Wind Power for Home
When most homeowners think about installing an alternative energy system for their homes, they normally think
about solar panel systems. Even though these solar panel systems are a great way to go about generating power, they can only operate during the daylight, and only on days with a good amount of sunshine. This means that they are only producing power for your home for less than half of the day and less than a full year. Even though this is still a lot of power, you can help augment this power production with wind power for home use.
Wind power for home use has come a long way in the last decade and there are models of wind turbines available today to accommodate any homeowner. There are a wide variety of styles and sizes of wind turbines on the market and you can easily find one to suit your needs. These modern wind turbines are smaller, quieter and more efficient than older models and many are small enough to mount to your house directly.
In years past to install a system that used wind power for home electricity generation was a major undertaking. The wind turbines were very large and because of this they required a very heavy and consistent wind to get them turning. This meant either they had to be mounted out in the open to catch the wind, or mounted very high up on a tower. Both of these scenarios would produce a lot of power for a homeowner, but both of them had consequences.
Most neighborhoods have limitations about where a wind turbine can be installed. Some of these restrictions require you to have a certain size of lot, and others restrict where the tower can be built. Mounting a tower out in the open is great for catching a breeze, but may generate a lot of complaints from you neighbors. Also, the tower is expensive and it is very difficult to maintain a large wind turbine mounted 50 or 100 feet in the air. Both of these issues made the adoption of wind power for home use a very slow process until advancements in design and materials improved these early models.
Modern versions of these wind turbines make using wind power for home electrical generation a much easier undertaking. These newer versions are smaller than older models and run quieter as well. They are also more efficient and can spin in a smaller breeze than their predecessors. This means that they can be mounted lower than older models and will still do a great job of generating a lot of power. Some of these newer models are small and light enough that they can be mounted right on the roof of your home. Even though they won’t generate as much energy for you as a larger solar panel installation, they have the advantage of being able to produce energy anytime of the day or night as long as a breeze is blowing.
This means that the amount of energy they produce in a day can be quite large and really have an impact on your electricity bill each month. These newer wind turbines are more durable as well, and will operate for a decade or more without giving you a problem. This new generation of wind power for home systems represents a great way for you to generate free power for your home whenever the wind is blowing.