WIND ENERGY
These antique windmills are popular for nastalgia, but not practical for energy production.
Much of the potential for renewable energy production in the future appears to be from wind. Our experience has made us surmise that Solar is a ten and wind is a good strong six. That would put nuclear and coal at zero and zero.
The reasoning behind that analysis is that wind takes transmission, Wind requires repair, and wind is best where people don't want to live. Whereas solar requires no transmission, no repair and people live where the sun shines. In addition, the wind might blow anytime or not at all. While the sun is as predictable as grandfathers clock and it shines when power is most needed. Wind is still wonderful and clean. We need to employ wind technology every chance we get in order to get away from the problems of fossil fuels.
These medium size windmills are retrofitted out of California and matched to their local substations so they don't require new transmission. These are truly innovative projects across Montana and the product of Dave Healow's considered efforts to make lots of power sustainably.
Babb MT hybrid system_________Big Timber hybrid system
Missoula area, hybrid system, gin pole, guyed tower.
Maintenance call. Eighty foot tower lowered for turbine repair.
Unfortunately this is a common situation with small wind in the U.S. You can pretty much count on this kind of problem every three years or so.
Unless you have a desire to tinker with broken things and a system with PV as the backbone, you might want to avoid the small, home-size windmills for now. There will probably be some improvement in the next few years as demand increases, but with so many moving parts, small wind is always going to entail some repair.
Western Montana is especially unsuitable for small wind turbines. The cube law elliminates any area with less than twelve or thirteen mph average wind speed. Turbulance from mountains, buildings, trees, etc. causes the turbine to turn constantly seeking the source of the gusts which causes great wear and tear on the windmill. The money is usually far better spent on solar.