Wind Turbine Price

A Wind Turbine Costs Whatever You Have to Spend

When talking about energy, questions about wind turbine prices could become the source of endless jokes among windsmiths: “Wind power newbie walks into a bar and asks the crowd, ‘So, how much will a new wind turbine run me?’” Among the windsmiths, the joke requires no punch line, because the question alone strikes them as hilarious. No matter how the joke’s plot developed, the conclusion—the big laugh—always turns-out, “Well, kid, how much ya got?”

For home energy savings, a few reliable Internet vendors can outfit you with a new micro residential wind turbine, complete with blueprints and installation instructions, for about $250 (American). A select few websites actually explain, step by step and with comprehensible illustrations, how you may assemble a DIY “mini” wind generator from used parts, keeping your wind turbine cost around $100. A few marine outfitters and RV accessories dealers can outfit your boat or your rig with a mini wind turbine for between $200 and $300, handsomely powering your great outdoor adventures and liberating you from reliance on your old gas-powered generator. The wind experts always caution, if you live in the city or suburbs, you cannot find a residential wind generator that will liberate you from the grid—not anywhere at any cost. “But it would not cost much to install wind turbines to power a whole development,” they point out. “A homeowners’ association easily could swing a good deal on a mini wind farm.”

Wind Turbine Economies of Scale and Cost

Energy environmentalists and power economists agree, in the next decade, every American community ought to plan for providing its residents all the electricity they need from wind energy. No single homeowner ever should consider a wind power installation all on his own; even if it could work, a single family domestic wind installation would fail to make sense economically. But most American communities can find good locations for small wind farms, and they should begin investing tax revenues in calculating the costs in development of community wind power. Every small town can meet its current energy needs with twenty or fewer industrial sized wind generators—for prices somewhere between $20 and $30 million up front and out of pocket but recouped within just a few years. Balanced against the cost of health care for people suffering respiratory ailments and cancers from environmental toxins, the price of wind power seems a pittance.

Environmentalists and economists cite the example of Sempra Energy’s partnership with the Kumeyay Nation. The partners broke ground for a huge wind power installation at the Tecate Summit in the Laguna Mountains—one of the world’s very best wind power locations. There, the utility and the Native American nation will build several hundred industrial wind generators, each one costing slightly more than a million dollars, but all of them together generating enough power to light, heat, and power every home in the Imperial Valley—including several thousand new homes planned and permitted but not yet built.

Among the Kumeyay, the advent of large-scale wind power installations signals the second arrival of “the white buffalo.” The Campo Indian Reservation sprawls across hundreds of thousands of acres of apparently useless, mostly uninhabitable western slope land. Miners never found a trace of gold, silver, or copper in those forbidding hills; and they found even less water. But discouraged miners returned to San Diego bitterly and brutally wind-burned, and the secret to wealth was written all over their faces. Revenue from the wind farm will surpass income from tribal gaming by the end of the windfarm’s second year of online, and people on the reservation never again will pay for electric power. In the words of Kumeyay elders, “What the land withheld, the wind returns. Like an ancient coyote tale, we recognize that which costs nothing shape shifts into something priceless.” This example, begs to ask, what is the real wind turbine cost if it pays for itself over time?

The wind blade design is an important factor

The bigger the better when it comes blade size. The bigger blades need to have a finer design as there is more force and energy produced from the wind. The typical turbine for a home has a 3 blade design. The three blade design is more efficient and hence the better the cost savings both on the production and on the repayment of money from the electricity produced.

The cost of the installation can also be an important factor for those in rural areas. The advantage in a rural area is that one is not limited to a smaller tower. The higher the tower the more economical the over cost of the power produced will be. Wind towers should in any location be at least 30 feet tall. Many of the new wind farms are into 300 feet plus in tower size . Wind strength is better the higher up you go. The wind also blows steady at higher up. So a high tower is essential to effective electricity costs savings.