how much would it cost to install my own wind turbine

A small, portable generator that can provide up to two Kilowatts of electricity typically costs under $500. A medium-sized generator that supplies 3-7 Kilowatts will usually cost between $400 and $1,000. A larger generator that can provide 8-12 Kilowatts will generally cost between $1,000 and $5,000.

How Much Does a Home Generator Cost

source: usa.generator.com A home generator is an important safety precaution that enables your home to continue to use electricity even during a power failure.

Also known as emergency generators or backup generators, these machines can literally be life savers if you live in an area like Miami, for example, which suffers from frequent tropical storms and hurricanes. Permanent Generators Generators can be either permanent or portable. Permanent generators are installed outdoors, usually on a slab of concrete, much like a central air conditioning unit.

They run from an independent power source, typically propane or gasoline. These are also known as standby generators, because they are attached to your home’s power source, ready to automatically begin supplying your home with electricity should a power failure occur.

A small permanent generator that provides 10-15 Kilowatts will typically cost between $3,000 - $10,000, and an added $400 - $1,000 for installation fees.

A larger generator that can provide 20 – 40 Kilowatts will usually cost between $5,000 and $20,000.

These generators will operate even if you’re away, saving you the headache of returning home to a refrigerator full of spoiled food. Portable Generators As opposed to a permanent generator, a portable generator, usually on wheels, must be activated, and your home’s source of power much be manually switched to generator power. Portable generators are noisier and cannot be used while indoors, but are less expensive.

How Much Does a Home Generator Cost

A Skystream 3.7 (the wind turbine that has been recommended to me and the one I have researched most thoroughly) costs about $8,500 to purchase, install, and set up in my area. Installation costs in other areas are higher, ranging up to $12,000.

The Cost and Benefits of Installing a Windmill

Are you thinking of going seriously green? Are you willing to invest some serious money up front in order to reap the benefits in the long run?

If so, a wind turbine might be the thing for you. I’ve installed CFLs and programmable thermostats, but what I’d really love to do is to be almost exclusively reliant on my own energy production, with the ability to sell excess back to the grid on windy days and pull in a bit of electricity on very still days. I happen to live in an area where several school districts within an hour’s drive, as well as a dozen or so individual homeowners, have installed their own Skystream wind turbines for electricity generation.

A Look at the Cost and Benefits of Installing a Windmill How big are they? They stand about forty feet high, tall enough to be well over the roof of a three story home. In other words, it would roughly be twice as high as the roof on a two story suburban home, for example.

These are tall enough that you have to check around for local zoning issues to see whether or not you can put such a structure in place (they’re perfectly fine over almost all of Iowa, for example – I checked).

How much power does one generate? For a Skystream to be fully functional, you need to live in an area with wind that averages 10 miles per hour or more; on the Great Plains, this isn’t a problem, as you can see from this wind map of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

You can easily find wind maps for your own state as well. Given that, a fully functional Skystream wind turbine produces 1.8 k W of power in a 20 mile per hour wind. To put that in context, that’s just under 1,300 kilowatt hours a month. For comparison’s sake, we used approximately 600 kilowatt hours of electricity last month – and this included a particularly vicious cold period where temperatures sunk below zero for a period.

What about power excess? When you install a home wind turbine, it is hooked up to your power meter directly and power is drawn first from the turbine, then from your normal electricity provider (the electric company).

When the wind is very low, almost all of your power comes from them and your power meter works as normal, recording the kilowatt hours you use from the electric company. As the wind picks up, more and more electricity comes from the turbine and less and less from the electric company, until a point is reached where all power comes from your turbine.

If the wind blows faster than that (10 miles per hour or more), then the turbine will produce more energy than your home is consuming.

The rest of it goes onto the electrical grid and helps to power your neighbor’s homes. Even better, the electric meter at your home will run in reverse, crediting you for the electricity you supply. I have a friend who has an electricity credit every single month, more than enough to cover the basic fee of his electrical hookup. Annually, he receives a small check from the electric company for the credit he has accumulated with them. Yes, he has no electric bill at all and actually receives a check for it. What’s the cost?

How much can it save a month? Let’s say, hypothetically, that your local rate for a kilowatt hour is $0.10 ( the national average is actually $0.11 ).

Let’s say the turbine works at half-capacity and generates 650 kilowatt hours a month. Thus, the turbine saves $65 per month on your energy bill. At that rate, you will pay for the turbine with the energy savings in 132 months, or roughly eleven years. This assumes, of course, no increase in energy rates over that time, it assumes energy costs that are already below the national average, and also assumes a relatively low windspeed compared to what is available to me in northern Iowa.

According to my own math for my area, and also assuming an increase in energy costs that matches inflation, we would be able to pay it off in about seven years.

Are there other benefits (besides for the environment)? There also may be state tax benefits for installing such a device; Iowa residents can buy the equipment and pay for the installation with no sales tax and can earn $0.01 in credit for each kilowatt hour of energy sold back to the electric company, even if that results in just a reduction of your bill (please note that this is my understanding of the law – don’t use this as the basis for an installation).

Thus, if you could sell back a few hundred kilowatt hours a month, you would earn a $30 or so tax credit each year.

The bottom line is that this is a major step one can take if they’re really interested in green solutions. Even better, it can end up paying for itself and more, resulting in not only doing the right thing for the environment, but doing the right thing for your wallet as well. Read about how installing solar panels can affect your home insurance.

s. The purchase and installation of very small (<1-k W) off-grid turbines generally cost $4,000 to $9,000, and a 100-k W turbine can cost $350,000. The federal government and many states have rebate and tax credit programs to encourage investment in small wind.

Wind Power Your Home

Wind Power Your Home For consumers wanting to generate their own green power, installing a small wind turbine may be an option. Small wind turbines are electric generators that use the energy of the wind to produce clean, emissions-free power for individual homes, farms, and small businesses. With this simple and increasingly popular technology, individuals can generate their own power and cut their energy bills while helping to protect the environment.

Unlike utility-scale turbines, small turbines can be suitable for use on properties as small as one acre of land in most areas of the country. Installing a Wind Turbine The basic steps for installing a small wind turbine on your property are: Determine whether the wind resource in your area makes a small wind system economical.

Determine your household electricity needs by checking your monthly or yearly electricity usage. Find out whether local zoning ordinances allow wind turbine installations. Purchase and install a wind turbine sized to the needs of your household. The Small Wind Certification Council maintains a list of certified small wind turbines.

Questions to Ask Equipment Manufacturers What is the energy output (measured in kilowatt-hours or k Wh – not in kilowatts or k W) of the turbine, over one year, in average wind speeds of 8 to 14 mph? Is this calculated using real-life (“field”) data (preferred), or laboratory / wind tunnel testing? Can you refer me to other customers who have owned [Model X] for a period of time? (The longer, the better.

)What is the warranty length and coverage? (The industry standard is five years. )Has the turbine/tower ever gone through a reliability test? By whom? For how long? What were the results? How long has the company been producing turbines? How long has [Model X] turbine been available for sale to customers (not in the prototype or beta testing phase)?

For how long was the prototype tested? By whom? In the field or in a laboratory? How many turbines of [Model X] have been sold, and for how many years? How many of these are still running? How frequently has [Model X] been re-designed? What were those changes and how recent were they?

What problems have other customers encountered and how have you dealt with them? Answers to Common Questions What size turbine is needed to power an entire home? On average, a typical American home would require a small turbine with a 5-k W generating capacity to meet all its electricity needs.

A turbine of this size has a diameter of approximately 18 feet. The exact size needed to power a home, however, can range from 2 k W to 10 k W (12- to 25-foot diameter) based on a home’s energy use, average wind speeds, and the turbine’s height above ground (which affects its productivity). How tall are they? The average height of a small wind turbine (of any capacity) is about 80 feet, about twice the height of a neighborhood telephone pole, with a range of 30 to 140 feet. Generator size and tower height are not generally related; a 5-k W turbine could be on a tower anywhere from 30 to 140 feet high.

What is the average payback period? The length of the payback period depends on the turbine, the quality of wind at the installation site, prevailing electricity rates, and available financing and incentives. Depending on these and other factors, the time it takes to fully recover the cost of a small wind turbine can take anywhere from 6 to 30 years. How much do they cost? The purchase and installation of a system large enough to power an entire home costs, on average, $30,000, but the price can range from $10,000 to $70,000 depending on system size, height, and installation expense

In addition, United Wind now offers a wind turbine leasing program. What happens when the wind doesn’t blow? For grid-connected systems, the user will not notice a difference when the wind doesn’t blow. The utility provides electricity when the wind does not blow, and any extra electricity the turbine generates is sent back to the utility system to be used by a neighbor.

Off-grid turbines store power in batteries for on-demand use and are often complemented by solar electric panels to provide more consistent generation. Do I need to take wind measurements? Taking detailed measurements to gauge your wind resource is often unnecessary. Experienced installers/dealers or manufacturers can determine whether your property is suitable for a system by inspecting the surrounding area. How much land and wind are required? Installers recommend sites with average wind speeds of at least 12 mph, but specific land requirements vary.

Zoning codes sometimes impose a minimum requirement on lot size or on the distance a turbine may be placed from a property line and may vary depending on the height of the proposed turbine.

Also, it is essential to have a site with unobstructed access to winds, which most often requires higher towers, larger land lots, and non-urban locations. Currently, less than 1% of all small wind turbines are used in urban applications, partly due to zoning restrictions but mostly because wind quality is much poorer in densely built environments.

Contact your turbine factory dealer for help navigating the permitting process. How does the rated capacity of a small wind system compare to its actual performance? Rated capacity indicates the electric power (kilowatts) at a given wind speed, so the answer depends on wind speed and the turbine.

A more accurate indicator of energy production, however, is swept area. A 5-k W turbine (average residential size, 18-foot rotor diameter) produces around 8,000 k Wh per year in 12-mph average winds, which is about 100% of what an average U. S. home requires. At the larger end of the spectrum, a 100-k W turbine (60-foot diameter) in these conditions will generate around 200,000 k Wh per year.

Are batteries or other storage needed? There are two types of systems: those connected to the electricity grid (“on-grid”) and those used off-grid (for battery charging) or backup power. Many systems sold today are off-grid, but demand is rising for on-grid systems that essentially use the grid as a battery: When the wind blows, the owner uses electricity from the turbine; when winds are low and consumption is high, the owner uses electricity from the grid.

The smallest wind turbines are used in conjunction with solar photovoltaic technology. How are small wind systems maintained? Routine inspections should be performed once a year of a turbine’s 20+-year lifespan. A professional installer or trained technician (usually the manufacturer or dealer that sold the turbine) maintains the turbine and tower through physical inspections, though some turbines can be monitored remotely from a home computer.

Source: American Wind Energy Association Grants and Incentives for Small Wind Energy Systems As of March 2009, the federal government offers a Residential Renewable Energy Tax Credit for the purchase and installation of qualifying small wind electric systems, worth 30% of the value of the system. Established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the federal tax credit for residential energy property initially applied to solar-electric systems, solar water heating systems, and fuel cells. The Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 (H. R. 1424) extended the tax credit to small wind energy systems and geothermal heat pumps, effective January 1, 2008.

Other key revisions included an eight-year extension of the credit to December 31, 2016; the ability to take the credit against the alternative minimum tax; and the removal of the $2,000 credit limit for solar-electric systems beginning in 2009. The credit was further enhanced in February 2009 by The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (H. R. 1: Div.

B, Sec. 1122, p. 46), which removed the maximum credit amount for all eligible technologies (except fuel cells) placed in service after 2008. A taxpayer may claim a credit of 30% of qualified expenditures for a system that serves a dwelling unit located in the United States and used as a residence by the taxpayer.

Expenditures with respect to the equipment are treated as made when the installation is completed. If the installation is at a new home, the “placed in service” date is the date of occupancy by the homeowner.

Expenditures include labor costs for on-site preparation, assembly or original system installation, and for piping or wiring to interconnect a system to the home. If the federal tax credit exceeds tax liability, the excess amount may be carried forward to the succeeding taxable year. The excess credit may be carried forward until 2016, but it is unclear whether the unused tax credit can be carried forward after then. The maximum allowable credit, equipment requirements and other details vary by technology, as outlined below.

See the Renewable Energy Tax Credit page in the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency website for more details. More Information About Small Wind Power Home Power. Wind Power Montana State University Extension. Small Wind Overview RENEW Wisconsin. Small Wind Toolbox U. S. Department of Energy. Small Wind Guidebook Windustry. Home and Farm-Scale Wind Go to Home Page About the Wind Energy Foundation

5KThe estimated cost of installing a wind turbine is $8000 - $10000 for a small turbine and up to $20000 for a larger one. The average wind speed will also determine how expensive a model is required.

What is the cost to install wind turbines?

"Answers.com ® Wiki Answers ® Categories Science Energy Renewable Energy Wind Power What is the cost to install wind turbines? Flag What is the cost to install wind turbines? Answer by Answers Publisher Confidence votes 41

40 people found this useful Was this answer useful? Yes Somewhat No Twalling 2 Contributions How much does a wind turbine cost? It depends on many factors (i.e. size, brand, location, etc.). Commercial-grade turbines run about $1,000/k W. So a 600 k W turbine might cost around $600,000.

What is the cost of one wind turbine?5,000,000,000How much do wind turbines cost?they cost from between 1 million and 2 million to be put up Cost to build a wind turbine?1 billion dollars!! . Vijudal 2 Contributions What is the average cost of a wind turbine? About 50p. i think that it costs Â£1.50. The average cost doesn't even count here and doesn't come close to the cost of our electricity bill.

If we compare $1.5-2.2 as ave …How much does wind turbines cost?well if you sold barry chuckle and chuck noris you may have enough Chc2 15,983 Contributions Wind turbine cost?present wind turbine cost with its accessories plus installation cost Insufficient information What is the cost of a wind turbine? The usual cost of a wind turbine is about $749 dollars at home depot. What is the cost of wind turbines?

Buying and installing wind turbines is a fairly expensive thing toget into. They can range anywhere from 1.3 million to 2.2 million. Fwmh 132,447 Contributions What does it cost for large installation of wind turbine? A general rule of thumb is that wind turbines cost 1.3 to 1.5 million per megawatt.

LIBURNO 2,996 Contributions What do Large wind turbines cost? THE ANSWER IS GOING TO BE EVASIVE. there are blades 50' long and there is blades 10' long. Unless you are specific nobody knows. And the actual cost is hidden usually from sta …How much wind turbines cost?

About 55,000$ if you are willing to pay that much at all if you think the about it. It really isn't alot to pay after you get them you have free energy at least where it is wi …Seer2012 864 Contributions Answered In Wind Power What will the electricity of a wind turbine cost?

This is a question of how much electrical energy you want to produce, against the cost of the equipment to produce it.

Answered In Wind Power Do wind turbines cost money? ""Yes, Wind turbines Cost money just one fan is as is as an airplane Answered In Wind Power Where is the best place to install wind turbines turbines? Most of the time it is found on the hill tops Answered In Wind Power How much does it cost to get a wind turbine installed?5 billion Answers Publisher Answered In Uncategorized What is the cost to install a wind powered turbine generator? It costs about $75,000 to install a turbine that is powerful enough to sustain the average house. "

. The average cost of a roof mounted wind turbine is around £2,000 which will also need to be maintained (The Energy Savings Trust estimate that this could cost £100 to £200 per year). Find our list of roof mounted turbine manufacturers here.

How much does a wind turbine cost?

How much does a wind turbine cost? Compared to other renewable energies for domestic or business use, wind turbine costs vary considerably between manufacturers and installers.

Our advice, first of all, is to make sure that this is the right technology for you. Your site should: Have a wind speed minimum of 5 metres per second (to test, you can install an anemometer).

Ensure there are no obstructions (e.g., other houses, trees) that could cause turbulence. Make sure your building is not listed or has any restrictions imposed on it if you are thinking of installing a roof mounted system. Decide if you have enough land for foundations if you are installing a free standing wind turbine. Check whether you need planning permission to install a wind turbine. Discover more about whether your site is suitable for a wind turbine.

In general, free standing wind turbines are more expensive but more productive than roof mounted arrays. Roof Mounted Wind Turbines If you have a high roof that gets enough wind speed on a regular basis then you may well consider installing a roof mounted wind turbine.

They vary in power from about 0.5 k W to 2.5 k W and can be used to supplement your electricity supply. Before you take the option of getting a roof mounted turbine you need to understand that it will probably not provide all the electricity you need (though it may well take the edge of increasing fuel bills over the next 20 years).

It almost certainly will not provide you with enough energy to profit from the Feed in Tariff

Free-Standing Wind Turbines For those that are serious about using wind as a means of providing renewable energy for a local source and perhaps benefitting from the Feed in Tariff, free-standing wind turbines offer a much more effective option. They are also more expensive to install. Cost depends on the size and the output that is desired.

A 1.5 k W turbine would cost approximately £7,000 and deliver around 2,600 k W over a year depending on your location and wind speeds. A larger array that has a 15 k W capability would cost in the region of £70,000 and return approximately 36,000 k W of energy over a year.

You can find a list of smaller wind turbine manufacturers (up to 100 k W) here. For all wind turbine systems you also need to take into account the maintenance costs and the price that needs to paid if you have to apply for planning permission.

A wind turbine is built to last over 20-25 years but a number of important parts may need replacing before that date such as batteries or the inverter that converts your DC current to AC. Financing for Wind Turbines Finding the initial outlay for your wind turbine development can often be a problem.

There are a number of financial institutions and grants available that you can now take advantage of if you are serious about using wind to power your house and the surrounding grid.

Find out more about finance for wind turbines here. The Feed in Tariff for Wind Turbines One of the attractive things about installing a renewable energy source is the chance it gives you to sell your excess electricity to the power companies and make a decent return on investment. The Feed in Tariff for wind turbines varies according to the size of the array and how much power it produces.

A 1.5 k W turbine would attract a Feed in Tariff of 8.53 pence per k Wh whilst one that produced over 50k W but less than 100k W would earn you 8.53 pence per k Wh and for 100k W to 1.5MW 5.46p and for over 1.5MW its only 0.86p.

You can see the current Feed-in Tariff table from the ofgem website here: CLICK TO VIEW (8 Feb-31 March2016)QUARTER 1Generation tariffs from 8 February 2016 for installations with an eligibility date between 15 January 2016 and 31 March 2016QUARTER 2 Generation tariffs from 1 April 2016 for installations with an eligibility date between 1 April 2016 and 30 June 2016 (if UNAFFECTED by a deployment cap) (if AFFECTED by a deployment cap Technology Capacity Higher rate tariff p/k Wh Higher rate tariffp/k Wh Higher rate tariffp/k Wh Solar PV<10k W4.394.323.8910-50k W4.594.534.07Wind<50k W8.538.467.62Hydro<100k W8.548.537.67Micro-CHP<2k W13.45Find out more about how much wind turbines can earn you.

The Energy Levy Exemption Certificate If you are a business you may have to pay a levy or tax on the energy such as gas, electricity or coal that you is used in the day to day running of your company.

If you install a renewable energy source then you may be eligible for an Energy Levy Exemption Certificate which could save you more money after your initial investment for the installation of a wind turbine.

Impact on Property Price One other thing that you will need to take into account before installing a wind turbine on your premises is the effect that it may have on the property price. There is not much evidence currently available that having one installed with have a large adverse effect but a lot may depend on how efficient your system is.

Of course, it will also depend on your location. If your wind turbine is on farmland and producing a good return on the Feed in Tariff it is more likely to add value to any sale.

If you have a roof mounted system that simply takes the edge off your energy bills, you might find that aesthetic principles come into play. Find out more about the impact of wind turbines on property prices here. The table below gives you a rough idea of the initial costs of domestic wind turbine systems: System size Indicative system cost (incl.

VAT @5%) Approx. yearly system output*1k W (roof-mounted) £1,500 1,750k Wh1.5k W (pole-mounted) £7,000 2,600k Wh2.5k W (pole-mounted) £12,500 4,400k Wh5k W (pole-mounted) £23,500 8,900k Wh10k W (pole-mounted) £45,000 21,500k Wh15k W (pole-mounted) £70,000 36,000k Wh*We have assumed the average UK wind speed of 5.6m/s for the sake of illustration.

The actual system output is predicated upon a large range of factors. Larger, higher output turbines also tend to be mounted at greater heights, where wind speeds are higher. Depending on the type and size of the turbine, there are also annual system maintenance costs which one must bear in mind, though these tend to be relatively small. Since they rely on relatively simple mechanical processes, the turbines themselves tend to have a long life, and typically come with a service warranty period of 10-20 years. If the wind turbine system contains batteries for the storage of the electricity generated, these will probably need to be replaced around every 5 to 10 years. Related Blog Articles: Offshore Wind Turbines – A financial cash cow or a political real world energy solution.

You also receive all the profits. Wind turbines vary greatly in physical size, price, and the amount of electricity they generate. A large scale turbine typically costs more than $1,000,000 while small turbines can cost less than $50,000. You may decide to purchase a small turbine to offset your own use, or secure financing for a larger turbine that produces enough electricity for you to sell any power you don't use.

Business Structures

"Let's assume you have established that you have a good wind resource on your property, and you decide to undertake a wind energy project. How will you do it? As with any business venture, there is more than one way to structure your involvement. Do you want to own a wind turbine by yourself, or join forces with a partner? Or do you want to sell or lease your land to someone else?

The structure you choose for your wind energy business will depend on three main factors:* Time and Effort: You need to determine how much of your own time and effort you are willing to put into this venture. Some business structures will require more participation from you than others. For example, if you decide to own your own turbine, you will be responsible for managing its performance, maintenance, and repairs.

Leasing your land requires very little time and effort but the financial rewards of the project are normally much smaller. * Risk and Return: In most business ventures, this rule holds true: The greater the risk, the greater the return.

How much risk are you willing to undertake, and how great a return are you looking for? You should consider the amount of risk you can take with your wind project in light of your other financial commitments. * Upfront Costs: Buying and installing wind turbines requires upfront capital. For commercial-scale wind farms, these costs can run into the millions of dollars.

If you lease your land to developers you will have low upfront costs. If you want the higher profits that normally come with ownership of a project, but you are not in a financial position to be a sole owner, joint ownership could be the best option for you. Basic Business Models for Community Wind Project There are three basic ways to harvest wind energy:1. You can contract with a wind developer or other owner, 2. You can join in investing with others, or 3.

You can own the turbine (s) yourself.1. Contracting With Developers Contracting with a wind developer involves the least time, effort, risk, and, often the least reward.

Usually developers approach property owners with specific projects in mind. Once you sign a contract to allow wind turbines on your land, you are not obligated to do any more work. This business structure is currently the most common form of large-scale wind ownership, mainly because turbines are so capital intensive.

A wind developer is an individual or company that constructs, owns, operates, and manages wind energy systems. Developers essentially act as ""middlemen"" between landowners who have good wind resources and power suppliers or power marketers who buy electricity.

Sometimes electric companies own the wind generation and contract directly with landowners to host the turbines. Developers think in terms of ""projects."" A project might consist of one or hundreds of turbines, this determination will be based on the amount of electricity the developer is expected to sell.

Contracts between developers and electric companies are called Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). The cost to generate electricity from wind has declined rapidly, which has helped wind energy become competitive on the open market Currently, developers typically receive about 3 to 5 cents per k Wh for PPAs.

There are three primary types of arrangements landowners and developers make regarding wind energy:* Leasing Land: A developer may lease or rent your land for the life of the turbines, which is usually about 30 years.

You might be compensated with a lump sum or annually through a royalty payment for the amount of electricity produced. Basing the lease on a share of revenues can help capture future increases in the value of wind power. Landowner payments are typically about $2,500 to $5,000 per wind turbine per year. In this arrangement, you retain ownership of your land. * Wind Easements: A wind easement is a deed or will executed by the owner of a particular plot of land or air space to ensure a wind energy developer adequate exposure to the wind.

Easements run in perpetuity unless the deed provides for termination. Developers usually compensate for easements with a payment up front.

Easements must be in writing and must be filed, recorded, and indexed by your county recorder's office. * Purchasing Land: Developers will sometimes purchase your land outright and build their turbines. You reap a one-time profit, but once you've sold the land, you have no access to that wind resource.2.

Group Ownership Investing with others gives you the opportunity to reap greater rewards than leasing your land with less risk than owning the turbines by yourself. As a joint investor, you would be a part owner of a wind farm. The entire investment group would be responsible for developing and managing the wind farm, which cuts out the third party developer.

There are many forms of joint ownership, from two partners to corporations with large numbers of shareholders.

If you decide to build a partnership or pursue a joint venture to retain equity in wind turbines on your land, you can choose from several options:* Pass-Through Entities: A pass-through entity business structure allows tax credits and operating gains and losses to be allocated to the members of the entities rather than remaining with the entity itself.

* Consumer Cooperative: Cooperatives are normally set up as corporations or LLC’s in which a business’ customers own and control it. Returns are based upon your patronage of the business rather than income from an investment. If a cooperative can build wind turbines that provide electricity at lower costs than other sources, the benefits get passed on to its owners in the form of lower utility bills.

* Limited Liability Company (LLC): The LLC is a corporate entity that can be created to be the official owner the wind farm. Individual investors can buy shares of the LLC. This structure provides legal protection to the investors in case of financial problems or accidents at the wind farm.

In this type of structure, gains and losses are allocated to the shareholders for tax purposes. * Partnership: In general partnerships, the ownership is joint and several. This means the profits and liabilities are split between the partners. This structure can cause problems if the wind farm faces financial difficulty, because the individual partners are personally liable for the debts of the partnership.3. Individual Ownership If you choose to own a turbine yourself, you assume all responsibility for the work and all the risks.

In Summary There are many ownership structures to choose from. The structure you choose will depend on your current financial situation, your goals, and possibly the enthusiasm or availability of others. Talking with other turbine owners about their business structures can be enormously helpful. "

[1] There is a 10 kilowatt hour model for businesses to use instead of a backup generator. The cost to installers is $3,000 or $3,500 for the 7 and 10 kilowatt hour Powerwall, respectively. [2] The $3,570 is for a 1.5 kilowatt installed system after government rebates.

How Long Does It Take to Pay Off a Tesla Powerwall?

One of the biggest problems with electricity from solar and wind power is that these sources of electricity are not reliable because of their intermittent nature. We rely on having electricity when we require its use—24/7. Anyone familiar with the third world or even developing countries knows that unreliable forms of energy are a huge impediment to modern living standards and quality of life.

One suggestion to make these intermittent sources more reliable is to use batteries to store electricity when the intermittent sources are producing electricity and then use the electricity when the sun goes down or the wind stops.

The issue has always been that the battery back-up is expensive, particularly with regard to the scale of the grid or cost of batteries for home use. Tesla claims that they have overcome much of these problems with its Powerwall battery. Powerwall is a daily use battery that is produced and marketed by Tesla to provide power to homes or businesses for part of the day, off-setting some electricity costs.

[i] The issue that remains is the cost. How much does Powerwall cost initially, how much does it cost to operate, how much electricity will be offset, and how many years will it take to pay back the initial capital and installation costs?

These costs must be considered in order to fairly compare our current electrical system to those that government policies are promoting through their push for renewable sources of energy.

This article provides answers to those questions and a tool to estimate the payback period based on local electricity costs. Powerwall Cost and Operation Buying a Powerwall and inverter, as well as having it installed is estimated to cost $7,340 by Solar City [ii] (like Tesla, Elon Musk is the CEO of Solar City).

The daily use Powerwall for homes is rated at 7 kilowatt hours, [1] with round trip battery efficiency estimated at 92 percent, and inverter efficiency estimated at 95 percent.

About 7.5 kilowatt hours is needed to charge the Powerwall, providing about 6.5 kilowatt hours of power once charged. With some utilities, consumers can choose between flat-rate electricity pricing (the price is the same no matter the time or day or demand on the electricity grid) and peak-rate pricing. With peak-rate pricing, electricity rates are low during off-peak hours and higher during peak hours. To make optimal use of Powerwall, it should be charged using lower cost off-peak electricity, then operated when peak rates are in effect.

If the home or business has solar panels or wants to invest in them, Powerwall can be charged with the solar power during the day, then used to power the home in the evening, night and/or morning. As an example, assume peak rates at $0.15 per kilowatt hour and off-peak rates at $0.06 per kilowatt hour.

At the off-peak rate, it would cost $0.45 to charge the Powerwall each night. Operating the Powerwall for 6.5 kilowatt hours the next day, saves $0.98 of electricity charges.

Factoring in the charging costs, saves $0.53 a day of electricity costs, or $193 a year, requiring a payback period of 38 years, which is almost 4 times the warranty period of 10 years for the Powerwall. If solar power was used to charge the Powerwall, it would save the charging fee of $0.45 a day, making the Powerwall savings each year $358.

Factoring in the installed solar panel cost of $3,570 [2] for a 1.5 kilowatt system [iii], makes the payback period 31 years, still 3 times the warranty period. According to a 2012 study, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission found that only 1 percent of U. S. residences have off-peak vs. on-peak electricity rates. [iv] If a U. S. household has a single electricity rate at say $0.12 cents per kilowatt hour, it will cost more to charge the Powerwall than it provides in electricity.

In this example, it will cost the household $0.12 more a day ($44 a year) to use Powerwall than if the household purchased all its electricity directly from its utility company.

In other words, the Powerwall must be charged at a low electricity rate or by a solar panel system, in order to make Powerwall economic.

And, even then, the payback period for U. S. electric utility rates would be much greater than the Powerwall warranty period. The tool below allows the user two options for determining the payback period for using Powerwall to offset electricity rates—either charging Powerwall using off-peak rates or via a solar system.

Both options require the installed cost of Powerwall. The user needs to select the option, then either input the off-peak and on-peak electricity rates, or the installed cost of the solar system and the on-peak utility rate. The tool will then provide the user with the payback period. Please note that the tool does not work for a single utility rate because, as noted above, it would cost more to charge Powerwall than to purchase power from the local electric utility.

With the Obama Administration pushing policies to convert more of our electricity to intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar, it is important that the public understands the costs and tradeoffs from our current system, which in most people’s minds, works well across a wide range of demands and uses.

This blog answers some of the questions of the mysteries of energy storage and serves as a tool for consumers to judge the government’s experiment and the costs that may be hidden by the hype promoted by those involved in providing “fixes” to the use of intermittent renewable energy in place of our normal, on-demand, reliable electrical system.

[1] There is a 10 kilowatt hour model for businesses to use instead of a backup generator. The cost to installers is $3,000 or $3,500 for the 7 and 10 kilowatt hour Powerwall, respectively. [2] The $3,570 is for a 1.5 kilowatt installed system after government rebates.

The cost can range between $2,000 and $6,000, depending on the quality and longevity of the system. [i] Gizmodo, Tesla Powerwall: A Battery for Your Home, May 1, 2015, http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/05/tesla-powerwall-a-battery-for-your-home/ [ii] Lifehacker, Tesla’s Powerwall: Crunching the Numbers for Australia, May 25, 2015, http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/05/tesla-powerwall-crunching-the-numbers-for-an-australian-suburban-home/ [iii] Solar Choice, 1.5 kilowatt solar system: Pricing, outputs and returns, October 18, 2012, http://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/1-5kw-solar-system-pricing-outputs-and-returns/ [iv] Friedman, Consumer-Friendly and Environmentally-Sound Electricity Rates for the Twenty-First Century, March 1, 2012, https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/Friedman_HOOP_retail_electricity_pricing_1.1.pdf