Harvest the Wind
The wind picks up as the storm front moves in. While people scurry for cover and the trees dance in the blustery wind, a small machine on a slender pipe stands above the roads, houses and tall trees. It is a wind plant, an electricity generating turbine. A fearless reaper, it pivots on its tower to face the wind, propeller-like rotor already scything around, faster and faster. The rotor turns an attached generator, creating electricity with a simple elegance, carving energy from the sky .
June/July 2002
By Michael Hackleman and Claire Anderson
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COURTESY BERGEY WINDPOWER
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In many parts of the continent, you can tap the power of the wind to generate nonpolluting renewable electricity for your home. Wind plant designs have improved so much—and the costs of oil, natural gas and nuclear power are so high—that many power companies are building large-scale wind plants. Farmers are being paid as much as $2,000 a year to lease one-eighth-acre sites for 200-foot-tall commercial wind plants. Experts predict wind-electric generation will soon become a major energy source in the United States.
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WHY WIND?
The more we rely on renewable energy, the less dependent we are on utility giants and nonrenewable, polluting fossil fuels. With world oil and gas supplies dwindling, experts estimate electricity prices will increase significantly in the coming years. A wind plant, especially in concert with a solar-electric photovoltaic (PV) system, is becoming a cost-effective way to meet the energy needs of sustainable homesteads.
To encourage the shift to wind and solar power, various government programs offer personal tax credits, property tax exemptions, low-interest loans and rebate programs. Some states, like California and Illinois, will reimburse up to 60 percent of your wind system costs. (To learn more about what's available in your state, contact a renewable energy dealer or check out the Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy.)
KNOW YOUR SITE
The map in the Image Gallery shows areas of the country likely to have sufficient wind speeds to run a home wind plant. Even if you're not located within the breezeways of the plains or the windy valleys of California, you still may be able to produce a portion of your power from wind. Your land's unique topography and microclimate can be more important than overall climatic trends. In the sidebar "Choose the Right Site" (Page 76), you'll find details on how to determine if a specific location has enough wind to be a good wind plant site.
The idea of relying on the wind as an energy source may strike you as risky, since wind seems to be so variable from day to day. But wind actually acts in fairly predictable ways. Analysis of more than a half-century's recorded data, from thousands of sites, shows distinct patterns in both wind direction and speed through the seasons. The windiest months occur in winter, while the calmest winds are during summer. In terms of renewable energy systems, this means a marriage of wind (peaks in winter) and solar power (peaks in summer) can often provide the best power partnership. (For the latest on solar power options, see "Go Solar and Be Secure.")
Two distinct kinds of wind can be found at most locations. Prevalent winds blow frequently and reliably. Energy winds are storm winds or gusts that piggyback the prevalent winds and vary in velocity and duration. On average, there are seven days of prevalent winds and three days of energy winds in any two-week period. Oddly enough, while energy winds blow only one-third of the time, they contain 70 percent of the potential energy that can be harvested by a wind plant. While your region of the country might not be ranked as ideally suited for wind power, your individual microclimate paired with energy winds might yield enough energy to justify a wind plant system.
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