Many folks around the world would love to install a home-built
wind generators, since the cost is 1/2 - 1/5th the price of
most wind generators systems, making it affordable and in the long
run, less expensive to maintain since you are familiar with every
component and if you follow our guidelines, they'll be at least
as tough and robust and probably last longer than an expensive system
that costs an arm and a leg to maintain or repair.And if you build it in your garage the Cost Per Amp is about 1/20th - 1/30th the price of solar PV.
This means you can afford to unplug from the grid today. What's stopping you? Usually it is the fear that you can't get permits or perhaps a licensed installer has told you that your system will never be allowed to run your home.
Let's take care of this misconception right now;
A gentleman named 'Paul' explained how he did it and if your system and circuit
and permits allow for a diesel-fired backup generator (most do),
you can easily connect wind generators to a safe, large, fully permited
subpanel, drive the refers and water pumps, lights and sockets and
while you might stay connected to the grid, you'll never spend a penny
on your utility bill.
Read how Paul did it and then talk to a friend, preferably an electrician
who will give you ths 'straight-poop' on whether or not this
is feasible in your community. If so, you are well on your way to
slashing your utility bill by 25, 50 or even 100 percent. And if
not, make sure you get a 2nd and 3rd opinion so you hear all
sides of this debate and then consider getting your neighbors
and community involved in making your voices heard at the
political level: Oil prices are not coming down. Home built
wind power is affordable for almost everyone, inexpensive to
install, safe and clean.
If your building and planning commission doesn't understand the
facts and you need to go to your County Board of Supervisors or
City Hall to get things moving, make sure you have someone from
your community or local political body write to us and we'll put
them in touch with Fred. For a fee, Fred can draw your plans and
they'll pass inspection no matter what city you live in or what
country you call home, even if you have been told by 100
contractors you can't, Fred can show you how you can.
Fred is a builder, a draftsman who is considered an artist in
the trade because he still draws by hand (he's been at this for
awhile) and for 10 years, Fred taught blue print reading for a
local college. Fred works with commercial and residential
architects and if you hang out at his office, they come to him
for answers. Architects are supposed to know more than the
draftsman...in Fred's case it's the other way around.
Fred is extremely familiar with the UBC (Universal Building
Code) and NEC (National Electric Code). His current job is
reviewing, approving and denying plans and permits for one of
the richest cities in America; Hillsborough, where plots of land
are huge, a 10,000 square foot home is considered very, very
small (I once saw a plan for a home with a 1200 square foot
walk-in closet in Hillsborough, complete with dumb-waiter and
conveyor belt to the back entrance-wow!), and restrictions and
regulations are as tight as they are anywhere on planet
Earth.
And if Fred says it works and it's safe, you can bet no engineer
on planet Earth can argue with the design of the plans: well,
they can argue with Fred, but they look and sound pretty silly
and all that egg-on-their-face is really messy to clean up
afterwards.
So if you think you can't get permits (hello Canada!), for your
home-built wind generator system, think again. You'll save
$20,000.00-$40,000.00 by following our step-by-step classes,
from carving a prop to selecting your gen, getting a tower up,
mounts, simple and complex circuits, controllers, desulfators and
more at surplus and home-built prices you can afford.
QUIZ: What's safer?
A few added questions and comments:
I built green, have a very efficient home and use only
florescent lights. I have an on-demand water heater that uses
propane and it feeds both the in-floor heating and domestic hot
water. I do plan on buying the storage tanks that I built in
space for and store heated water for use by that system. 420
gallons of 160-180 degree water should only require a little
propane to keep everything running smoothly year round
...if any is needed at all.
The input from the grid to the property goes thru a 250 amp
disconnect switch which now reads ON-OFF-GEN - although there is
no GEN yet. I found an 1800 rpm diesel genset with EPA engine,
rated at 10KW for $2000 including freight. It is Chinese made
but a solid design and I already own a KAMA 35hp diesel tractor
whose engine is from the same manufacturer as the genset - and I
like it a lot. With a 47 gallon reserve diesel fuel tank, the
gen should run a long time without a need to refuel the tank.
It could also run on biodiesel or straight vegetable oil if
necessary. All of that wiring is already permitted.
I could run an additional 2/0 line into the house from that
generator/grid input point to a sub panel and just switch a few
wires to perhaps a 4 breaker box subpanel - without any further
permitting since it would not involve grid-tie and would not add
to capacity of the home. The State Inspector approved the
concept of a generator or other input to the system when he
signed off on my permit. I was smart enough to put in a
dedicated refrigerator circuit, dedicated freezer circuit and
one dedicated line for medical appliances. Lighting circuits
would be easy to move onto the sub panel.
The ideal would be to just have the eventual windgens and
battery banks feeding the whole house as if it was the GEN and
leave the switch in the GEN mode all the time. I have two other
tie points on the ranch to grid power that will be used for
water pumping, welding, the shop equipment etc. Wells two and
three will be wind and solar powered and will feed into the
domestic water system like the current gridtied well pump.
The only real expense here is trenching a new feed line and
paying for the 2/0 cable (125 feet x 4 wires) I already own two
new subpanels and lots of breakers.
I have enough insulated foam block/concrete forms for the
generator/alt energy building and that will also minimize
expense of a system.
I am in the 'county' so a gen permit would not be very hard and
I will just try and get that first to see how they respond to
such a request. If they know it will be a state inspected
system, I can't imagine them offering any opposition (that would
involve work and no money) Also, I have 22 acres of land and it
would not propose a hazzard to anyone but me.
I have wind data generated two miles away at a local county
agency and we are about the same elevation and in the
same windpath but I will put up my own anemometer and record its
output on my website if others are interested in seeing what I
am doing. The local wind average is 8.6 for this year - other years are available but they are
not computerized so it would take some reviewing of hand written
records. They are also just downwind of a very tall 50 acre
orchard that may affect their available wind pattern - I
have no such obstacle just open land with scrub.
My electric bills are running about 910kw a month but during
construction you use a lot of electric motors for compressors,
saws, welders etc that won't continue on later when things
settle down. I hope to see better results this summer as
construction ceases and living begins.
Your 10 steps made sense and it has encouraged me to take the
plunge - hope it helps others as well.
Many thanks
Paul"
The things I'd do with this system: save cable costs and boost output!
Put the inverters (110V or 220V is even better) as close to the
Wind Gens as possible and drive high voltage AC down the trench
to the subpanel. The line losses are much less, the cable can be
smaller and cheaper, although 2/0 should be fine; see a licensed
electrician and the wire loss chart
at this site.
We'll show you how to do it for less and make a system you can rely on.
Here's Paul's story. Read it and see how one man made a very safe
system that passed all the permits with flying colors and he's ready
to go.
"
Perfect, exactly what I was looking for! I plan on making the
jump at the end of summer. I would love to buy an airfoil from
you, designed to run in my wind environment along with the
initial things necessary to put up one windgen.