Do You Wonder How Much Energy Your Home Could Get from Solar or Wind?

Have you ever thought about installing wind or solar energy on your property? Are you curious about what sort of results you could get if you did?

Then you might be interested in trying out the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's In My Backyard tool. In My Backyard uses Google Maps and the laboratory's renewable resource databases to estimate how much energy you could produce from wind or solar energy at your location.

All you have to do is plug in your address, use the "draw" tool to select where you would construct wind or solar, and plug in a few details about the installation you want. The tool will then estimate how much power you could make throughout the year.

There are a few drawbacks, of course. For one, it only has wind information for 30 states. Otherwise, an estimate is just that—for more specific information about how much energy you can get from installations on your property, you should consult a professional in your area. But if you're interested in experimenting with different options and need an overview of what's possible, this is a great place to start.

And if you're looking into installing solar or wind on your property and would like more information about what options are available to you, you might be interested in these other resources from EERE:

• Small Solar Electric Systems
• Small Wind Electric Systems
• Small Wind for Homeowners, Ranchers, and Small Businesses

Elizabeth Spencer is a communicator at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which assists EERE in providing technical content for many of its Web sites.

Comments

[Edward Douglas]

Solar and Wind energy will not generate enough electricty for my house hold needs.
I have a 3100sq.ft. house north of Little Rock AR. Is there any reason you don't include engery produce by geothermal means. If you don't were can I find this information. Our state doesn't have a department to give people infromation about which kind of renewable engery to use and what part of the state would be best to use solar, wind or geothermal. This is terrible how can this be corrected?

[Elizabeth Spencer]

Oh, I'm sorry! I just realized that I miscategorized this post. Geothermal's a little different.

Unfortunately, geothermal power plants are only used on a commercial scale—you won't be able to produce electricity through geothermal power at your home. However, you could offset your heating and cooling costs with a geothermal heat pump. Here's some information about that:

• Exploring ways to use geothermal energy: Information about geothermal heat pumps, their benefits, and how you can select one for your home.


• The Geothermal Program's Geothermal Heat Pumps page: Information about heat pumps and links to industry directories, which can help you find a contractor.

Also, you shouldn't let yourself get discouraged just because renewable energy alone won't offset your energy costs—very few houses can offset 100% of their energy needs, and those that can are called zero energy homes.

But if you want to offset a portion (or even a large portion) of your energy usage, it'll require a lot more than just renewable energy. You'd need to focus on the entire building from top to bottom, by improving the energy efficiency of your home as much as possible (possibly utilizing an energy audit), and using renewable energy to help offset the remaining costs.

[Jose Cambronero]

This is a great question, however, another very important thing to do is to calculate how many years it will take to payback your investment into solar.
This website has a great calculator, it will also give you a breakdown of state and federal incentives and rebates.

[Jesse Murphy]

I love when you post these things, I've added your site to my top ten health blog list.