Has anyone used wind turbines to power their farms? I’m going to be hooked to the grid but I’m seriously contemplating wind energy. We have an almost constant breeze here no matter the time of year. I guess we’re high enough up on the mountain. What experiences have you had? What size did you use? Do you use it to supplement your home too? Is it worth the expense? I’m finding that around here a 15 KW wind turbine is running around $85,000 and a 10 KW twas about $65,000. I’m not sure I’d need something that big but it was a good starting point.
What all do you want to power in the house at one time, how many lights, appliances, TV etc.?
Is your furnace all electric, or gas or other?
You need to have an electrician figure what is your highest draw and then go by that on your supplemental electricity, be it a generator, solar or wind.
The trouble with other than the grid will be storing the electricity, why there is no good system today for making that your only power, as I am sure you know.
We live in part of a wind farm that produces with big commercial turbines half of the electricity a 200,000 town uses.
For our own use, we could not get a small turbine at a reasonable cost.
It would take 25-30 years to pay for itself and by then it would be needing replacing.
Every year those are getting more efficient, maybe by now they have some that may work in your situation.
Your local electricians will be the ones that should know, or may already have installed some local to you.
You can ask your electric company if they have any customers there with turbines and if they buy extra electricity from them, find out who they are and see what they tell you.
I don’t think that 10,000kw would be enough for a modern house.
You would have to be careful not to have, say, the washing machine and electric furnace on at the same time.
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I costed out a system several years ago. By the time you buy and install the turbine; run the line to the power house (the location from which you will distribute power to buildings on the farm); install a power storage system of some sort; install a distribution system of some sort; and set aside funds for maintenance and replacement of all the above you probably are well on the road bankruptcy unless your name is Buffet or Gates…or Musk!!! 
IIRC, for a simple system buying off the shelf components my recovery time for the investment was longer than the life expectancy of any of the components. I’ve got a 900 ft. mountain behind my house and if I put a 100 meter tower on it I’d get some decent production. But I’d have to run a 2600 foot line from the tower on the summit to my house in the valley. Then I’ve got all the costs described, above.
The government has some maps that are interesting, as they show sunlight and wind averages
http://www.nrel.gov/gis/maps.html
http://www.nrel.gov/gis/wind.html
East of the Mississippi there are some serious issues on the viability of solar or wind as a primary energy source.
G.
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alternative power currently has 30% Federal tax credit This was set to expired at the end of this year but has been extended until 2021 then the credit would less
The end cost of the $65k system would be $45.5
This is an after the fact credit that is earned by filing Federal Taxes… credit can be earned as individual or a business
To me the deciding factor would heavily weigh upon if the power grid was required to purchase excess production
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Since you’re in Reading, find a farm store with a lot of black buggies tied out front. Ask whomever is inside what they use, where they got it, and what it cost.
Alternative energy is pretty popular in the Amish communities where the requirement is they must be disconnected from the electrical grid, not that can’t use electricity. There may also be some super-secret turbine maker that markets exclusively to the Amish that they can clue you in on.
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Our Amish, and Mennonites, are connected to the grid but only in business places like stores, shops, barns, etc. In their houses they are not. It’s my understanding that there are different levels of “plainness” within those communities.
Another place to look for ideas would be a agricultural museum. Prior to the REA many farms had windmill driven generators with battery packs and just used DC power.
G.
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You bring up some good points. Monday I’m getting a full evaluation of the current usage on the house. I’m in the beginning phases of putting this property together. I’m going to do a 6 stall barn with a temperature controlled tack room and feed room. I’m also going to install an electric water heater for the wash bay. The combined heated/cooled square footage will be about 330 square feet. Then I have to figure in lighting for the arena. I have no idea what to expect for usage for this. I think the power company has to buy back the excess energy but I don’t know at what rate. Fortunately the run will only be a couple hundred feet from the mill to the grid connection unless we set it up on top of the hill, then it’s closer to 600 feet. The fencing is run off of a solar power unit so that’s not a load I needed to worry about.
Thanks for all the info
If getting paid by the electric company for any expected extra production is imperative in your budget, be sure to have that power purchase agreement contract in hand first, before spending a penny on any of it.
Let us know what the evaluation comes out to be.
The fundamental challenge is wind is fickle. It is always producing too much or too little energy and the swings between them are inconsistent.
I suspect that installing all kinds of support systems to store energy and make it “off-grid” capable are not worth it. But maybe you can generate excess and sell back to the grid.
Solar on a barn is always interesting. If you find an alternative energy company in our area you’d recommend, I’m interested to hear about them.
DHCarrotfeeder, cool name LOL
The evaluation Monday will be for the solar option but the base usage numbers will be the same. I also need to find out what the utility will credit back for the excess energy generated. I’ll update this as I get more info. There’s a development just outside of Allentown PA that has a wind turbine set up in the model home’s yard. I’m not sure how willing the contractor will be to give up information but I’m going to try to stop by next week to see what they have to say. They’re pushing this as a green development so we’ll see.
Electricity is one of those things that when you NEED it, you NEED it. When you don’t, you don’t. Solar and wind are available when they are available, but not when they’re not. This bit of truth is often lost in the discussion of “alternatives.”
Selling excess to the local power company presumes you are connected to their grid. So you’ll have to run some sort of line to your new building. Since we are in an REA area the local electric co-op will run an above ground line to any building on my 177 acre farm for a minimal cost. Now if I have a solar or wind system I could sell back to them whatever surplus I might have. But if you’ve got a commercial power supplier or maybe a public system they might not be so generous in running lines.
So maybe you’re back to the question of some sort of on-site energy storage system.
G.
ETA: If you decide to do this then the wiring in your new building will have to be to code. That means hiring a professional electrician, getting a building permit, and getting the installation inspected. Sometimes that last item is no big deal, but in our area the electrical inspector is a pluperfect son of a bitch.
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I worked for 10 yrs in the industry–PM me.
The issues raised above with storage are completely inapplicable to you. PA has a net metering policy. It’s also a deregulated electricity market so it will matter how you buy your electricity.
It’s also completely, utterly wrong that wind and solar are not viable east of the mississippi. I run into lots of people who priced out renewable energy systems once, like 10 years or even just 5 years ago. They have no idea how the market and technology have changed even in the last couple of years.
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I never said it wasn’t viable east of the Big Muddy. Did you look at the wind and solar maps that I posted? They’re government documents. Are they wrong?
There are places such as the Midwest and along coastal areas where you have lots of sunlight and wind where these technologies can be viable. I object, however, to blanket statements on their viability. The TN Valley, where I live, is one of those places where I’ve got questions because I can look out my window and see that, for example, we’ve not had more than 8 hours of direct sunlight in the last three days. We likely won’t have much today. And a gentle zephyr is all the wind we’ve had all week. Except, of course, for the 60 mph gusts in thunderstorms.
The “alternative” business is rife with charlatans and quick buck artists selling hope and junk. It’s a true caveat emptor world.
G.
From a safety and resale perspective I think that having the electric up to code would be a really wise idea.
In my area we would need a building permit anyway. Trust me if you start putting up a building that is visible from the road and did not have a permit the zoning officer would be knocking on your door. If nothing else they want their fees.
DH did the electric for my friend’s barn and he did it for our finished basement. Yes it was to code both times.
You could do all the building and electric yourself you just need the inspector out at set intervals. For electric in the basement it would be before the drywall went in and the electrical covers went on. This way he could see connections and what wire was used. For the barn DH ran everything in surface conduit and used outside rated electric boxes for everything even though it is inside. Barns tend to be kept much more open and moist and dirty than inside so he figured better to go with overkill. He exceeded code.
As an FYI I am in the same area but not same township as OP. In general our township inspectors in this area are reasonable. I have never heard of needing a professional electrician in my area. All the inspectors care about is that the final installation meets code.
I just had a quote for solar for my house. It was done remotely via Google for pictures of the house. It doesn’t look like I have enough roof for 100% of my usage only 66%. However if I want to take it a step further and have a tech come out in person there is some additional roof area on the garage where we may be able to put some panels to increase that. It just depends on how much shade we get from the upper roof and from a big pin oak. The remote tech was being conservative. Plus my usage should go down. We replaced 1 20 year old A/C unit in the spring and will replace the other one this fall. Hopefully both of those will be way more efficient. The usage numbers were based on the old A/C units. Our biggest usage time is during the summer with the A/C. We also replaced all the downstair windows. Upstairs windows will be replaced next year.
We got the quote from Solar City which is affiliated with Tesla. A number of people in my area are using Solar City. I see them all over the place.
YEESH that’s spendy! I am very windy here, think 10-15 mph pretty much every day (for certain every evening) and in the winter 20 mph is a decent daily average. But I can’t drop $65k on a turbine!
Guillherme, I completely respect your many sage posts on this forum, and we have the same objection to blanket statements. I have to put “serious issues east of the mississippi” in that category. I have direct experience to know that this generalization is not accurate. That is not to say wind and or solar are good choices at every site, anywhere in the country. But the technology has changed so much that sites with lower wind or sollar irradiance can be (but aren’t always) economically viable. The IRR depends on much, much more than just the energy resource at your site
The OP said in their first post that they’re connected to the grid. And I know that PA has rather generous net metering regulations. So the comments about storage and intermittancy of wind and sun are simply moot.
The OP doesn’t need storage.
The OP’s supply of electricity will not so much as blink if the wind isn’t blowing or sun isn’t shining.
I agree that, like in every single industry, there are low-quality suppliers out there. Residential market seems more prone to this, people don’t do their research, and/or they’re making an emotional “I wanna be green” decision rather than the clear-eyed investment decision it needs to be. There are lots of shady homebuilders, but that doesn’t cause anyone to say “Don’t build a home!”, right? You check references, get multiple quotes, and do your research, just like with any other large investment.
I am not some blind RE supporter nor do I sell residential-scale systems. And if you want to search other posts on this topic, I have frequently chimed in that that residential-scale wind may not be a good investment at the site being discussed. Bona fides: Until last year I worked for one of the world’s largest renewable energy companies that provides RE to 6 million homes worldwide. I work for a university now focused on biomass energy, and teach classes as a guest lecturer at the college of engineering on windpower.
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I don’t say there are issues east of the Mississippi; the Federal maps do. You can’t make any money putting up wind turbines when there is no wind. In large areas of the Southeast we have very low average wind velocities. I used to live in No. IL and that was not the case there. I was stationed at NAS Corpus Christi in TX and we had one of the highest average wind velocities in the area because of the prevailing winds and the shape of the Gulf Coast. Much of this highly determined by specific locality. Almost no one EVER considers that.
Put another way, the wind may blow free but not where you live!!!
Ditto for solar. We have many days where we don’t get direct sunlight at all. I’ve been using solar powered fence chargers for almost 30 years. I’ve had them go dead as there was not enough sunlight to keep them charged. This was after we were careful about wiring, vegetation on the lines, etc.
My skepticism is based upon experience and data, not pre-conceived notions!!!
The OP has to get out my old friend, the yellow pad, and do some math on the average sunlight available, the cost to transfer the power to the grid, how much they are going to get paid, and how long it will take to amortize the investment.
Let the numbers do the talking!!!
G.
Again, the maps are not the whole story. RE technology has evolved dramatically to make the most of low wind sites. What used to be a 35% net capacity factor site may now see NCF’s in the high 40s or even mid 50s. And the costs of components have come down so much that depending on the site, the project can be financially sound investment despite lower productivity than, say, IL.
This is not a blanket statement about all wind turbines or solar panels at all sites. But it is a factual error to extrapolate from those resource maps that wind and solar as an energy source have serious issues east of the mississippi.
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On that last sentence we have a disagreement.
G.
Ok, you must be right, and i must have been dreaming when I worked on all those solar projects with Georgia Power, in the Southeast that you talk about, where solar was able to deliver power at or below their avoided cost. Carry on.
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