On average, the cost of your electricity rises about 5% annually from your utility bill. With your own wind turbine, you are locking in a fixed rate for the energy it produces over its lifetime. Your wallet isn’t held hostage by foreign oil rates, or the increased cost of energy generated from fossil fuels.

With proper sizing, you can not only reduce your electricity bill, you can actively remove it. Anytime your system produces more energy than you are using, your meter spins backwards. If, at the end of each month, you have produced more than you use, many Net Metering agreements have your electricity company cut you a check for the difference.

For every 1 MWh (Megawatt hour) your system produces, you earn 1 renewable energy certificate. Each certificate can be sold on the open market. There is a growing demand for these RECs because companies that have a large carbon footprint can buy these in lieu of paying for energy efficient upgrades.

A negative externality is something that is not yet priced into the system. For fossil fuel producing plants, the emissions of CO2 and NOx that accelerate the changing of the planet’s atmosphere have never been priced into the cost of doing business. With regulatory changes and public understanding of the adverse affects, this will begin to change. However, the wind comes with none of these. As long as the sun is shining, the wind will be blowing. And the collectors of this energy, the wind turbines, do not spew emissions or poison the environment. The wind is clean and free.

We hear this all the time, but what does it mean? Your carbon footprint is the amount of carbon that is emitted into the atmosphere as a result of the power you consume. Currently, electricity is produced primarily by burning fossil fuels. So charging your cellphone, watching TV, and keeping your freezer cold all come as a result of burning fossil fuels. If instead, you are creating energy to do these things without the carbon emissions, you are reducing your footprint.

Unfortunately, our electricity system is in a perilous state. Very small interruptions can result in large scale electrical outages. By increasing the small, local generating centers, like wind turbines, solar arrays, hydro-electric systems, geothermal, solar hot water, and more—we are making the system more distributed. This means a downed power line, or a power plant offline has less effect on our day to day lives than it had in the past.

By creating power locally, we are reducing the need for importing oil to run power plants. Furthermore, if electricity is created less expensively and with less negative outcomes, we can use it to power the majority of our cars (some of the largest consumers of foreign oil in the form of gasoline). Keeping our future and our security in our own hands, not tied to the whims of foreign dictators.

So many people want to make an effort to do their part. They just don’t know how. Often, people and businesses who are the first to put up a wind turbine in an area become the go-to person for everyone thereafter. The knowledge you gain and the example you set cannot be overstated.

If you have a small business or a farm using the turbine, what better way to get people to stop. The increased foot traffic can do wonders for your bottom line.

We’re surrounded with natural opportunities to make our lives more fulfilling. Plus, maybe she can put in a good word to Father Time to help with the inevitable wrinkles!