Thursday, April 30, 2009

How Much Electricity You Can Get From Wind Power

By Arnold Thompson

You have probably heard it all already, that renewable energy is the way to go. If more and more people simply took a little time out of their day to learn something new each day about green energy, the planet may find that it is given a little bit of a break. When the issue is ignored, energy plants will continue to make energy through unhealthy means that not only destroy our planet in the long run, but also poison our bodies in the process.

It's imperative that our generation make the change and start to use renewable green energy sources and ingrain the importance of using these clean energy sources on the younger generation. One of these technologies with great potential is wind power. However, before we discuss how much energy you can produce with a wind turbine, let's examine how wind power works.

Many fear that wind power cannot produce enough energy without a steady strong wind. This is a misunderstanding of how wind power operates. Even the slightest breeze can produce electrical power. Wind power works by taking the kinetic energy of the wind moving the turbines of a wind generator to produce electrical power which can be used to power homes and businesses.

A wind generator will work best when installed on the roof of the building, as this allows it to catch more wind energy. However, it may be a good idea to have a backup supply of electrical power, so you may not want to call your local utility to disconnect just yet.

This is so that if there ever is a time that you are not able to capture enough wind energy, you can still get the power you need to light up your house or to keep the heat running if you rely on electric for your heating needs. What about the times that there is a lot of wind being produced around your home? If there are winds that exceed seven miles per hour, which can happen a lot, you are able to sell the extra energy that is produced back to the utility company.

This of course helps to lead people to the understanding that wind power can truly generate enough energy for you to make use of in your home. The power company will always be there to serve as a backup and you would probably have enough left over to sell back to the electric company.

Being able to sell this energy to the power company is a way that you will be able to earn back the money you put into installing the wind generators to begin with. The exact amount of energy that a person can expect from the use of their wind generator will simply depend on the size of generator they are using.

A 10-kw wind generator can bring in about 10,000 kWh each year when placed in a location that produces about twelve mile per hour winds on average. This is enough energy to power one standard sized household. A 5-MW wind turbine can produce 15 million kWh or more each year. This is enough to send enough power to 1,4000 homes.

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