can anyone honestly say weather or not domestic wind turbines or solar power panels are useful do they ?
April 28th, 2010 | 
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create an adequate amount of electricity or save an adequate amount of money could actual users reply please
Unless they are pretty large (wind turbines) then they would not give enough power to power a "normal" family home.
They can assist but currently are not a replacement.
Same with solar panels.
Posted in DOMESTIC WIND TURBINES
Unless they are pretty large (wind turbines) then they would not give enough power to power a "normal" family home.
They can assist but currently are not a replacement.
Same with solar panels.
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I own a wind turbine. It is rated at 20kw and has a span of the rotor of 31 feet. So it is not one of those huge ones that you see on wind farms. It produces about 2000 kw hours per month. This is more than enough for an average home. I live in Wisconsin so solar is not very feasible but the wind turbine will probably pay for itself in about 15 years. I actually have received checks from the power company paying me for the electricity that I put on the grid. I also have a geothermal heat pump so the wind turbine makes the power that runs the pump that heats and cools the house. I know that people in the southern US can and do use solar effectively and it will pay for itself when it is installed in the right location. So I can honestly say yes they are useful.
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My personal experience.
Solar panels ( Photovoltaic or PV panels ) for electricity production are a source of "free" energy, cost of installation aside, and solar water heating are excellent ways of saving energy.
Wind turbines are not really practical unless you live somewhere with space and the right geographical position for wind energy production.
So, are they useful – YES !
I work in the industry daily and would recommend the PV panels to everyone.
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Part of my job.
I know Bush’s ranch in Texas is almost completely powered by Solar Energy and Rain Water.
Solar Energy is incredibly useful, but expensive as hell. If you’ve got the money for it, it’s an incredible investment I guess.
Wind turbines don’t work, plain and simple. In order to power the entire US with wind turbines, you would have to have a wind farm the size of Texas. It’s relatively cheap, but the volume of turbines you would need to power something makes it generally unrealistic.
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it depends entirely where you are. in a suitable site wind turbines even small ones pay back in under two years, and solar in under 10 (but they will be getting cheaper very soon hooray!). solar hot water heaters are very cheap and on about 30% efficiency, well worth it, payback of commercial installation a year or 2.
after that its free energy.
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solar PV panels will take 20 years before you start getting your money back. Wind turbines are about 15 years. Yeah you can get a check from the power company. But if you would have bought gold instead of the wind turbine, the value of the gold you have 1 year later would have gone up by more than any check you’d receive from a power company.
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Yes, I have a system which reduces not eliminates my bill and I will break even on my investment in 6-7 years. I live in central Ca and even though energy production is low this time of year I’m still producing at least 1/3-1/2 of my energy, in the summer it is 75-95%. I may eventually add to my system, I bought a system that maximized my rebates. By my estimations I’ll be saving about $2000 a year on electricity. If you project my energy costs over 15 years with an increase of 5% per year I would pay over $45K, my investment was $16K, so I will save $29K in 15 years. I say it’s worth it. I plan on living in my house till I have to go to a retirement home or die, so I’ll see the entire 25 year payoff.
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I’m just about to sign up for a solar system that will be a little over 1.8kw for $12,000 (I’m in Australia, in US dollars that’s $8,170)
This system willl definately provide all the power we need. More actually, and the money saved plus the money we’re guaranteed to be payed from pushing power back into the grid will give us about $1400 per year (US $952) which will give us an (at least) 11.7% return, guaranteed for at least 15 years.
This means the system will pay for itself less than 9 years and pay us at least $22,400 (US $15,260) for the rest of its 16 years of rated life.
It will also add at least that figure ($12,000 or US $8,170) to the value of our house if we ever wanted to sell.
The financials certainly stack up. As do the environmental. The system will pay off it’s manufacturing embodied energy in less than 2 years, and give us totally clean free energy (and feed into the grid with our surplus) after that. It’s also support the solar and renewables industry while promoting domestic sustainabilty and self reliance.
Plus at least one other thing (and this is important), it will help us (or anyone else that might live in the house if we end up moving on) to use less energy every day, as the figures of what’s being used Vs what’s being produced are an EXCELLENT motivator to turn that useless gadget off, and (yes another ‘and’) will help influence any future purchases, as in, the owner would be FAR more likely to buy a more effiecient TV, fridge, etc next time they need one, which has a flow on effect of creating more demand for efficient appiances, and therefore less demand for oversized inefficient things!
All that makes me feel good, which a lot of people wave off as unimportant, but it’s not! People do all kinds of things to feel good like marriage, kids, holiday, etc.
Sounds pretty useful to me.
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Yes friend. They are really effective. I use solar panel. After the initial investment there is very low maintainence cost and that is also in once in a month. And electricity generated is sufficient for my home.
I have found this site which have lots of information on solar panels. It helped me a lot, I am sure it will help you too.
http://www.earthforenergykits.com/
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We have solar water heating panels in South Cheshire and find they are giving us lashings of hot water on sunny days, whether winter or summer, and are raising the temperature of the water tank on cloudy days, so that we use far less other fuel to heat the tank fully.
We think they are very worth while.
Many people think they aren’t much use in Uk but there is a statistic which suggest that enough solar energy falls on the UK in a year to the equivalent of 1000 (one thousand) power stations.
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Yes, it pays for itself and then some. With today technology, solar and wind powered energy will create electric that will pay for itself and make you money in a short time. It pays to go green and save money! You need less that 200 dollars for solar panel and 100 for wind mill. For info: http://usa4energy.com
Good luck!
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Nick the Tile man – going green
Its the long term cost of purcahse and installation that is the real biggy here not the day to day cost savings. Unless you plan to stay at the property long term 15 years plus your really only doing this for environmental reasons not money saving.
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We have a 2.5 kW solar array in northern California.
It will barely break even in 20 years. However, part of that is my fault. We use very little energy in the first place, so there’s not much to save. Also, I underestimated the amount of energy that the array would actually produce. We could have gotten by with a smaller, cheaper system.
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They will be, until Scientists find a reason to say they’re bad for the environment (wind turbines messing with air-flow, or solar panels reflect too much light back into the air, or something), like they usually do.
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