my demand has grown to 100,000 k/month 2 months out of the year. how big of a generater do i need?

wind is a consistant 17mph.
i have three phase now.
what do i ask powerer company to see if i can hookup efficently to there grid.

give me your thoughts.

Did you say 100,000 kilowatt hours per month!?

Well, a Jacobs 20KW turbine will give you about 67,398KWH per YEAR if your average wind speed is 17mph.

I am not sure about the regulations where you are, but for me in Ohio, if you are single phase, the net-metering limit is 30kw, and 100kw if it is three phase. So if you went to the limit with 100kw of installed capacity you should be getting about 28,000KWH per month, which sounds like it is well below your usage. (which is what you want, because all the watts you use onsite, you are getting paid full price for, unlike the watts you pump back into the grid)

Hello MPS,

One of the difficulties with determining how to reduce your demand charges with wind is the fact that wind is intermittent. The wind needs to be blowing at the same time when you have your demand peaks in order to reduce those charges. It’s a fundamental problem with the way utility companies the give credit to intermittent sources of energy.

In most states you'll most likely only get credit for energy sales and very little reduction in demand. The laws and rules are a bit of a problem and people are working on ways to provide some capacity credit to wind projects.

My advice to you is that you ask the utility for their rules for how they assign demand charges to your customer class. Once you understand these rules you can better understand how wind energy at your site might affect these charges and you can enter into a dialog with them about providing you with some credit for a wind system.

The actual size of the system you choose is going to be heavily dependent on the rules for Net Metering in your state as well as the rules for capacity credit and demand charges. Please feel free to call me or post with additional information so that we can go back and forth a bit on this topic. It's an important issue that potential investors in behind the meter wind systems should be familiar with.

Thanks for your interest in wind!

-Brian