For some of you it may be instructional to start at a basic level in understanding how electricity works in everyday life.

Watts

You might have noticed that the power consumption of electrical devices is measured in watts. Most people are fairly familiar with the term watt, but most don’t know what it describes. A watt is the power produced by current (amps) flowing through a wire multiplied by the pressure (voltage) at which it flows.

Volts

Like water pressure in a pipe, voltage is the pressure of electricity flowing through the wire.

Amps

This is the amount of electricity flowing through the wire.

Power Rates

We are most familiar with the term KWH (or Kilowatt-Hour) as it appears on our monthly power bills. This is the rate of power flowing through a wire. As an example, if a 100 watt light bulb is turned on for ten hours the power rate would be 100 x 10 = 1,000 watt-hours or 1 Kilowatt hour (kilo means 1000)

Direct Current (DC)

We will be discussing both Direct Current (DC) power and Alternating Current (AC) in the planning of your renewable energy system. AC current is what you presently use in your home.

The most important difference between AC and DC power is that DC current can be stored in a battery while AC power cannot.

In the renewable energy system that you are designing to run your home, DC power produced by your wind generator or your solar panel will be converted to AC power by using an inverter. In this way you can still use many of the same AC appliances that you currently depend on.

Common DC voltages are 12, 24 and 48. The advantages of DC appliances are many, but most important is that DC motors are more efficient than AC motors. There are many applications for DC power and the benefit is that we can use this form of energy in our off grid home, while in your present tied-to-the-grid home you cannot.

AC Current

Alternating current is called this way because the current changes direction constantly. AC is the most common form of electricity usage today mostly because it is easier to work with than common DC current.

To size a wind power renewable energy system, you first have to determine your energy budget.

In order to complete an energy budget you will need to know how much power typical appliances use. What follows is a chart to help you.

AC Appliances Typical Energy Usage in Watts

Toaster Oven 1500
VCR 35
Well Pump 800
Sewing Machine 87
Satellite TV 50
Refrigerator/freezer 460
Vacuum 1125
Circular Saw 1500
Hair Dryer 1500
Jigsaw 300
Computer 100
Laptop 60
Monitor 60
27” TV 200
DVD 14
Drill 800
Microwave oven 1245
Compact fluorescent 13
Battery Charger 25
Blender/mixer 350
Belt Sander 800
DC Appliance Energy Usage
Appliance Watts
Cell Phone 4
Motor (small) 65
Sunfrost refrigerator 13
Radio 15
Stereo 30
Water Pump 50
VCR 15
14” Color TV 75
Battery Charger 7
Inverter Standby 5
Halogen Light 20

Now that you know how much energy your appliances use you can figure out your total energy usage per week, and per month.

In order to do this, simply figure out how many hours each device is used each day. Multiply this number by the number of watts that device uses and you will come up with the watt-hours of usage. Add all of the totals together to come up with your total watt-hours of usage for the week, and for the month.

Keep these numbers with your notes; you will use them to design your charging capacity, battery bank and inverter sizing.

Figuring out your own energy usage

Take the numbers you got from your own appliances or use the numbers we provided and work out your own energy budget.

Example:

Add as many items as it takes to complete your inventory. It should be noted that most households use approximately 20 Kilowatt hours per day on average.

Your new wind-powered renewable energy system would have to be very large to compensate for this high level of usage. A typical home made wind generator is only going to produce about 1 Kilowatt (1000 watts) of power. This is a wind turbine with blades 4 feet long, making a blade outside diameter of 8 feet.

Through conservation and buying newer more energy efficient appliances you can achieve the goal of living off the grid. It just takes some time and effort on your part. You can live on a total family usage of about 2 or 3 Kilowatt-hour per day and live a relatively normal life, with satellite TV, satellite internet, DVD’s, lights etc. It can be done.

Some questions answered

Once I know how much power I will need to run my home, how will I figure out how much power production I need?

Answer: You figured out how much power you use in the earlier exercise. You should be aiming for around 10 kilowatt hours per day. You could actually run your entire home on just under 3 kilowatt hours per day with energy conservation measures

The power formula goes like this:

System Power = (Wind Speed ^3) (Blade Diameter ^2) x .00478

Wind Speed is measured in miles per hour.

Blade Diameter is measured in feet.

Power is measured in Watts

It is easy to figure out your blade diameter. A widely used 8 foot blade diameter has been proved with great success.

To find your wind speed you will have to find a wind speed chart, or monitor your own wind speed for a while to obtain your own readings.

Here is a source of wind speed data.

World Wind Speed Data Maps

Let’s say your average wind speed is about 12 mph, which is pretty good. Plug that into your formula too. It would look something like this:

System Power = (12^3) (8^2) x .00478 = (1728) (64 ) x .00478
= 110592 x .00478 = 528 watts

Multiply this by 24 hours and you will have 12672 watt-hours, or about 1.2 kilowatt hours per day.

Wind speed has the greatest impact on power output since it is cubed in the previous formula. You can’t change wind speed though. You either have it or you don’t.

This brings up our next question.

Should I build one large wind generator, or several small ones?

Answer: Obviously blade diameter can have a huge impact on the amount of power that your homemade wind generator produces. There are a few concerns though. Yes, you could put up a homemade wind generator with a 20 foot blade diameter, but the forces of the wind at storm levels would demand a very substantial tower. Also, if you live in a populated area your neighbor might not appreciate a huge wind generator in your backyard. Ask first.

Some areas even have bylaws about this stuff, do some research first and find out what you can and cannot do.

Usually it is much easier to find towers for several smaller wind generators and parts to build them too. If you have areas on your property that are clear in different directions, put up several homemade wind generators to capture the wind more effectively from different directions with much smaller towers.

One final thing, when you have several homemade wind generators you can shut one down for cleaning or maintenance (or if a storm does this for you) and your other ones are still providing power.

A lot less work in the long run, and less headaches with a smaller system.

Get the full scoop on How to Build Your Own Home Made Wind Generator

Although it is much less expensive to initially get hooked into the local electric company’s grid than it is to set up and hook into wind turbines, in the long run one saves money by utilizing the wind for home’s energy needs—while also becoming more independent.

Not receiving an electric bill while enjoying the advantages of the modern electrically-driven lifestyle is a wondrous feeling.

Electric bills and fuel bills are rising steadily—but the cost of running a wind turbine energy is zero, and the cost of installing and hooking up a turbine is steadily coming down as demand rises and more commercial success is realized by various companies producing the turbines and researching technologies to make them ever more efficient.

In addition, people are moving away from the traditional electric grids and the fossil fuels for personal reasons including desire for greater independence, the desire to live remotely or rurally without having to “go primitive”, political concerns such as fears of terrorist strikes on oil fields or power grids, or concerns about the environment.

Again, this motivation to get away from the traditional energy sources is the same one that causes people to seek the power of the wind for their home energy, giving more business opportunities to profit from wind turbine production and maintenance, which drives their costs down for the consumers.

In nearly thirty states at the time of this writing, homeowners who remain on the grid but who still choose to use wind energy (or other alternative forms) are eligible for rebates or tax breaks from the state governments that end up paying for as much as 50% of their total “green” energy systems’ costs.

In addition, there are 35 states at the time of this writing where these homeowners are allowed to sell their excess energy back to the power company under what are called “net metering laws”. The rates that they are being paid by the local power companies for this energy are standard retail rate. In other words, the homeowners are actually profiting from their own energy production.

Some federal lawmakers are pushing to get the federal government to mandate these tax breaks and other wind power incentives in all 50 states. Japan and Germany already have national incentive programs in place. However, “A lot of this is handled regionally by state law. There wouldn’t really be a role for the federal government,” as Craig Stevens from Energy Department says.

And, as might be imagined, there are power companies who feel that it’s unfair that they should have to pay retail rates to private individuals. “We should [only have to] pay you the wholesale rate for … your electricity,” according to Bruce Bowen, Pacific Gas & Electric’s director of regulatory policy. However, the companies seem to be more worried about losing short term profits than about the benefits, especially in the long run, of the increased use of wind turbines or wind farms.

Did you know that you can build your own wind generator for your home energy demand? Learn how. Click on the image:

Build a wind generator for the home