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Thanks. I was wondering if anybody tried decentralized wind power without it being for fanfare and hoopla, but to see if it can be practical with a good ROI. When my neighbors ask about my solar, I tell them to do a lot of homework and make sure their power consumption habits mesh will with solar (i.e. at home a lot during the day instead of waiting until after work hours to come home and run your appliances when the sun is going down). That's a practical mindset, not trying to impress liberals or whatever.

Plus, here in the south not only is there a benefit of more sunlight (good for solar power) than up north, there's also the weather aspect of us needing a lot of power during the summer to run our A/C -- which is the time of the year we get more sunlight. And the hottest days tend to be the sunniest days. So we get more free solar power at the times of the year we need it most. All in all, we usually get more solar power when we consume more power (usually, not always, hence I hate the idea of the grid depending on solar because we need the grid to work always, not just usually). That and other variables for mine and my wife's particular situation results in solar being a good ROI up to the point of fighting against the law of diminishing returns. (i.e. I'd spend too much money trying to have so much solar and battery capacity that I could be off grid, so I'll be happy at providing 80% of all the power I consume and buying only 20% of my power from the grid, mostly in 4 winter months November - February.)

I haven't read an honest breakdown of strengths and weaknesses like that for decentralized wind power. I have extended family who live a few miles from the coast and get more wind than I do, but nothing close to as much sun as I do. Thus, you'd think that wind power would be attractive for them. But we haven't recognized a pattern of there being more wind at times they need more power. And the cost per kW of pico wind turbine power was a bit steep IMHO (seems like it was $5K per kW last I checked).