With global warming continuing to cause alarms, people are still looking for ways to lower their harmful impact on the environment. One of the avenues through which people are working on reducing their carbon footprint is through renewable energy sources to power their homes.
People willing to switch to renewable energy at home have a few choices, but the most commonly used renewable energy at home at the moment is solar power. A lot of people are looking at wind power as another option that still isn’t as commonly used as solar. Why is wind power still not standard and embraced by people like solar? We dive into look at a few challenges of using wind power at home and why you still can’t just have a wind turbine at home.
Wind Turbines Cause Noise And Visual Pollution
Even though wind power is otherwise excellent for the environment, especially when compared to coal or gas power plants. They are still known to cause a lot of noise, and many people seem to think that wind turbines can look out of place near residential homes. The noise wind turbines make can be anywhere between 50 to 60 decibels, which, while not too high, can add up to a lot, especially when it has to be on or next to your home. There are also some concerns about the visual impacts wind turbines would cause on an area’s landscape.
Wind Turbines Can Impact Local Wildlife
There have been multiple cases of birds, bats, and other species flying into the spinning blades of a turbine. Their threat to wildlife is relatively low. According to research, there are more bird fatalities by crashing into windows compared to wind turbines, but any harm is still hurtful. Research is still being done on improvements to minimize the impact of wind turbines on the different species and wildlife.
Wind Is Unreliable
As we all know, the wind isn’t really reliable. Wind doesn’t blow all day every day, the wind doesn’t blow the same in different locations, and wind turbines usually only function at about a 30% capacity. You can’t 100% rely on wind turbines to power your home consistently and daily. Just as no wind is an issue, high winds and severe storm conditions can also cause damage to wind turbines.
Wind Turbines Need To Be Big
Wind turbines need to catch as much wind as possible and to do that, they need to be large. They also need to be tall, at least taller than most of their surroundings, to catch the higher speed winds that aren’t getting blocked by buildings, trees, and houses. The taller and higher they are, the faster they can spin and the more electricity they produce.
Wind Power Is Seeing Rapid Growth
For those who are willing, wind power can still be a viable option soon. Technological advances have caused prices to decrease by over 80% since the 80s. They continue to get more and more efficient and now also come in a variety of sizes. Turbines can be bought in a range of different sizes for factories, farms, and private properties.
Even portable wind turbines have entered the market. Wind turbines will continue to experience rapid growth. In a few years, we will see people adding wind turbines to their homes just like solar panels due to this development.
