Herschel Carter has been checking his power meter every day since installing a small, wind turbine at his home a month ago. With the
residential-scale wind system providing power to his home, the 62-year-old retired insurance agent has only used 993 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity from the
grid. The same month last year he logged 1,752 kWh of grid power at his home in Pittsfield, Illinois. That represents a
savings of 759 kWh on his bill, which, at prices of between 6 and 9 cents per kWh, adds up to $68.
Given the cost of the
unit and installation - which runs between $10,000 to $15,000 (Euro11,000, £7,500) for a unit of this size - it will take years to
recover his investment, even if electricity costs continue to rise. Yet, for Mr Carter, the unit is not only a long-term investment, but also energy security.
Power outages in recent years across the US, either from overloaded grids or severe storms, convinced him he could not rely on the grid alone. Mr Carter' s wife is on oxygen and needs electricity to power her supply. With a battery backup to kick-start the wind-power unit, the couple should have power whether or not the grid goes down. For, even when the wind does not blow, the unit can use energy
stored up from heavy wind days.
America invented this technology in the 1920s and still dominates, with over 90 per cent of small wind turbines installed in the US having been manufactured in the US. The wind turbines convert the
kinetic energy in wind into mechanical power that fuels a generator to produce electricity.
Over the past 15 years, the small wind turbine industry has been growing at an annual pace of between 14 to 25 per cent, with units for everything from
recharging boat batteries to pumping water from wells in third world countries. The last three to four years have seen an upsurge in interest in using them for domestic power.
"There is a great
satisfaction in generating your own electricity, and doing so in a way that reduces global warming emissions and strengthens the country's energy security,'' said Randall Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).
Future sales could be helped by
tax incentives being considered by Congress to help bring the cost of the machines down.
Southwest Windpower, an Arizona-based pioneer in the development of wind energy technology, introduced in October 2006 Skystream 3.7, the first small wind generator designed specifically for utility-connected residential use, with built-in electronics.
"It's as close to an appliance as you can get,'' said Andy Kruse, Southwest Windpower's co-founder and vice-president of business development. After obtaining approvals from their local
utility, residents simply plug it into the electricity box, and any time the wind blows, the home consumes the energy produced from Skystream first and then takes any additional power needed from the utility.
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