Choosing Renewable Energy
(Page 4 of 7)
April/May 2008
By John Gulland and Wendy Milne
John: I’ve come to think that our project on household energy independence will never be complete. After eight years and something like $60,000, we still don’t have enough electrical generating capacity to meet our current and future needs. Now I am building a 17-foot diameter, 3-kilowatt wind turbine to replace our 12-foot, 1-kilowatt unit. Our refrigerator, even though it is a fairly new model, is still not energy efficient enough. We plan to replace it and use the power savings to run a freezer to preserve some of our garden produce.
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We’ve learned that the amount of sun and average wind speeds in our area are too low to make our site a good candidate for solar and wind systems. The average annual hours of sunshine here are around 1,800, meaning that only about 40 percent of daylight hours are sunny, which is low compared with drier regions. The average wind speed in our area is considered marginal at less than 5 meters/second (11 mph) at 100 feet above the ground. Acceptable would be considered 6.5 meters/second (14.5 mph), and excellent is around 8.5 meters/second (19 mph).
We are not alone in being in a lousy region for wind and sun. Huge swaths of North America are in the same situation. So it is fine for renewable energy promoters to say that wind and solar power may be suitable if your site meets particular criteria, but what about those of us who don’t meet the criteria? Are we to be satisfied using coal or nuclear electricity, with all the pollution and uncertainty that they entail? Must we move to windier and sunnier regions? Those were not acceptable options for this household. We just need more solar panels and a bigger wind turbine than people who live, say, on an oceanfront hilltop in sunny California. And yes, we also need a bigger budget.
These days the majority of new renewable energy users opt for a grid-tied or net metering deal with the electrical utility, in which the household supplies electricity to the grid when the sun shines and the wind blows, and draws from the grid when they don’t. This is a fine way to use renewables, but is a different proposition than our desire to disconnect. Grid-tying doesn’t provide as much incentive to conserve electricity, nor does it offer protection from power failures, which in our area are becoming more and more frequent. I also had concerns about the unequal relationship between our single household and a huge corporation. The utility serving our area is among the largest in North America and over the years its actions have shaken our confidence in its willingness to deal fairly with its customers on net metering.
Wendy: It is great to see more people questioning conventional energy practices and the effects they are having on the planet. People are also talking more about the potential of renewable energy these days. What we really need, though, is more people thinking about energy conservation and just learning to live with less. I think renewable energy users have a role to play in this transition to a more energy-literate citizenry by giving a realistic idea of what it is like to live with a modest amount of energy, whatever its source, and highlighting the many benefits that come with conservation.
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