| By :
Roger Brown
Wind turbines for homes are priced very differently. The differences seem very slight but the prices for them can be very different. There are a number of variables that you can nail down to get a solid basis for comparison. Once you understand these elements of cost for each windmill you can make sense of their costs pretty quickly. Below are the pieces of information you need to gather to get this done. 1. The entire price of the device - It is very easy to get this one wrong. This is NOT the purchase cost, but rather the purchase cost + installation cost + expected replacement parts cost + expected maintenance cost over the likely life of the wind turbine. If you are going to install your windmill on top of a tower then you need to include that as well - that is NEVER included in the first cost. 2. How much power will the windmill put out- This is the rating of the device, stated in kilowatts. What this really means is the amount of power the turbine can produce at a given wind - generally, somewhere in the upper 20 mph range. 3. On average how fast does the wind blow on your property? - You need to know this in order to understand if you have a basis for a project in the first place. If you don't have an average of at least 9 mph, then it is probably best to move on to another idea. You really don't have enough wind to make the power you would expect to make. 4. Amount of electricity you want to get out of it - This is assessed by either taking your peak demand off your actual power bill from the utility or, adding up the ratings for the individual pieces of equipment you would like to power with the turbine. As soon as you gather all this data calculate the actual $/kilowatt of rated load by dividing those 2 numbers. This is a ratio that you can use to compare wind turbines. It is certainly some work to do all this but it is the only way to really compare products you might be comparing. Summarizing - wind turbines for homes have complicated pricing! The way to put everything on an equal footing, all you need to do is compute the ration of dollars per kilowatt and it is easy to compare your options.
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