Wind Power Generators

What is Residential Wind Power? Should I Get A Home Wind Turbine?

Wind power is making a return appearance as an inexpensive, inexhaustible form of renewable energy.  It is, of course, not a new idea; people have been harnessing the wind to do their work for over 5,000 years.  In the past, wind has been used to power ships, land vehicles such as sail-powered wagons, and air vehicles such as gliders, as well as mills, furnaces, and irrigation systems.  The current conversation about wind power centers around using wind farms, wind mills, and turbines to convert the energy of wind into electricity.  This is being looked at on national, state and even domestic levels, through the use of residential wind power and home wind turbines.

Why should we consider wind power?

One of the basic laws of physics is that energy is not lost.  Clearly, wind contains huge amounts of energy that is largely unharnessed—and sometimes even destructive.  But what if all that energy could be controlled and converted into a form that people could use on a daily basis, such as electricity?  Doing so efficiently could mean a reduction in our dependence on oil and its volatile market, as well as reduction in our use of other fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.  Wind does not hurt the environment, it doesn’t have to be dug or refined or shipped.  The only costs associated with converting wind to electricity are the installing of turbines and windmills and the storage of electricity.

How can we use wind power at home?

Wind power is considered a true alternative, or at least a complement, to fossil fuel use in the home.  Hundreds of thousands of homes in the United States and Europe put home wind turbines on their homes.  For a one time cost, domestic wind power can not only make a home more ecologically responsible, it can also lower the cost of all future energy use.  For a home with a home wind turbine, fossil fuel-based electricity becomes a back-up, rather than a primary source of energy.

Some states in the US also offer financial incentives and tax breaks for families who improve their homes and make them more energy efficient and ecologically responsible.  In many cases the tax refund can cover up to 40% of the cost of installing the home wind turbine technology in the first place.  Residential wind power is more feasible with every passing year, with new technologies making home wind turbines more sightly, more efficient, and less expensive.  States and countries with residential wind power incentives often find their total consumption of fossil fuels going down, and their total energy costs going down as well.

Of course, the use of residential wind power and home wind turbines isn’t accepted by everyone.  Some people say that it takes too long to make back the cost of the equipment, or that wind power is too unreliable for any wide spread efficient use.  However, any technology that decreases the use of fossil fuels in the world can only help make the world, the environment, and people’s lives better.