The Folly of Home Wind Turbines and Home Solar

We all want to be good citizens, right? Many of you believe that by installing your own home wind turbine or home solar panels you are doing your part to stop global warming and decrease the use of fossil fuel used to create electricity. The more you are off the grid creating your own power, the less fossil your electric company has to burn, isn't that the Mother Earth News message? The fact is, it doesn't work that way. Electricity is not like a hamburger stand, where if you don't buy a hamburger that day it just stays in the freezer.
Here is how it works.

You hire a solar contractor and install a $45,000 solar system on your roof, knowing that when the sun is shining it will create electrical energy. The Government gives you a $15,000 tax credit to help pay for this boondoggle. You look at your electric meter and see that when the sun shines indeed you are creating electricity!!! Your meter is running backwards, so you think you are actually contributing power to the electricity grid. You are saving money and doing your part to save Mother Earth, that is what you have been fooled to think!

Now, think this through from the viewpoint of your electrical and grid company, your real power company. They have an extra 15% of electricity available in the form of reserves, fossil burning or nuclear energy, because they are worried that one of their power plants could suddenly breakdown or maybe there will be an unexpected spike in electricity usage. No matter what, they will have enough electricity being produced with a safety cushion, otherwise there will be a blackout.

Tomorrow there could be clear skies, partly sunny or cloudy skies. If the skies are clear your home solar system could be working at 100% and you would be technically "off the grid". But are you? If you are a typical resident and use 30 kWh's per day and it is sunny for 12 hours tomorrow so that you are creating 15kWh's the only way that you truly off the grid is if your power company turns down the burn rate of their power plants so that 15kWh's less of electricity is produced. That won't happen because if the skies suddenly turn cloudy your solar panels will not work and you will be back on the grid sucking electricity from your power company. This is key to understanding both wind and solar. The real power company MUST burn an amount of fuel to decrease their output in the exact amount matching your power production. There are absolutely no savings unless there is less fossil fuel burned.

What happens in reality is that you are creating electricity to power your house, partially funded by federal tax dollars and other incentives, while your Power Company is making the exact same amount of electricity as they always do. They have to. If you completely disconnect from the grid 100%, then the power company will redo their calculations and produce power for one less house. But if some days you make power and some days you don't, in a completely erratic fashion, then the power company can't possibly know when you are going to make power and when you are not, so they will make power ALWAYS, knowing that it could be sunny or it could be cloudy.

This is a concept that very few have ever thought of, because you have been convinced and brainwashed to think that getting off the grid, even erratically and intermittently is going to save our society resources. NO, you will still have the same old electrical lines, the same electrical employees, the same amount of fossil burning. In actuality you will be doing the opposite, you will be Ripping Off America! because when the sun is shining you won't be paying "your fair share", even though in actuality your power company will be producing your share. to add to that, you will be Ripping Off America by now paying your fair share of taxes because you will be getting Federal Tax Credits to install your boondoggle.

To add to the folly, because there are 1,000 committing the same folly as you, a new industry of home solar panels was created. They built a building, which uses electricity. They use materials, which involved mining natural resources and environmental problems associated with that. There is installation and maintenance of the system and it must be disposed of when it not longer works. The materials and energy used to create your $45,000 home solar or home wind is simply a boondoggle and an additional drain on the resources of our society.

I am writing this post from the standpoint of a Pennsylvania resident, where we rarely have more than one cloudless, blue sky day consecutively. This post wouldn't completely apply to SW USA because sunshine therefore solar power is more reliable. But even in those areas, would the power company KNOW that you have solar panels installed in your house. Are they calculating how many houses have panels and calculating exactly how much electricity they are creating so that they can reduce their fossil burn rate and electricity production of the real power plant? Do they have a weatherman on site who is making hourly weather predictions in case there is a sudden, unexpected cloudy day or cloudy time? These are all questions that are vital to your understanding of home electricity production.

This blog is primarily about wind power and the same exact principle would apply to your home turbine. Is the electrical company reducing their fossil burn rate on windy days? When your wind turbine is spinning, is that causing and exact and opposite reaction at the power company? Or are you just ripping off America and the other power company customers by not paying your fair share. You are being deceived!!!! Think about it.

To sum it up. The power company knows the average electricity needs for a certain hour on a certain day of each year and they make enough electricity to supply that need, with a 10-20% excess to handle unexpected increases in demand or a sudden power plant failure. They can't possibly consider whether your teeny, ERRATIC electricity production system is going to be working or not due to the vagaries of the ever changing weather. If you cut the cord completely and discontinue your power service the power company will adjust their power production accordingly. Also, if you become an energy conserver and use less power, that will show up in the demand averages, especially if many people become conservers, then the power company will adjust their power production accordingly.

The only way you are not be part of the fictitious problem that the Greenies invented so they can control your mind and your wallet, is to completely cut your electrical service and go 100% off the grid. No electric company, no utility company, live like a caveman.