Federal Law requires that the local power company must buy power generated by your windmill. That said they are not required to pay for the costs associated with making this possible.
The initial costs to you is as follows:
Items you must provide and install or contract to have installed:
1) Windmill generator
2) Inter-tie inverter approved by the Power Company you are working with.
Must conform with IEEE 1547.
3) Appropriate inter-tie disconnect switch
The local Utility will require you to pay for any items they have to add to their lines in order to control the voltage level and accommodate load flow changes caused by your generator. (This is true for any form of generation - Wind, Photovoltaic, Hydro, etc.)
This may be $0 or $500,000 or more, depending on where you are located on the system and how large your generation equipment is. The local utility must buy all the power you can develop above what you use but only if they can ensure your generator does not cause large voltage variations and excessive load flows. If they must upgrade to allow you to put your generation equipment on line, you are responsible for the cost. Otherwise the cost would have to be paid for buy the stockholders and customers which is not fair. If that was the way EDC (Electric Distribution Company) had to pay for upgrades, all the customers and stockholders would be subsidizing your generation installation.
The Federal Government allows you to connect by law but that same law requires that they do not cause the other customers and stockholders to have to pay for upgrades caused by you.
Hope this helps,
Newton1Law
It sometimes works that way, but it is illegal unless the electric company approves in advance. Getting their approval is usually a big hastle, which is why few people install wind generators. There are a number of practical engineering problems such as your wind turbine needs to turn at a speed that is phase locked with the electric company. The usual solution is to make dc, then use a special inverter to change the dc to ac that is phase locked. You can likely see that the voltage you produce also needs to closely match the voltage at the wall socket. There are also problems if the power company's voltage drops significantly for even a fraction of a second. Neil
It isn't that straight forward technically by a long shot; but not altogether uncommon either. You have to have a device (at the least), called a Grid-Tie-Inverter. It matches your generated electric up to the electrical characteristic of the power company.
Then there is regulation. I was lead to believe that it is a national federal requirement (ie; a law in the USA), that companies buy from people. However like most laws, instead of keeping to the spirit of the thing: local companies throw their own twist on it. For example where I live; you'd have to get a special electric meter, and while the power company charges one rate to provide, they will only buy it back at less than half the price.
Yes, but that depends on the specific company and regulations.
Some localities have regulations that demand the local power operations must purchase any produced power from a residence. Other localities say that they only have to purchase an amount equal to that delivered (so it can offset purchased electricity, but they will never send you a check).
could I take the energy that it makes and plug it into a wall socket to get credit from the electric co
