Saturday, January 9, 2010

Wind Energy – The next power source

Wind power is a great supplement to solar power and assists in developing a fully independent personal system. When the sun is shining, wind power is often totally unnecessary, as the solar can easily provide the electricity you need. On the other hand, when a storm blows in and the weather turns, wind is part of the storm.

Thus, when solar power starts slowing down and pulling in less and less energy, the wind turbines really start spinning. This helps you not only stay off grid, but also increases your profit lines, as you can sell more power back.

A few facts about wind energy:

- Wind energy is probably the oldest form of harnessed energy in the world – boats have used the wind for propulsion since our earliest records of boats, and is still used for that today

- Windmills began appearing in China a thousand years before they began major usage in the Middle East and Europe

- Windmills have been used for everything from milling grain into flour to pumping water out of an enclosed area, as was done by the Dutch

- Between 2005 and 2008, wind power around the world doubled, from 60,000 megawatts to 121,000. 2008 alone saw a production increase of 29%.

- China is more interested in developing wind power than any other country. Each of the last three years they have more than doubled their production of wind energy. They are now producing more than 12 thousand MW every year.

- 2020 could easily see 1.5 Million megawatts of power produced yearly.

As wind power becomes more prevalent, not only does our power become cleaner and less damaging, it also gets cheaper to build, particularly for a household unit. This is the cheapest it has ever been to build or install your own system!

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