Why wireless Internet matters to small wind

If you ask Andy Kruse, the CEO of wind turbine maker Southwest Windpower, about technology, he's more likely to talk about software and WiMax than turbine blades or inverters.

Kruse is in Washington this week lobbying to improve the subsidies for installing small wind turbines, one of the fastest growing segments in wind energy. Southwest Windpower makes a line of small wind turbines including the Skystream, which is sized for individual homes.

Changes in the stimulus package will lift the $4,000 cap on the federal tax credit for small wind purchases and other forms of clean-energy generation, according to Kruse. That means that consumers or businesses can get a tax credit worth 30 percent of the purchase price for a small wind turbine, geothermal heat pump, or solar hot water installation.

A Skystream wind turbine at the Botanitic Gardens near the Mall in Washington D.C.

(Credit: Southwest Wind)

In addition to better financial incentives, Kruse is also advocating that federal dollars are spent on better renewable energy software and Internet connectivity in rural areas.

Better site assessment software, coupled with lots of computing power, would help consumers and installers get more detailed information on the available wind or sun resource at a particular location.

The difference between a suboptimal site and one with a good wind resource can be dramatic, said Kruse. With good wind and high electricity rates, a homeowner could recoup the upfront investment of a small wind turbine in five or six years. But with low electricity rates and marginal wind could mean 15 or 20 years, he said.

Start-up 3Tier offers a wind and sun resource map but more detail will help optimize the installation and avoid dissatisfied customers. Southwest Windpower estimates that about 13 million locations in the U.S. are suitable for its small wind turbine which is typically mounted on a pole.

"You really needed Cray (supercomputers) before to generate maps," he said. "We're at the point now where we can look at this and use cheaper horsepower to create better maps."

Internet access, too, is important to Southwest Windpower because some of its turbines have built-in local-area networking.

"Our wind turbines are Zigbee wireless controlled so we can monitor it and give it an IP address at the router and from there we can look at the performance and can upload new software," he said.

Broadband Internet connectivity, particularly in rural areas with good wind, would give Southwest Windpower the ability to spot problems remotely.

As part of smart grid program, utilities could use that Internet connectivity to change the voltage of wind turbines in an area to reduce the load on the grid, Kruse explained.

"This is a huge step with our machines. No longer is it just an alternator that makes electricity but it's also a machine that you can communicate and interact with," he said.

[BeyondGreen]

We need to utilize everything in out power to reduce our dependence on foreign oil including using our own natural resources.OPEC will continue to cut production until they achieve their desired 80-100. per barrel. The high cost of fuel this past year seriously damaged our economy and society. Oil is finite. We are using oil globally at the rate of 2X faster than new oil is being discovered. China and India will put an estimated additional 3 million vehicles on their highways by 2010 further depleting the supply. We need to take some of these billions in bail out bucks and bail ourselves out of our dependence on foreign oil.It would cost the equivalent of 60 cents a gallon to charge and drive an electric car. The electricity to charge the car could come from solar or wind generated electricity. If all gasoline cars, trucks, and suv?s instead had plug-in electric drive trains, the amount of electricity needed to replace gasoline is about equal to the estimated wind energy potential of the state of North Dakota Jeff Wilson has a really good new book out called The Manhattan Project of 2009 Energy Independence Now. He explores our uses of oil besides gasoline, our depletion, out reserves and stores as well as viable options to replace oil.Oil is finite, it will run out in the not too distant future. WE need to take some of these billions in bail out bucks and bail America out of it's dependence on foreign oil. The historic high price of gas this past year did serious damage to our economy and society. WE should never allow others to have that much power over our economy again. I wish every member of congress would read this book too.

[ScorpioKing1990]

The high price of gasoline hurt our economy, but it helped our society. You can't say that we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and then complain that the price of gas isn't low, which would encourage people to buy it. I agree that we need to stop importing oil, but that's exactly why we need gas to be expensive. Let's say I'm a salesman trying to sell you something and I was offering two very similar things. If I said to you, "Item A is the best you can get, it's new, it's cheap, but not excellent when it comes to convenience. Item B is pretty good and it's more convenient, but it's way more expensive." What would you choose if you were to buy one? This is how I see gas vs. electric in the energy industry right now. Judging from your comment, I'd have to guess you'd probably choose item A. So would I. The fact is, people are lazy. Up until the recession, most of America would probably choose item B simply because it's convenient. People saw no problem using their fake money (a.k.a. debt) to buy more expensive things that were simply easier for them in the short term. What do I mean by convenience? Quite simple actualy, one word: infrastructure. We simply don't have the infrastructure to support EVs all over America right now. We have the capacity, but not much action has been taken to utilize it. Which leads us back to the beginning....people are lazy. Of course who can realy blame them when it involves huge work and billion-dollar investments to build brand new nation-wide infrastructure? This is why we need something to motivate them. The threat of global warming has been a good start. But despite the fact that there's already evidence of it today, the major effects seem too far down the road for most people. They just don't care about it so much as to take Manhattan Project-style action. Think about the number of people who drive vehicles that need gas (even hybrids do). If all of those people suddenly had to pay $9.50 per gallon, even the people with the best hybrids would be like "****...." when they pull into the gas station. Now if the people with SUVs saw that, oh boy....there would be chaos. It's all supply and demand. Right now the majority of the world drives gas powered cars, so there is demand for gasoline, therefore supply is generated. Sooner or later the supply will run out. But since we can't afford to wait until it's too late, we need to make other options more appealing before that happens. One of the best ways to do this is to raise the price of gasoline. What happened last year was a miracle in disguise. It hurt people's wallets, but that was exactly the thing they needed to be like "damn, we need to fix this". Things like global warming and the risk of oil running out are all theories (ones that I believe in, but nevertheless haven't fully happened yet). While plenty of people believe that they COULD happen, simply not enough peoople seem to believe that they realy WILL happen and that the threat is imminent. But pulling up to the pump and seeing with your own eyes the super high price of gasoline, that cannot be denied. This, along with the theories of what will surely happen if we continue to use oil the way we currently do, will surely encourage a new era for the energy industry.