Small wind is poised to get a significant boost from President Barack Obama and his $787 billion economic stimulus package. Obama and others have been advocating that the energy crisis and economic crisis may have a common solution: start utilizing alternative energy sources with made in the USA technologies.
Included in the package is a 30 percent investment tax credit for consumers who purchase small wind turbines to power their homes and/or small businesses. This will encourage increased investment in the small wind technologies which are almost exclusively manufacturered in the US.
An atricle in CNN recently cited industry experts who are extremely optimistic about these latest developments.
From the article:
Even amid a recession, this tax credit "is going to blow the top off the market," said Ron Stimmel, a "small-wind" advocate with the American Wind Energy Association.
The association predicts the federal subsidy could help the small-turbine market grow by 40 to 50 percent annually, a boost that would parallel the growth of the U.S. solar photovoltaic industry after a similar 2005 initiative.
Background
Small wind is defined as any turbine that generates 100 kWh of electricity or less. The amount of electricity is generally tied to the wind speed and the size of the the turbine blades. An example in the article from CNN stated that a 10 kW turbine in a location with decent wind speeds could supply enough electricity to power an average American home.
Just to give a rough idea of the costs involved, a 10 kW turbine is currently available on Amazon.com for $23,902.00. There would be additional costs to get this up and running if you require the assistance of a professional installer, but let's assume you're going to install it yourself. The total savings would be $7,170.60 which is a subtantial improvement over the $4000 cap that was in place before the tax credit was expanded.
Key Points
- 30% tax credit on all small wind turbines (less than 100 kW)
- credit now applies to installed cost rather than purchase cost as it was defined before
- $2,400 cap per turbine has been removed
- $4,000 total cap has also been removed
- States have also implemented rebates for small wind systems which can be used in addition to the Federal credit.
Resources
SkyStream has a useful FAQ and great overall resources on their site if you need more information: http://www.windenergy.com/news/news_tax_2-09.html.
Here's the link to the full article from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/09/small.wind.turbines/.
Interested in residential wind power? Considered building your own turbine?
You can get started with today with Power4Home.
6 comments:
Good informative article. will set a link from our site to this article. thanks
I think a cool approach would be to construct wind turbines out of recycled materials (car parts for example).
i live in a little town in utah called payson. it is a residential area of 40 homes all are 1/3 acre or more.
i have been trying to get the city on board with wind turbines. i have already purchased a sky stream sys.
it has been almost 3 months and one member of the city counsel is dragin his feet and i think is trying to kill my request to install
does the federal gov. require that the city make adjustments to city code to permit wind turbine use?
We must make sure we have the necessary safeguards in place so we don't harm the environment, while trying to save it. Solar seems the safest as wind needs to come up with a design or method of keeping bats and birds away from the turbines. I know this will all get worked out in the end, we just need to make sure it doesn't get left out.
A good way to protect birds and bats from the turbines might be to put a cage around the turbines.
This Company offers several types of power including green power
http://epwr.mystreamenergy.biz/energy.asp?CO_LA=US_EN
- Joseph Rosalia
Post a Comment