Greenhouse Effect and Self Independance. These are two of the main reasons to purchase alternative power products. Saving money is a big one too. We started our's out of emergency and independance. We live in a rural area on top of a mountain in almost northern Ontario. Power outages are frequent. Especially during storms, as the trees fall on the power lines. One winter 5-6 years ago, about -30 below, the power went out for 6 hours and froze our water pump and pipes. They all broke apart and exploded. I repaired it and replaced the pump. $1,900.00 in repairs. Then it happened again a week later, this time 12 hours no power. So this time I repaired it again and added my own independent power system.

Now, I sell and install alternative power products. Specialising in Hot water products. Here is an overview of some products, and some good information to know.

Wind turbines come in several catagories and sizes. So let's say. Mini wind turbines anything under 5,000 watts. Small turbines from 5,000 to 25,000 watts, Medium turbines from 25,000 to 100,000 watts and large 125,000 watts and up.

The mini type wind turbines use alternators like a car to create electricity, many now are permanent magnetic and don't have brushes to change. There are many models for sale now and some require periodical maintenance and some don't. You have various voltages available now too, 12 volt, 24 volt, 36 volt, 48volt, and 220 volt. These are all AC= alternating current. which needs to change to DC to charge batteries using a recifier or controller. Then an inverter to change to AC household current.

In my years of selling to people, I found the most common misconception is size of the generator. Everyone thinks they need a huge wind turbine or a huge solar array. Which is so expensive no one would ever buy one for their home. The same idea's go on the solar hot water collectors. I had a person tell another person at a home show, that it would take 50 collectors to heat their 40 gallon water tank. And there was no talking him out of it.

But the truth of it is, you  only need a small generator for decent power generation in a windy area. Same goes for solar PV panels in a sunny area. If you are producing 200 watts an hour for 12 hours, thats 2,400 watts of power you can use or store in a battery bank or feed back into the grid . Store that every day and feed back into the grid. Like drops of water in a bucket, it eventually fills up and overflows.

Let's say you started with only 200 watts of electricity producing equipment and a battery bank. A horrible storm hits your town, wipes out all power lines for miles. Major black out. It will take days to fix.

Well, you have power! so you still have lights, TV, Radio, computer and internet, you can use your Microwave to cook. In the winter, you can still use your furnace fan or pellet stove fan. If you have a water pump, you can still use that. So you are still comfortable, and with only a small power plant to back you up. Of course with a small system you would have to be conserving with usage, but you can add on a bit at a time once you are started.

If you had hot water collectors you would still have hot water during a black out  too. If you had a large storage tank and were heating with  hot water, you would still have heat.

It only takes one small 10 tube solar collector to heat a 40 gallon tank on a sunny day.

So, with a small investment on the smallest of systems, you can be independent of the utilities on a short term basis. The same systems can help reduce your utility bills year round. As a bonus help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

To be continued.