With ever-increasing fuel and power costs, it is time that we all became more conscious about saving power. Apart from conserving energy at home and work, we can each start to use cost-effective means to actually create our own power. Solar power and wind power solutions are becoming a reality and can be a very cheap and effective means to implement at home.

Solar and wind solutions will help you eliminate your power bill and help the environment. They will also save you from power outages.

Wind power is a good idea if the following is true:

- You have a fairly big property. If you have acre or so, a wind power generator will definitely work for you.

- The wind speed in your area is on average 11 miles per hour or higher. Slow wind speeds simply won’t generate enough electricity.

- Your house needs an uninterruped power supply. For fridges and computers that always need to be on, having wind power as a backup is a huge plus.

A wind power turbine generally consists of a tower, a body with motor, and blades that spin in the wind. The height of the tower depends on the height of surrounding objects and on the distance from them. If you are in a low-wind area you may need a larger tower, and a shorter one if you live in a high wind area.

The spinning energy of the blades is converted into useful electricity by a motor inside the wind turbine. This electricity can be used to power your household appliances. If you use batteries, you can get off the grid completely or just store energy for later in case of a power blackout. If you stay on the grid, your power company will pay you for energy generated that you didn’t use!