Blowin' in the wind

Illawarra Mercury
Thursday 6/9/2007 Page: 20

HOME wind turbines may never become as ubiquitous as satellite dishes, but their popularity is steadily gaining momentum in America and they are appearing in Australia. To give an idea of their increasing popularity, in 2000 the American Wind Energy Association in Washington DC reported small wind system sales rang in at $US19.26 million. In 2006, the number rose to $US52 million, a 170 per cent increase, and while some homeowners find the allure in projected energy bill savings, many others are out to save the planet.

The numbers are nothing like that in Australia yet, and although Auswind (The Australian Wind Energy Association), admits some of their members are looking at home turbines, it says "the cheapest, simplest and best way of making a difference for everybody" at the moment is to buy accredited green power from the grid. Often people with wind turbines in Australia include them in solar/wind hybrid systems, while small wind turbines can also supplement solar-powered systems for cabins, campervans and boats.

Turbines work by taking energy produced by the wind and converting it into electricity for a home's power needs. Most turbines look a bit like an airplane propeller atop a flagpole or affixed to the side of a house. The blades are typically made of fiberglass and epoxy or carbon fibre, and are mounted on steel structures that can reach up more than 36 metres. Usually a home is connected to both a turbine and a local power grid. When the turbine cannot produce enough power, the home draws from the utility company. If a system produces more electricity than it uses, the excess can be sold back to many utility companies, which is called net-metering.

In Australia, according to Solar Online Australia managing director Brett Sutherland, wind turbines are usually used in remote areas and areas with unreliable power supply. He explains that a one-kilowatt turbine would produce about four to five kilowatt hours per day, and an average home in NSW would draw about 15 kilowatt hours of power, so the turbine would produce a little less than one-third of a home's electricity. "It would take a three to five-kilowatt turbine to fully power a house and in reality this would probably be too big for suburbia," he said.

Sutherland added that the installation of the turbines had to be council approved and they did make some noise, and his company lent more towards solar power for similar results. Earlier generators, he said, were usually connected to batteries and then the batteries used to provide power, but now there were grid-feed turbine systems that went straight into the power grid. The typical cost for a one-kilowatt wind turbine unit was about $4900, plus tower construction of about $2000, a grid-feed inverter, $3000, plus cabling, protection and installation.

In the US, according to retailer New England Breeze, the average price of a wind turbine sufficient to power a 1500-square-foot home that used 9000 kilowatt-hours a year would be between $US11,000 and $US14,000. But a saving that's of equal or greater importance to those purchasing turbines is the amount of clean air preserved.