My company as you can see from my username is a heating and AC company that specializes in ground source heat pumps and hi efficiency homes. We are located in Portland OR where there is a lot of solar going in but i don't know if it makes sense, plus in my area it is an over saturated market. I am going to Flagstaff at the end of the month and will be visiting the SW Wind energy factory while there and was wondering if people here could provide me with a list of questions to look into asking to see if this product is even something worth considering as an additional offering. We want to get into wind because my state will pay up to 60% of the cost and the Feds pay another 30% even if a system costs 30k up front, net to the homeowner should be $3,000 to $5,000. Last year there were twelve recorded wind installations in residences that received rebates from 4 companies so it seems like there is lots of room to expand, plus my customers are usually on acreage and already doing other renewable upgrades. I would love to hear any feedback, both positive and negative before I invest a lot of time and money into this possibility.

Besides the terrible ROI on small turbines, I would check on the noise and service life issues.

but i don't know if it makes sense

If that is code for "short term net savings to a homeowner", then the answer is NO.

Wind turbines need to be placed high off the ground in order to get efficiency. That leads to substantially higher cost, and, in many places, zoning issues. Unlike solar, they also require periodic maintenance.

What they can do well is generate power during periods when the sun doesn't shine. If you have a site where the wind can be considered an actual resource, then you would want to look into it. Otherwise, you will spend a lot more time talking to people about wind than you will actually spend installing.

Having spent several years in the Portland area in decades past I'm hard pressed to come up with a location near Portland with has sufficient available wind resource to make any sense out of small-scale wind. Maybe on just the right bluff on the coast between Astoria & Tillamook one could make a go of it with a sub-100' tower, but anywhere the Willamette valley and along the Columbia near Portland are pretty dead, from a wind resource point of view, and even local hilltops offer little advantage.

That recollection is borne out by published wind-resource maps:

http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/images/windmaps/or_50m_800.jpg

Solar resources are also on the tepid side in Portland, but output at least peaks near the peak air-conditioning season & hours, making it somewhat useful from a grid point of view for peak-shaving.

http://www.solarcraft.net/images/insolationmap.gif

http://solardat.uoregon.edu/Assets/a08dn.jpg

This wind map (http://hint.fm/wind/) is not so useful for average wind speeds, but it does give instantaneous values that often peak in the center of the U.S. where average wind speed are high. More importantly, I find it cool looking. 

A detailed engineer owning Wind and PV and bought GT from me in 2007 is a Chem Consulting Engineer, and has extensive comparisons that would not be salesy biased...
I can ask him if he would like to receive private messages to himself on GBT anayways, and I will

met with the very very serious genesys (?) energy , a lady with several interesting costly systems in Ohio
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Saw in N.E Ohio a farmers boys had stamped blades and claimed Honeywell's $ 5500 set up was their $4000.oo and but the blades look opposite the Auto-Store Flexing radiator cooling-racing fans , but not flexing at all

Saw in N.E Ohio a farmers boys had stamped blades and claimed Honeywell's $ 5500 set up was their $4000.oo and but the blades look opposite the Auto-Store Flexing radiator cooling-racing fans , but not flexing at all

I've looked at this about 5 times now and it's going to drive me crazy until you explain what it means.

HAH, IC !

"their" means Honeywells 5500 system INSTALLED with the generator dealers put in, -is the claim the boys had , equivelent KW for only 4000. But I checked with the neighbor who I followed there and they are not selling for being in biz.

Since I have studied and made my own simitar blades in 1989 copying the model industy into wood (which only copies the curve of a palm tree blown in to al leaning shape, in a huricane) then on 20" props... done for max efficiency at slow 40 mph, the boys blade design seemd so practical for stamped-out a little less eff, vs a low production-capable budget with high quality longevity.

There-all better now that we cleared that up ICF? LOL

Complete American dialect sentences that can be parsed with American grammar, formed of complete (and correctly spelled) words must count for something, I suppose. Some posts take a lot more mental effort on the part of the reader than others.

AE isn't evrobdys 1st lang, and most of us didn't get MFA in lit.

Well based on wind maps I have multiple customers with 12 MPH and hire average wind speed which equates to an estimated 4800KWH per year saving, the rebates just went up in my area as of May1st to now provide rebates for up to 90% of system cost. At 4800KWH per year that's a 4-6 year payback after rebates and tax credits. I will let you all know how it goes as this enterprise continues and I get small wind certified.

There are likely spots on the Columbia where prevailing wind direction + terrain features combine to give you that kind of wind, but most of the greater Portland area is pretty calm. (Clearly up in the Columbia gorge region the local wind resources are pretty good, as good or better than on the coast.)

May I ask what zip codes those high-average wind speeds are located? (Just curious, having lived/worked in that part of OR in decades past.)

Silverton and newberg I checked a couple customers address's from the ETO website at www.energytrust.org under their wind tab. There certainly are not a lot of areas but a couple a year is all we are looking to start with.

I'm a bit surprised that there's consistent wind that high in the central Willamette valley (an area I worked several summers in back in the late '60s and '70s.)

Just plugging in "Newberg" the wind-finder comes up with 9.67mph, for Silverton it's an even lower 8.78mph, which are speeds below the 10mph minimum to qualify for the subsidy, but close enough that I could believe 10mph might be achieved at a local high point.

Part of the reason the two houses I mentioned are about the numbers you show is they are on hills with no trees around them, we are looking at a 70' hub heigth for a SW Wind Power SkyStream 3.7. The average wind speed was over 12.5 for one and almost 13.5 MPH average wind speed for the other.
I am learning more everyday and taking an introduction to wind class put on by the Energy Trust of Oregon this coming Monday. I have found that wind can be very spotty, good in some areas and bad in others just a mile or two apart.