Re: affordable power for homes

From: harmony (aka_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 07/13/04 

Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 12:54:12 -0500

<puppet_sock@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:c7976c46.0407130637.560f1638@posting.google.com...
> "harmony" <aka@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<10f3fjlgqlii2c5@corp.supernews.com>...
> > I am looking to take mother nature's help and generate my own power for
my
> > own house to save on utility bills. it seems a windmill would be a good
> > idea; may be two 10kw windmills might do the trick. (we have average 15
mph
> > winds in summer). it seems you can't buy a 10kw windmill at less than
$30
> > grand a pop (installed cost); the payback would be 20 years!!; heck,
that's
> > not a good deal.
>
> I'm just sort of wondering about your numbers.
>
> $60,000 over twenty years, without even considering interest charges,
> maintenance, etc., is $125/mo.

for budgetary purpose, a 20yr note plus local property taxes would be
$300.00 per month.
(i think i have got this worked out reasonably accurately)

>Is your electricity bill really so high?

quite higher in june, july, and aug. $350plus. actually, people are here
often express their unhappiness over high electricity bills despite
de-regulation.

> I guess it is in some areas, for people with fairly high consumption.
>
> In addition, you would need to consider standby or storage to make up
> for those days when there was not enough wind. Plus, you'd need to deal
> with situations where there was too much wind and you needed to "feather"
> the turbine or risk damaging it. (Though in many regions such weather
> is quite rare, it happens in most places from time to time.)

i didn't know very high winds are a problem; i thought higher the better.
thanks for the advice. although we got hit directly with hurricane last
year, it is rare. we do get winds upto 50 mph when hurricane lands 100 miles
or so away.

> Plus, you
> need to consider those two or three day periods when you are "waiting
> for a part" or some such thing. So you would need either some backup
> generator (or keep your connection to the grid) or monster big
> batteries of some kind. This would all add to the capital cost, or
> add to the montly costs, and extend the payback time.
>

we do have the grid; so, this part is not a terrible concern.

> Utility experience with large windmills, other than in special
> places like mountain passes where wind is reliably in some specific
> range of speed, are that they get something like 20 to 30 percent
> capacity factor. Part of that is due to the fact they are only
> disptached "on" when there is high demand, but part is also due
> to the fickle nature of wind. So, you'd need to figure out what
> your average use was, and be able to have storage or backup supply
> for that for at least several days. Plus generation capacity big
> enough to fill up the storage while you were still using power.
> Depending on your usage, you might need more than two windmills.
>

thanks. we do not always have winds blowing in the same direction. is that a
problem?
winds are some times from north and other times from south/ south-east.
your point on capacity factor is a very good one. i wonder what a 10kw mill
would generate at 10mph wind?
manufacturers, however, seem to assert that an average wind of 10mph over a
year is sufficient justification to install a wind mill. i think this claim
is dubious.

> Windmills only really make sense in places where the grid is hard
> to access, or very expensive for some unusual reason. For example,
> in Ontario, people with very remote cottages may find it cheaper
> to put up a windmill. It might cost them far more to put a power
> line all the way through the woods to their shack. Plus it would
> spoil the view in the woods to have this power line there. I see
> such windmills occasionally when I'm hiking the Bruce Trail.
>

well, it is beyond me to figure why a windmill should cost 30 grand. i am
sure the chinese can do it for 2 grand if they try. and then it will start
to kick in. Tom Friedman of NYTimes spent a good deal of time in china and
came back just last week. his strongly recommends that the amrican and
chinese scientists put their heads together to figure solutions to energy
problem. (according to him, power shortages are a daily news headlines in
china)

> > are there smart practical ideas out there? can the americans get cheap
> > imports from the hindus or the chinese on this? i would like 100 pct
payback
> > not more than 5 years.
>
> For nearly anything you can think of, you run into the same kind of
> problems as with wind.
>
> - Such schemes are nearly always only available to "hobby" level users.

the recent hike in gas price most likely will not go away. i already told
you about the chinese power shortages, and the chinese and the indians are
aggressively looking for more energy as their economies exapand. i have a
feeling bush administration is not too serious about energy because they are
preoccupied with iraq, and now elections. clinton was smart enough to talk
about energy technology breakthr' as new front for the next wave of
economy, but many years have passed since and there is nothing on the
horizon.

> This makes the equipment either very expensive or requires a lot of
> mechanical knowledge and work.
> - Such things nearly always require backup by either storage or the grid.
> That tends to increase the price dramatically.
> - People tend to forget the cost of maintenance. They tend to forget the
> time and effort required. For some installations there may be issues
> with annoying the neighbours, zoning laws, noise or odor (methane
> cookers for example).
> - Reliability of a rooftop or basement appliance requires you to do a
> lot of work that you may be neither equipped nor trained for. Do you
> feature yourself on a ladder making adjustments to a windmill?
> Do you feature your neighbour (you know the one, the guy with the
> kids and the dogs and the ratty old truck) with a huge pressure
> tank of methane in his basement?
> - Some things don't scale well. They may work just fine for you when
> you need a temporary thing like a small construction project. In such
> cases you can rent one of those portable gas power generators for a
> week or two and the cost is acceptable. But trying to run your house
> on such would be silly.
> Socks

thank you Socks for a great post. i think if front end cost can be scaled
down using chinese help, the rest will fall in place, and it would be no
different than maintaining a hot water heater. my view.

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