (good or bad) in these personal turbines before I take the "plunge". Your time & help is GREATLY appreciated!

Ain't it amazing how the government created the REA and put an end to wind generator technology,now they're paying folks to go back to it?

wind generators are great as long as you can keep them away from your house...that is unless you like hearing a HUEY hovering overhead 24/7.

Yep and all the local municipalities are starting to write up their laws/codes etc, so they can collect permit fees and or regulate same. New territory here, no laws or codes on the books in many places. Biggest problem I see is the delineation between sizes, relating to the permit process, say like ones for residential generation and ones for commercial operators, like the power companies, probably a good time to get involved at the local planning board/zoning board meetings etc.

Neighbors are in a whirlwind of an issue with that....

Town decided they needed to put up 2-5 big windmills to be green.

They decided to cross the county line, and come into my county, and condemn some farm ground and build some windmills. Meanwhile their own county has better wind locations and less population density which suits wind generaiton much better.

Been a big dustup over this.

The local town has discovered it's really cool to condemn land in other places to create benifits for the townfolk, and crap on rural folk who can't vote for or against them. Did it with a 80 mile long gas pipeline several years ago, did it this fall with an 11 acre power substation, and the 600 acre windmill deal.

Not good, Minnesota needs to step up to theplate & get this type of thing under control. It's allowing cities to dump on people outside their juriticion - ain't right.

The trouble with wind is it only produces when the wind blows, and bigger is always more efficient.

That makes the personal homeowner sized deals as just kinda toys, and there is always downtime for maitenence, etc - ok if you own 100 mills, a trouble if you own one. The govt dollars is nice, but the net result is that the million dollar plus each windfarms work out, the single small unit doesn't really reach it's potential.

--->Paul

expensive install, noisy operation, costly maintenance, low efficiency, unsightly; all work against them. next big bailout, the government will be paying to remove abandoned wind mill farms.

(quoted from post at 10:36:06 01/18/10) Recently the State of Wyoming passed a $4800 cash grant for the residential installation of a turbine. I have been considering installing a turbine for several years, but now seems to be a good time to seriously consider/install with this grant.
I live in an area which is considered "good" & a Wind Power Class of 4 (out of 7) by the U.S. Dept of Energy.
Here are some of the specifics....The unit + installation is a total of $13,500. With the $4,800 grant, it will cost me a TOTAL of $8,700. I am looking at the Skystream 3.7 that has a rated capacity of 2.4 kW & begins producing power in an 8mph breeze.
Just was looking for some additional input (good or bad) in these personal turbines before I take the "plunge". Your time & help is GREATLY appreciated!

Click to expand...

Sharpen your pencil and do the math. Compare to what your electricity is costing you now, and how many years it will be to break even on the cost of the turbine, and how much maintenance will be required before you get to the break even point. In my situation, it won't ever pencil out.

Are you looking at a grid inter-tie unite or a stand alone system?

I'm on grid and currently using about 250 KWH or less per month, which I consider close to utilizing a stand alone system coupled with a back up generator.

Here I believe I would have to pay for two meters to measure the KWH going from the grid and into the grid. Also sell at wholesale rates rather than retail and what I have to purchase at.

Have you also figured any federal tax breaks into the equation or are there currently any? I thought so.

Can I assume that you read Home Power magazine? Available on line at the link below.

For certain get the highest quality unit you can afford.
Home Power magazine

Use an online amortization calculator to figure out what it will cost versus what you would save. Figuring a very generous 6% interest rate, 20 year life, and ignoring maintenance you would need to save over $60 per month on your electric bill. That's not going to happen with a backyard unit.

A better use of your time would be to write your state representatives and tell them to quit throwing your tax dollars away on programs like this.
Amortization Calculator

That kind of eminent domain and subsequent land condemnation would irk me too, just too one sided, and controversial.

I attended a planning meeting at an adjacent town, at the request of a friend with land there. Right from the beginning, you need to get involved, the language of the laws they proposed was vague and was written in a circle in some areas, like the clear delineation of the sizes of these mills. I made some comments on this (some small independent local newspaper even included it in their article covering the meeting) and the town atty agreed to change the language, as it was, the towns inspector, could have made a homeowner subject to the more stringent requirements of a large commercial mill, even though that was not their intent, get a mean inspector or town official, was written in their favor or still not clear enough, why can't people keep it simple, this is why folks need to get involved at all levels, when you don't things like this fall to the wayside.

If you hadn't mentioned Minnesota,I'd have guessed you were in Allegan Michigan. A friend was here yesterday. Lives down there right where they want to put them. He is ALL would up about stopping them.

The only program I've seen for residential use is the one that was updated in December, 2009. "Sort of" pays $2000 per KW and the system can't be bigger than 20 KW. Some of the money is the so-called "stimulus" money coming from the US printing presses.

How it work is, 30% of total cost it taken off by Federal tax incentive. Not cash grant though, it's a tax credit. So, if you're looking at a system that costs $13,500, you pay up front, and then get reimbursed $4,050 from federal tax credits, even if it takes a couple of tax returns. Then, the State grant pays you $4800. So, if the State actually hands you a check for $4800 in timely fashion, you still have to cough up $8700. And, you'll probably have to pay income tax on the State grant, but that I'm not sure of. These things vary state to state.

I'm also wondering what good the wind power will do you, without grid-tie. Does it come with a battery bank and inverters? Here in NY, wind is sort of all or nothing. When the wind blows, you need a way to save the excess for future use. Otherwise, it's wasted. That's the nice thing about grid-tie.

One other thing. Most states with these programs use them as "make work" programs, and force you to use state-authorized installers who charge rediulous amounts of money. If you state allows "self install", then it might be a good deal. But if not, there is often nothing saved, due to the high labor charges and high mark-up on components. I used NYS and Fed incentives to put my system in, but it was a struggle to save any money using it. I basically hired myself out to an authorized intall company, as a sub-contractor at my own house and did most of the work myself.

It doesn't pencil out in anybody's situation.

It's just a question of how much taxpayer money can be used to fund the project to ensure profit is made somewhere along the line.

They built 60 of the big ones in the Shenandoah area in Pa, I went to check them out up close. They're very quiet in spite of their massive size.

Turns out the percentage of private money invested is somewhere near 2%.

98% or somewhere thereabouts is our tax money. These things are a bigger scam than "climate change" itself.

This particular unit that I am looking at says it is an "all-inclusive wind generator that comes with controls & inverter built in". The installer said that the power company charges $250 "net meter fee", which I am assuming is the grid-tie fee(?).

Here is the unit that I am looking at (Skystream 3.7) http://www.skystreamenergy.com/

Door County, WI is sooo wannabe green and they have windmills and a abundant ordinance. Here, on our Island, we've been able to keep them at bay by citing our cost of electricity less the infrastructure costs = 6 ¢/kWh.

That's six cents per kiloWatt Hour.

Because our electrical coop had to build the infrastructure and buys electricity just like a homeowner, there's no fancy bookkeeping tricks to hide the fact that a fool will not live long enough to pay off his windmill.

So a million dollar million watt windmill continually producing at full capacity would take how long to pay off????

What's funny about this thread is that most of you all have common sense and can see through all the hype and BS about wind power and realize that the only way putting up a windmill can even come CLOSE to being attractive is with a HUGE government subsidy. The economics are just not there. Yet, our politicians (especially the governor here in Michigan) all have jumped on the GREEN bandwagon and are pinning the future on crazy schemes like this. Want clean power? How about building a few nuclear power plants. Other countries do it.

So, if a bunch of guys/gals who type on a TRACTOR FORUM can figure out the math and determine it's a scam, why can't our elected politicians? (no insult intended). When they were told it's not economical, did they back off? No, they just threw money at it to try and make it LOOK economical. They need to quit using tax policy to try and engineer our society into the image they want. If windmills made economic sense, I am sure companies couldn't build them fast enough for us to buy them.

Same goes for the electric car (GM Volt in particular) You can buy a lot of gas with the $20,000+ premium you'll pay to drive a compact electric compact car instead of a gas compact car.

I have also thought about a wind generator, and the reviews I have read on the skystream system is that it does not really pay for itself, it is just a novalty item. Seams like alot of money to spend for a novilty item.

Sounds and looks great in government "green" campaigns and from your local wind turbine dealer.
You will learn how to deal with paperwork measured in pounds, not sheets. With ambiguous rules and hidden deadlines.
A nice hobby if you have time and money to spare with technical ability & tools.Or if living off the grid due to price of availability.

If you want to play and experiment 1st without getting in deep.
An old HD TV tower with added guy wires. A 12V deep cycle battery, a 1500W continuous inverter and this...
I'm going to try this one of these days as I live in one of the windiest spots in North America. Commercial Turbines all around here.

Item number: 200398794584 or the 48V version of Item number: 280447147650 so it charges at low wind speeds.

>I'm going to try this one of these days as I live in one of the windiest spots in North America.

I didn't realize you were in Washington DC!

--->Paul

Only thing my 'personal wind' ever generated was lonliness...

I don't know exactly what the regs are in your area. The Skystream 3.7 sells for around $6000, over the counter. It does have a built-in inverter, but I don't know the specs on it. Power Companies make their own rules about grid-tie, and they only allow certain inverters to feed power into the grid. Meeting power company grid specs often doubles or triples the price of an inverter.

In your case, the Skystream is $6000 and maybe $5500 if you shop around. But then, if not grid-tie, you'll probably need a battery bank. And a pole to mount it on, etc. It makes no sense to have it unless you can make use all the power when the wind blows hard.

Have you considered solar instead? Solar is often more cost-effective to put in first, if grid-tie. Then it's much easier to add wind as a supplement, since all the wiring already exists.

I'm an engineer and have done many many capital equipment justifications in my career.

A 5-40KW ("small" air, different rules for more than 40kw) turbine, even with the grant and incentives, takes about 10 years to pay off even assuming a 10% per year increase in electricity costs. not a good investment by anyones measure.

If external_link and his liberalocrat cronies were to pass "cap and trade" and electricity costs rapidly tripled then wind turbines would pay off nicely and you'd seem them popping up like dandelions in spring.