Thought I would pose a few questions here; in the hopes that a few of you may have experience in this area.
Does anyone here have any Wind turbines, or solar panels installed on their property? If so, how beneficial / practical are they? One would assume that they would pay themselves off eventually, but surely after that time they would be nearing their end anyway? Mechanical vaults?
Can they be used as a means of passive income? A home-based little wind-farm, selling back to the grid?
With ever-increasing costs, & no real sight of a sudden decrease in energy costs ... just seems to make sense for individuals to start looking for their own little alternative means.
Thank you in advance for any responses!
excellent and interesting question nyden
think we can disregard wind as it requires poking a turbine up in the air and there would be stiff opposition to that in residential areas - bad enough out in the bush - they are a blight on the landscape for mine and often very low output at peak times
on the remainder of the green homes trinkets I am currently building a retirement residence on kangaroo island SA and have just spent a lot of time researching viable options - you may be aware that SA govt has decided to become a world leader in solar use and has legislated that solar input to the grid from your own home will get you garanteed credits of 44c/unit - sounds great and we all rush to by our photo-voltaic systems to make a quid and save the earth.
well a lot of energy has to be used to manufacture those cells so their likely benefit to a green earth is debatable (we are talking small scale here)
and cost ?? to you and me $$$wow!
with the fed govt rebate for a "owner lived in residence" of $8000 the best you will get (cost/benefit basis is a 1 unit (kwh) peak) system that costs $5000
ok we are all meant to say hey great! I will generate about an average 5kwh per day back into the grid and make some pocket money for my $5000 system
well think again as to get that sort of maximum output you need to have all your own consumption at zero for the whole time and even a 4 star frig (not many about they are fairly rare) will draw almost 1.6kwh/day: so how will we get our 44c/unit? - only if we have NOTHING electrical in the house during the day.
so we look at stepping up in size and ask how much for a 2kw pv system and the numbers are $24000 (less the max gov rebate of 8000) so its getting worse on a economic return prospect and I'll bet even a 2kwh hr system will struggle to register any input to the SA grid in a normal, enviro conscious home owner
so what did we decide? scrap the solar power - absolutely no contest as there will be ongoing maintenance and other costs as well as efficiency deterioration of the cells over time - dust, birds, and general shine loss which they do not want t tell u about
then turned to solar hot water and this is also of dubious benefit but with planning and building code requirements requiring 5star energy efficiency it is difficult to achieve that without adding some form of solar gadget so we decided to spend 6000 on solar hws
we then decided to put in a water recycling system - reuse the grey water and save the once mighty murry stuff
well having worked in the water treatment area I thought go man go - this is it - will sort these out and after 4 days of research/contact with the gear out there I decided on a victorian developed unit that produces class A recycled water (can actually be used domestically thro sprinklers if u choose and approved for re-use in the wc's and wash m/c) but by the time you get the required collector tank, treatment system, and holding tank completed that was $15000 and still had to sign a maintenance contract with the supplier for 3 monthly calibration/operational checks - so scrap the recycled water bit - this became an easier decission once you factor in that SA is the only state that will not allow any class of recycled water to be other than used with underground irrigation - so vic A class is SA B class
so in the save the water department we just decided on a few rainwater tanks 50000L actually for $10000 mostly for the bonus points toward the 5star caper
all in all, a major disappointment as was looking forward to heading toward "self sufficiency"
conclusion - the residential greening thing is almost total crapp
cannot form any other conclusion other than the govts must bight the bullet and go neuclear and generate sufficient power to have large desal plants that supply the water needed and generate clean power that will do this as well as provide clean power for general electrical use though the existing grid