To start my journey to my green power home the first piece of data I need is my annual electrical power usage. From my power bills I determined my average usage is just over 9000Kwh. 760Kwh per month or 25 Kwh per day.
I ranged from 20 to 35Kwh per day so I am going to design my green power system to produce 35 to 40Kwh per day. This will meet my peak usage and easily cover my average usage. The excess power will be sold back to my local utility company.
Of course according to my previous article I indicated I should first make my house as energy efficient as possible. Luckily my wife and I have been doing our part for green power from the time we moved into our first home. I am going to accept my current power consumption as the best I can do. It’s probably not but for this first design exercise at least it’s a number to use.
So what do I need to look for in a turbine? Well there is another critical piece of information I need before I can go much further. Namely: “What is the average wind speed in my are at what altitude?”. Oh boy, how do I figure that out?
After some research I found the following resources to determine wind speed in your area: 1) Your own observation, ie: wet finger in the air (ha ha) 2) Talk with long term residents in your neighborhood. These are probably not the greatest sources. 3) If you are reasonably close to an airport, they will have wind speed data. 4) There is a national website, see web address below.
I went to the website and found the wind in my are averages 12.5 to 14.3 Mph @ 50 meters. Let's see, if my math is correct that would be @ about 164 feet high. I don’t think I want to build an 164 foot tower. I’ll need to do some estimating to get a wind speed number for let’s say a 30 foot tower.
According some other research I found out you need wind speeds above 8mph to make it worthwhile to use a wind turbine for electrical power.
If the wind is 12mph @ 164 ft I’ll figure you lose 1mph for each 50 feet of height. 164-30 equals 134 divided by 50 equals 2.68. 12-2.68 equals 9.32mph @ 30 feet. I’ll use that for this first exercise in my turbine design.
Wow! I found out if I was to buy a turbine with enough power to produce 9000Kwh it’s totally out of my budget. At a wind speed of 9mph about the best I can do is 2700kwh at a cost of approx. $7600, ouch! Looks like I better reduce that 9000Kwh per year number and look at the possibility of building my own wind turbine and/or solar for my green energy system.
Information sources:
Wind Powering America Web Site
Home Power Magazine art. 122
Personal PGE Utility Bill March 2008 to March 2009
About the author
Norm Malone is a retired guy seeking ways to decrease my power usage.
I'm far from an expert on DIY,green energy systems but in the process of
learning I want to share the learning experience. Sharing green power
info. as I learn is a great learning tool for me. Please join in my pursuit;
visit my blog at www.normsgreenforce.com and share your experience.
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