Return on investment for your wind turbine

Wind turbines are not only a great way to reduce your carbon footprint, they can also reduce your energy bills! We will look into how much money your wind turbine could save you on your energy bill and even how much extra money you can expect to make with your wind turbine.

As with many things involving money, it is difficult to have an example applicable to all situations and environments. We will outline an average example but make sure to factor in your particular environment into the calculations.

For this example we will look at a TESUP MasterX wind turbine. This turbine generates 1kW of power under rated conditions (at a wind speed of 12m/s). When the wind is not blowing quite as strongly you can expect lower power generation. Taking into account the capacity factor of your area (the percentage of time the wind speed is high enough to spin your turbine) the total energy generated by your wind turbine can be found. We will use a capacity factor of 30% as this is a typical value in Europe.

1000W x number of hours in a month (720 hours) x 0.3 (30%) = Energy generated over a month

This amounts to 162kWh per MasterX turbine per month! An average UK home uses 250kWh a month so with just two turbines you could eliminate your energy bills.

 

Imagine that this was the case, you have two turbines producing 324kWh between them. The extra 74kWh are excess to your energy needs and you could sell this electricity back to your local grid. In the UK the average price of electricity is ~£0.50 so this electricity would net you £37 per month.

 

A full kit including a MasterX turbine, a TESUP charge controller and a TESUP grid inverter (required to sell electricity to the grid) costs €862. This means that after 5 years your turbines have paid for themselves and can start generating you a profit!

 

Try calculating your own payback time for your setup using this equation:

 

Cost of equipment £/(Surplus electricity generated by your turbines per month kWh x price of electricity in your area £/kWh x months in a year (12) )