In our Land & Water pages we talk about making sure your property is suitable for the types of renewable energy sources that you want to use. If you haven’t check out that section, you might want to review that page. Enclosed here and in the Land & Water page is a link to the complete “focus on energy” article for site assessment.
Assess your property’s renewable energy potential
As you set your goals you will want to size your system and balance the costs of producing your own electricity. The system size is typically based on either your budget or the degree to which you want the system to meet your electricity needs. The average single-family home in Wisconsin consumes about 10,000 kWh annually. A more efficient single-family home may consume 5,000 kWh per year. Some families have reduced their usage to 2,500 kWh per year. An under-sized solar electric system is great incentive to the site owner to further reduce their electricity needs.
You have a number of options for generating electricity. Solar photovoltaic (solar pv) and wind generators are the most typical. But if you have a site with an appropriate water source you might be able to generate electricity with a micro hydro generator. We have also knocked around the idea of producing our own bio diesel or E85 to run either a diesel or a modified gasoline generator to produce electricity. My number crunching so far doesn’t seem to show that it would be feasible. Perhaps someone else will have the same crazy idea and find a way to make it work.
