How long will your turbine take to pay for itself?

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Except that if (base) load is permanently reduced through conservation it will come out of base load generation, for example.

However, the adoption of electric vehicles is likely to make base lode rise, rather than fall, over the next couple decades.

[electrondady1]

i think the very best thing a person could do in this day and age and for a long time to come  is to become as energy independent as possible.
even  if it takes twenty years to pay for it.
if at some point as we age and  the system and maintenance becomes too much for for us,
 an off grid or energy positive household would be a nice selling point.
and should fetch a premium over a grid dependant household.
or you could hand off the entire thing to your children as a wind fall and give them a leg up in the future .
 

[wooferhound]

Plus if you watch the news much you'll see that they are saying that energy prices are going up faster than they have in the past. So in the future producing your own energy will be more valuable.

[joestue]

if you go to eia.dot.gov IIRC (google will find it if that's wrong)

plot gas price vs year, (they have weekly prices since '94)
just looking at the graph you would say gas will never drop below 3$ again, and the velocity is insane.

as far as electric vehicles increasing the electric load. you can get three times as much electricity from one gallon of gas in a power plant than you could from an internal combustion engine to the wheels, so as long as we let the grid expand capacity its not an energy crisis, only a man made political one.

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

if you go to eia.dot.gov IIRC (google will find it if that's wrong)

plot gas price vs year, (they have weekly prices since '94)
just looking at the graph you would say gas will never drop below 3$ again, and the velocity is insane.

as far as electric vehicles increasing the electric load. you can get three times as much electricity from one gallon of gas in a power plant than you could from an internal combustion engine to the wheels, so as long as we let the grid expand capacity its not an energy crisis, only a man made political one.

For the last year gas and diesel have gone up by a factor of 1.5.
Gold has also gone up by a factor of 1.5.

That really means the fuel price has held stable and the money has inflated by a factor of 1.5.

Always compare commodity prices to gold, not dollars, to take out the Fed's manipulation, if you want to see what's really going on.

Of course you can't actually use gold as a total hedge against the inflation, because the government will tax the inflation as if gold's price change had been profit rather than the dollar diving toward the value of the paper it's printed on.  So you only get to cover half of your butt and the government bites the other half off.  As a practical matter it still means the cost to you of fuel goes up, because your investments get that tax and your pay never keeps up with inflation.  Cut the slope in half and it still argues that R.E. may pay off as the political/economic fertilizer/ventilator interaction continues.

[ghurd]

Other states are cheaper than here.
Today I paid $2.879 for gas, which I thought was overpriced, but it was worth it (easiest) with Christmas traffic.
Lately its been $2.849 on the signs, and I get a $0.03/G discount if I scan the Sheetz card at the pump, and 5% more off the bill if it is paid for with the right credit card.
1st Monday after Thanksgiving was $2.719 in Salineville OH on the sign.

Its been a long time since I paid US$3/G.

[poco dinero]

Posted on: December 20, 2010, 10:25:02 PM                  Posted by: electrondady1 

i think the very best thing a person could do in this day and age and for a long time to come  is to become as energy independent as possible.
even  if it takes twenty years to pay for it.
 

Yes, and do it NOW, while there's still the 30% tax credit.  Especially if you are drawing money out of your IRA to finance your retirement.

[bob golding]

Damon,

Thanks for your input, but I'm inclined to re-quibble with you.

Your transmission losses in the UK are so much smaller than ours in the US because your country is so much smaller, land-mass wise.  In many other ways your country is obviously much larger than ours.  Additionally, the transmission voltages may be different.  I'm reasonably certain of the information that I posted, although my source certainly could have been wrong.  I do need to start remembering and documenting sources.

I only had one source for the data on how much greenhouse gas is emitted per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced by coal-fired electrical power plants, and I can't identify that source.  I will keep an eye out for more data.  Possibly that source was in error and I relied again on faulty data.  Sounds about right to me though.  Anybody with better or more data, please chime in here.  Al Gore, where in the hell are you when I need you?  Dinking around with the ladies in Seattle?

poco

i agree with Damon. the transmission losses in the uk are around 8 % AFAIK i could get definite confirmation of this from a friend who used to run the  CEGB high voltage lab. the transmission line voltage in the UK is either 132KV or 400KV the distribution voltage is 33KV  or 11KV down to 440v 3 phase or 240v single phase for domestic use.

[sbotsford]

The cheapest source of power is conservation.   However this can be carried to extremes.

Example:  A 50 w plugged in laptop vs 150 w plugged in desktop.  100 w difference.  That's 2.4 kwhr/day  about 1000 kwhr/year.  If your off grid power runs 50 c /kwhr that's $500 per year.  In typical use 1 laptop lasts 3 years, 1 desktop 6.  Two laptops - 1 desktop = pays for lots of electricity.

I've worked hard to reduce my power usage, but I keep bumping into a few unstopable objects:
*  Satelite internet.  Seems to be about 200 w continuous.  Since we use computers 20-30 times a day in this house, turning it on and off is not practical.  I suppose I could turn it off at night.
*  Network infra-strucutre.  20 watts.  12 for the switch, 8 for the wifi.
*  Fridge.
*  Freezer

If you are living off grid, it may pay to get propane fridge and freezer.  Or create a super insulated chest fridge.  (Guy in Oz did that -- rigged up a thermostatically controlled power plug for a freezer to use it as a chest fridge, added lots of insulation other than the radiator side, and has a circulation fan that runs when the compressor runs.  Claims some absurdly low power use.  AND if you have a lot of thermal mass in it (Bottom layer of water bottles) then you can run it with fairly intermittent power.  E.g. If the wind turbine+battery system handles all the constant tiny loads, and you fire the generator for an hour a day to top up the battery, run the table saw, and run the fridge.

Another way to conserve if you are building is to wire your house for both 110 and 12v.  By using RV lighting, stereo, etc you can avoid the inverter inefficiencies.  (Remember however that you may need BIG wire.  15A at 120 v = 1800 watts = table saw.  15A at 12 v = 180 watts. = lighting one room.)

A final possibility is 'single utility'  If natural gas is already in your area, getting connected to it is often cheaper than getting connected to the electrical grid.  NG is usually cheaper per energy unit than diesel, and it burns quite cleanly.

***

I ran a few numbers using commercial wind turbines grid connected (No battery banks) and assuming that surplus power was bought at 6 c/kwhr.

Generator sizing was $3/watt.  Capacity factor was 0.3

It worked out to being about a 5% ROI.  So if you have a good site, it may be worthwhile to put up as much as a MW of capacity.  (In Alberta there are different rules for under vs over 1 MW.)

The guys on this forum who can build 20' generators on 100 foot towers can probably do better, assuming they count the build time as a hobby.

As others have pointed out, if hooking up powerlines is too expensive, then it can pay for itself quite quickly.  One acquaintance claims that small scale IC engine power generators will run you $1/kwhr, 2/3 of that for fuel.  I think he is high, but he's in a position to know better than I do.  I figure between 25 and 40 c  assuming a listeroid engine + generator, and a thermostaticly controlled shed to keep it warm when idling.

[hayfarmer]

at my farm site I don't use much power ,only have a small amtek mill and 150w solar  keeps 500ah battery string happy. Power  company  wanted $8,000 to run grid there,  I

would say I'm about $4,000 in the black with the cost of 6.5 kw diesel generator included,and I think my attempts to be [power  self suficiant] off grid ,pays for itself every time

the grid goes down ,no fuss, no loss of well water,  no dead tropical fish,no waisted food stuffs ( at my home site), no problem Mon. 


  hayfarmer

[Antero]

I have 2kw 3,8m / 12,4 ft  Exmork windgenerator.

My energy diary;

http://translate.google.fi/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=fi&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=fi&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Filmaisenergia.info%2Ffoorumi%2Findex.php%3Ftopic%3D275.0&act=url

My system and costs;
Exmork 2kw 3,8m /12,4 ft windgenerator,  self imported directly from Exmork 689$ with all costs here.
Batteries used, but robust 2000Ah 24v 500$.
Mast 18m / 60 ft  780$ from Exmork with all accesories and mounting ready, imported here with all costs.
3000w pure sine vawe inverter 600$.
Rectifier and other stuf 200$.

=ca  2769$

I made energy every month 300-400Kwh.
That is 3000-5000 Kwh per year.

Energy costs here now ca 13-15 cents(Euro) = 17-20cents(dollar) per Kwh.

I get my investment paid in ca 3-7 years now.
BUT, energy costs are rising..about 2-3 times a year here.

Demands, to produce pollution free energy is raising allso.

I am shure, this is the most best investment during my whole life  
My children inherit all my knowledge about windpower and if I had not started this,
they would have to start anyway, without any knowledge at all...

Antero