With more and more people seeking renewable energy sources, the spotlight continues to fall on wind power, and the potential it has to meet our energy needs. Some people see wind energy as the best form of clean energy available, other argue that it has its drawbacks. In this article I want to try and shed some light on this debate by looking a bit more closely at the wind energy pros and cons. Before I do, I have a short video that explains a bit more about how wind turbines work and generate electricity. This example is from a large commercial turbine, the principle is the same for a the smaller turbines that you would errect on your house.

Wind Energy Pros

First of all let us look at the pros. What is good about wind energy and what are the facts that suggest it can help us meet our energy needs and reduce our impact on the environment.

The biggest Wind Energy Pro is that it is renewable. Unlike fossil fuels, we can produce new energy from the wind every time the wind blows. As far as I am aware, no-one is suggesting the wind is about to stop blowing, so we will always be able to produce power from the wind.

The cost of producing wind energy, especially for your own household supply is becoming increasingly affordable. Whilst shop bought wind turbines can still be expensive, with a little technical know how you can build your own wind turbine that will provide for a good proportion of your householder  energy for a few hundred dollars or so. Given the ever increasing costs of energy from the traditional energy companies it won’t take long to pay back an investment like this.

The next wind energy pro is that it is safe. Recent disasters, such as the BP oil spill of 2010, remind us the danger involved with extracting fossil fuels. There are no such issues with erecting a wind turbine and connecting it up to power you home.

As well as being safe, wind energy is also clean and as such friendly to the environment.

The final benefit of wind power is that it helps us all with our energy security, which is our ability to provide energy for ourselves in an ever more expensive and unstable world.

 click here to learn how to reduce your energy bills using wind energy

Wind Energy Cons

Whilst the list of Pros was quite long, this doesn’t not mean that Wind Energy is trouble free, it has some cons as well. The main Wind Energy Con is the fact that it can be unreliable. Even in the windiest locations there are days when the wind doesn’t blow. Likewise if you live in an area of low wind, then your output from a wind turbine will need to be supplemented.

One a commercial scale, it take a lot of wind turbines to produce as much energy as a traditional oil fired power station. This can lead to issues of costs, and the effect on the landscape where large wind farms are proposed.

People living close to large wind farms often complain about the noise the turning blades of the turbines make. The noise doesn’t spread far but will effect those within a couple of hundred yards of the larger commercial turbines.

Summary

On balance the Wind Energy Pros far out weigh the cons. Indeed most of the cons relate to large scale commercial wind farms. In a domestic setting, adding a small wind turbine to your home will only be a negative if you live in an area with very little wind. Otherwise, provided you build it yourself, it will be a cheap, clean and simple way to significantly reduce your monthly energy bill each and every month.