Practice Management

Home Wind Energy

By chucknewton

One of my regrets about living in a master planned community, even one as nice as The Woodlands, is the difficulty of going green.  Part of being independent and working at home (reducing expenses and costs) is to become more energy independent.  It is the Third Wave way.  To trade off a one time fix fee for the lowering or elimination of on a ongoing tax or cost, like electric.  In the past you had to be a little skeptical of small wind power because the industry has been a little shady up until recently. 

But now Mariah Power is about to release their vertical axis wind turbine this spring for only $3,995.  The turbine has a new design, which expects to produce about 1800 kilowatt hours per year on just 11 mph average wind conditions.  That is enough to cover about 25% of a typical household's energy.  My new home is smaller and would probably be a larger percent.  The new design is about 30 feet high and only four fee wide, so it can fit the landscape better.  It has a more efficient generator, integrated inverter and wireless performance monitor, all of which can be installed for about $1,000.00.  It uses a slow-speed giromill rotor, which allows for silent operation.  Although it is painted gray it can be pained any color you want.  The Woodlands require natural colors like brown and green.

My problem is that in The Woodlands is I would have to get this think up high enough over the house to catch the wind, given the barrier presented by all of the Trees (and trees help conserve energy as well).  The Woodlands likely will not allow me to do this.

However, if your home office is a little out of the way and on a little more land than mine, maybe you can consider it.

Full post as published by Chuck Newton on February 11, 2008 (boomark / email).