Wind mill for powering farm electric

[schmism]

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the forums have lots of good info such as this thread
the Otherpower.com Discussion Board || can you grid tie a homemade hugh piggott's wind mill ?


Im planning a no battery system, grid tied version. should help cut some cost out as the large batery banks are expensive.

By the time you round up all the electronics required to manage the system, 99% of them handle solar also, so I think you'd be craisy not to include a couple of pannels to start to supliment your available power.

 

[mwechtal]

My new house is right next to my parents house (500 feet apart as our farms border each other). Anyway, we started looking at what it cost us for electric and it is roughly $4k a year if we combine our electric bills. So we started wondering about putting up a private windmill for our farms electric.

You might want to get a rough estimate of the size and then check out zoning problems in your area. I know it's on a different scale, but they're trying to get permission for a commercial wind farm a bit to the west of us, I think it's in Prattsburg. Half the people are up at arms because of the noise, and potential bird kills.

OK, so I gotta ask, WHAT NOISE? Is swish swish too much for you? It's not like the sound is going to travel for miles.

The bird kills are apparently only a problem if you floodlight the windmill, but you know how some people are. Geez, I heard that one of these killed some birds once. My great nephew's wifes cousins hairdresser said so.

NY is starting to get as bad as California.

Mike

 

[rosietheriviter]

The bird kills are apparently only a problem if you floodlight the windmill, but you know how some people are. Geez, I heard that one of these killed some birds once. My great nephew's wifes cousins hairdresser said so.
NY is starting to get as bad as California.
Mike

Mike,
Hey, I resemble your altitude!
Has anyone compared the number of birds killed by motor vehicles or other human activities?
My brother lives in California and I visit him regularly and no state can be as bad, politicly, as California.

Rose is Rose

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Actually, New York is kind of good about the wind power. The neighboring town spent the last two years developing zoning laws to be able to dictate terms to the wind companies that wanted to build there. When all was said and done, New York State came in and said their laws superceeded the town laws when it came to energy like the wind towers. New York wants wind towers which is why they have grants to help put them up.

As for the solar panels, that is something I was considering also. Kind of a combination of the two for when we get the real sunny days with no wind I can still produce some power.

I am at the very beginning of all this and there is a lot of work to be done before I start worrying about building if I build. So please everyone keep the replys coming as it gives me other things to consider.

 

[willywildes]

another thing is in CA [dont know about NY} the power Co only has to zero out your bill, if you make more than you use they dont have to buy it!

 

[Cacinok]

robert, one thing you need to do, that has not been mentioned, is to get a good idea of how much power your house uses. your electric bill will break this down for you, obviously. this will give you an idea as to how much power you will need to generate, so that you can build your power generation system accordingly. next thing you'll want to do is to try to reduce your energy demands. lots of ways to do this, some include fluorescent bulbs, propane powered refrigerator, propane water heater, possibly switching to geothermal heat and air, etc.

i've looked into wind power myself, but am no expert. what i've found is that i will need numerous windmills to generate sufficient power to be off of the grid. for example, during the winter we were using, on average, 350kwh/day. some of the largest residential generators (10 kwh models) produce about 35 kw/day in a sustained wind speed of 31 mph. these larger windmills, including towers go for about $30k including tower. you're lucky that NY will give you tax breaks. OK does not, yet.

take home message. first, the more you can reduce your energy usage the better b/c you need a smaller generating setup. second, wind alone is not the best way to do it. a combination of solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, mice on treadmills, etc. is the best way to go. third, your pay back time, even after tax credits will be over a long period of time.