will small wind work for me?

The answer to this gets back to those three basic questions you saw on our home page:

How windy is it in my area?  The annual, seasonal, and daily weather patterns are obviously the major driver of the wind conditions in your area, and are then affected further by your local geography and topography.  Are there significant hills nearby that might block the winds from a particular direction or channel them from another?  Are you located on the top of a ridge where winds are usually higher?  Are there large bodies of water nearby to set up land and sea breezes?  These geographic and topographic factors will have a significant impact on the amount of wind that will be available in your general area.

How well does my specific site work?  The unique characteristics of your specific site can have an equally important impact on how much wind you can successfully harvest.  Are there buildings or structures nearby that would act to block or disrupt the wind flows from one or more directions?  How many and what kinds of trees are there?  What height tower are you willing to consider (and/or are you allowed to install)?  Even if you live in a very windy location, the specific features of your site may make it impossible to effectively take advantage of that wind resource.

How will my project pay off?  System cost and return on investment are major considerations for most potential small wind owners.  What is the price of a particular small wind system, and how much energy does it generate?  What is the price of electricity?  Does the local utility use time-of-day pricing or offer net metering? What tax incentives, rebates, and grants are available?  These and other factors will all affect the payback period of a small wind installation and should be considered carefully. 

Finally, looking past the answers to those three questions, your personal motivation also plays a huge role.  Are you looking at it from strictly an economic perspective?  Maybe there are other factors that are important to you - perhaps a desire for personal or national energy independence?  Or do you just want to do your part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,  decrease your carbon footprint,  or foster clean renewable energy?  These motivations are harder to quantify, but are still a crucial factor in the decisions of many small wind consumers.

As you can see, making the decision to install a small wind system depends on a wide range of variables and can be somewhat daunting.  That's where smallwind.com comes in.  Our service has been designed specifically to help you - the small wind consumer.  At every step of the way, we provide the high quality and unbiased information that you need in your decision making process.  As a result, you can be confident that you have considered all of the relevant factors and made the best possible choice for your circumstances.

Next: how smallwind.com helps.