newgreenideas

john2674 · Joined: 03 Mar 2008 Posts: 2

Instead of investing all that money into large wind farms,
wouldn't it make more sense to put lots of small windmills on top of
preexisting electric poles? chances are at least some of them would be
moving all the time, small ones would be substantially cheaper to
build, the
poles are already there and the grid is already there too. I'm not
sure
what the logistics would be in order to tie them into the grid but it
sure
seems like it would be worth looking into.

newgreenideas · Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 10:06 am Post subject:

I love this idea! The poles could have solar panels too!

Incidentally, where I live in British Columbia, the government-run electrical utility is replacing over a million residential electrical meters with high-tech gadgets that promise energy conservation returns. I'm not so sure.

Now, if they could find a way to get 2-way meters running simply and effectively, we could all be plugging windmills into our meters and offsetting our consumption and cost.

It would also spur industry to really bring some practical, plug-and-produce small-scale power generation equipment to the market.

Today, it's still like the old days of computing, where you have to assemble all sorts of parts. You should be able to buy a windmill or solar panel at the hardware store and come home and plug it into the meter on the side of your house.