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| MYTHS & MISCONCEPTIONS OF RESIDENTIAL WIND POWER |
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In the media these days, there’s a lot of debate (not all of it well informed or accurate) about whether or not renewable, or "green", energy is a viable alternative to our dwindling supply of fossil fuels. Critics of renewable energy have filled newspapers, airwaves, and cyberspace with "facts" about green energy that are misleading at best, and simply incorrect at worst. This article will try to correct and explain some of these myths and misconceptions about renewable energy. There is not room enough in this article to dispel every criticism of renewable energy—that topic could fill an entire book. Instead, this article will focus on just two criticisms one use of one type of renewable energy: using wind energy to power your home. MYTH: WIND CAN'T CREATE ENOUGH ENERGY TO POWER A HOME This claim is, at best, only true under the worst of circumstances. There are a huge number of factors that must be taken into account when considering if a residential wind generator can power a home. How big and efficient is the wind turbine? How big is the house, and how much energy does it use? What part of the country in the house in? If you have a huge, high-energy house, using a tiny wind turbine, in a location where you get very little wind… then yes, you won't be able to generate enough energy to power the home. On the other hand, if you have a small home, a powerful wind turbine, and are in a place where you get a constant, steady breeze, then you can actually generate MORE energy than you need to power the home. MYTH: WHEN THE WIND STOPS BLOWING, THE POWER WILL GO OUT This claim is outright false. This myth rests on all-or-nothing thinking—that your house can use EITHER the local power grid OR wind energy, but not BOTH. This is not true. Of course, you can use both. People who have wind turbines installed on their property have their homes wired to automatically switch over to the local power grid if and when the energy supplied from their residential wind generators gives out. The residential wind generator simply lowers the amount of money you have to pay your local power company to power your home. On average, a good residential wind generator can lower your power bill by 80%. The other misleading element of this statement is the implication that the very second the wind stops blowing, the power will go out in your home. People only believe this due to a common misunderstanding of how residential wind generators work. Many people assume—understandably so—that wind power operates like the coal-fired power plants that currently run our power grids. Electricity created by coal-fired power plants is fed directly into the local power grid, where it is distributed to different homes. Under this setup, if one (or, worse, several) power plants shut off, nearby homes, even towns, would instantly lose power. The huge blackout of the Northeast USA a few years ago is a great example. This is not, however, how residential wind-powered electricity operates. Residential wind generators are NOT hooked up directly to the electrical outlets in your home. Instead, it is hooked up to one or more batteries that store the electricity created by your residential wind turbine. The batteries feed a smooth, continual flow of electricity to the power outlets in your homes. If the wind stops blowing, the batteries CONTINUE to power your home until one of two things happen: either the batteries run dry, or they are recharged by your residential wind turbine when the breeze picks up again. There would have to be absolutely no breeze for several days before you'd lose power completely—at which point, of course, your house would automatically switch over to the local power grid. We hope this explanation of how residential wind turbines work has helped dispel some of the myths and misconceptions you may have had. Hopefully, you can now make a more informed decision about whether or not to install a residential wind generator on your property. |