Quote Originally Posted by Cloudywindy View Post
As solar panels are still not affordable for many or us (me included, of course), do you think
home scale wind turbines will be a good alternative to generating our own electric power?
Unfortunately, both wind and solar energy possibilities are limited in many parts of the country. Not to mention they are expensive to purchase. There are charts for the wind and solar energy potentials based on location that you can find on the internet. Here's one for potential wind power:

Figure 13. Wind Resource Potential

As you can see from this government chart, at least half of the country is labeled "poor" or "marginal" for wind power. And the majority of the "excellent" or "outstanding" sites are high in the mountains.

I might be wrong here, but I believe I read somewhere that solar panels eventually "wear out"...they loose their ability to convert sunlight to power after a number of years.